Artists

Los Angeles artist Lita Albuquerque is the designer of the Gateway Pool and Water Wall near the Shepherd's Gate entrance to the Plaza of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Her art symbolizes the Scripture passage of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well and promising her that "I am the living water," that He would wash away her sins.

Background: 

Albuquerque was born in Tunisia with a French-Spanish background and from the age of eleven lived in Europe with her family, later settling in the United States. She was raised in the 1950s in a Catholic convent in Carthage, North Africa, and recalls a grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary which reminded her years later of Our Lady of the Angels. The inspiration for her creations at the Cathedral entrance began with these Catholic childhood memories.

The artist began as a painter, but in the mid-1970s she created "terrestrial paintings," which were pure ephemeral, powdered pigment works in the desert wilderness. All related to the earth and to the cosmos.

As a teacher for seventeen years with a degree in Art History, she believes in teaching her graduate classes from the entirety of her life, recalling her home in North Africa facing the sun rising in the east, setting in the west, and living in Malibu, California at an art community, again facing due south. All these vistas have allowed her to be close to nature and to the light of the "creator" sun. She continues to live with her family in a rural Malibu canyon and works in her studio in the 18th Street Complex.

Albuquerque is a known artist listed in the National Registry with works and commissions collected and featured by prominent institutions and museums in the United States, such as the Smithsonian, Getty Trust, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of Art, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art , as well as others in Japan, Korea and Switzerland. Besides the Cathedral's Gateway Pool, her recent work includes an outdoor exhibit referencing the history of California for the public promenade at the State Capitol Building in Sacramento.

As a result of her international, personal and educational history, there are both Eastern and Western cultural influences in her work, which give her art an exotic, as well as, futuristic quality. Her use of symbols are both traditional and modern, and her compositions emerge out of both a Western contemporary aesthetic and ancient sources.

Ms. Albuquerque considers the spiritual side of her work as the connection between human life on earth and within the cosmos. She hopes that children at the Gateway Pool will "have fun with it and hop scotch on it and be filled with wonder."

Learn more about the FOUNTAINS.

Johnny Bear Contreras from San Pasqual Indian Reservation in Valley Center, California, is the designer and sculptor for the "Spirit of the Earth" Native American Memorial in the Plaza of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. He is a member of the Kumeyaay tribe of San Diego and first realized he wanted to be an artist while playing in the orange grove of his family's ranch.

Background

As the youngest of ten children, Contreras escaped to the quiet of the fields. One day a King snake startled him as it crawled over his hands. "I just sat there and watched it," he remembers. As he became aware of his hands and "what I could do with them," he began working with clay. He became committed "to wanting to explain things to people."

Contreras' dream of becoming an artist did not begin until 1995. Until then he was a construction worker who enjoyed partying at Pacific Beach. A drunken-driving arrest placed him in jail, and that night he decided to change his life and pursue his passion. The small sums he received for his early wood carvings encouraged him to study art at Palomar College.

Soon Contreras began sharing ideas at pow-wows with other Indian artists. At one fateful meeting in Santa Fe Springs he met the city's director of public art, leading to his first commission, a $50,000 bronze statue, "The Journey," created in 1997 and installed at a school.

As his fame grew, Contreras was asked to create a sculpture for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The Cathedral's adobe color, its brightness and light motivated Contreras to design art that was natural, "that looks like an extension of the earth." The theme of pilgrimage, of the journey of faith, inspired his desire to depict the Kumeyaay story of creation, in which people emerged from the waters of the earth.

Contreras spent months working alone on the model, molding a mixture of wax and clay, until the form was ready to be bronzed at a foundry in Mexico. He is not convinced inspiration comes from only his basic experiences in life, but that "different spirits help from the past, present and future."

The artist believes people of all ethnic groups will respond to the sculpture because "truly we are of kin." At one time, all people made a living with their hands. "God gave us the hands and the ability to see, to adapt, and to provide for," Contreras explains. He emphasizes "figurative-type" work in his sculpture, trying to keep it basic so all can identify.

The fact that the Cathedral has a memorial sculpture by a Native American is significant to Contreras because it recognizes "Native American art as fine arts." A hundred years from now Contreras hopes people will recognize that his sculpture was made by an artist "among hundreds, if not thousands, of Native American fine artists by that time."

The Cathedral commission caused Contreras to look at his own spirituality. He had to consider how he would touch people's hearts and minds in the form and design. The challenge to reach the transforming power of art for him was "to reach deeper than I've ever reached before."

Learn more about the NATIVE AMERICAN MEMORIAL

Max DeMoss designed and fabricated the Dedication Candle Holders in the nave of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and the sconces, tabernacle and sanctuary lamp for the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. He specializes in sculpture for sacred spaces.

Background

A Southern California native, DeMoss was educated at Claremont Graduate School. His father, a first generation Greek American, taught him from an early age to appreciate art and architecture, particularly Classical Greek and Roman art and the Old Masters. Father and son frequented Los Angeles' museums and local architectural treasures. DeMoss remembers his first spiritual experience as a young boy as he viewed the giant stained glass windows of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles.

Appreciation became inspiration to DeMoss. Throughout his career his sculptures have echoed his early affinity for the Classical aesthetic. Working with the fragmented form, DeMoss' subject matter ranges from the figure to Biblical allegory, from abstract to narrative.

DeMoss' unique approach to his work is characterized by his engagement in every step of the creative process from inception to completion. His sculpture reflects technical mastery gained from his three decades of hands-on work in the lost wax process. Perceptible gaps and seams intentionally reference the age-old process by which the bronzes are created and invite the viewer's eye and mind.

DeMoss has exhibited in galleries throughout the United States, primarily in California, and is frequently commissioned to sculpt for indoor and outdoor, private and public spaces. Besides his art for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, DeMoss is currently working on several sculptures and sculptural elements for Good Shepherd Catholic Community in Colleyville, Texas. His work also resides in Catholic parishes in San Diego, Rancho Santa Fe and Laguna Hills, California, Scottsdale, Arizona, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

DeMoss and his wife Carolyn share a ten acre citrus grove in Hemet, California, complete with a home, large studio, on-site foundry, gallery, and--of course--sculpture gardens.

For more information, go to: http://www.maxdemoss.com.

Learn more about the TABERNACLE, DEDICATION ANGELS CANDLE HOLDERS.

Lalo Garcia is the artist for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the north Plaza wall of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. He also served as a member of the Arts and Furnishings Committee for the Cathedral. His unique talents, his love for native culture and his commitment to preserving the folklore of Mexico are reflected in his work.

Background

Garcia was born into a poor family in La Cieneguita, a small rancho in the state of Michoacan, Mexico. He learned from an early age, he recalls, "the great love that our Blessed Mother has for her children." These lessons were demonstrated "through my mother's prayers and her annual 'mandas' (promises) made to Our Lady of Guadalupe."

The artist began to draw and paint in elementary school. His father came to work the fields in the United States during the Bracero program in 1949, but Garcia really got to know his dad in 1965 at the age of thirteen when he and his mother and brother joined him in the States. "My father thought it was a better country with more opportunities to succeed in life," he explains.

Garcia continued to draw, using the back of paper bags from the grocery store because he did not feel comfortable asking his dad to buy sketch books. In ninth grade the vice-principal noticed his drawing of a horse on the back of a paper bag and asked Garcia if he had learned sketching in art classes. When Garcia told him "no," the man changed two math classes for art classes.

Garcia has spent twenty-five years immersed in the world of art as design artist, production designer, state director and choreographer. "My years of experience with the art form of dance," he reflects, "have taught me to respect the greatness of our indigenous civilizations, while my knowledge of Christianity in the world at large strengthens my inner balance."

In 1978 Garcia founded the dance company El Grupo Folklórico "Fiesta Mexicana" in the city of San Fernando, California, continuing his love for traditional Aztec dance. As director and choreographer he has performed throughout the United States and Mexico, with 1988 highlighting his tour with Linda Ronstadt's "Canciones de mi Padre," as well as her 1989 tour of "Más Canciones."

In 1986 Garcia was discovered while performing Aztec dancing at a Los Angeles Archdiocese celebration and was referred to Martinez & Murphy, Inc. of Los Angeles, a liturgical arts and sacred environment company, where he worked from 1987-1995 as an the in-house artist and designer. He designed such special works as the vestments and miters of Pope John Paul II, as well as all three-hundred-fifty Roman Catholic bishops for the Pope's visit to Los Angeles.

Recent examples of Garcia's work can be seen at the Shrine of the Holy Redeemer in Las Vegas, Nevada. Featured work in California can be found at the Beatitudes of Our Lord, La Mirada, All Souls Catholic Church, Alhambra, Saint Bernardine of Siena, Woodland Hills, and Santa Rosa Catholic Church in San Fernando. He has designed fourteen Guadalupe images in the United States and Mexico. "I continue to celebrate my cultural heritage as I pay tribute to my religious beliefs," he explains.

Each painting in Garcia's personal art pieces contains the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Because his work deals with Mexican culture, traditions, festivities and rituals, "I feel if she is not in there, my painting is not complete."

Garcia's personal paintings have been exhibited at the Downey Museum of Art, the Pueblo Gallery on Olvera Street in Los Angeles, Arte Américas in Fresno, the Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, and the Galeria Posada in Sacramento. He has also been a featured artist for the Casa de la Cultura in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the Sacred Arts Festival, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Community Centers throughout the Southwest.

Garcia is aware of the spirituality of his work, that it will touch people's hearts and minds. "I am always very conscious that I must do the best work of art that I possibly can in the studio," he says, "because once it makes the journey onto a sacred space it is going to do more than what I have done in the studio." He feels himself "an instrument of God in his way of working. I take this very seriously, very deeply."

Garcia continues, "I feel as if history is repeating itself in the need to renew our faith and love of mankind. Even as Our Morenita saved the Mestizo, I believe that in this new millenium, Our Blessed Mother will again guide and unite all of her people throughout the world."

Learn more about the SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Robert Graham is the designer and sculptor for the Great Bronze Doors and the Statue of Our Lady of the Angels for the Cathedral. Born Roberto Carlos Peña Graham in 1938 in Mexico City to an American mother and a Mexican father, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1952. He considers himself fortunate to have had a protected childhood with his mother, grandmother and aunt, who "took turns being my mother," he recalls. "Anything I did, I was celebrated for. I probably could have been a criminal and they would have liked it!"

Background

Following studies at San Jose State College and the San Francisco Art Institute in the early 1960s, Graham began to sculpt female figures, often grouped inside architectural settings and rendered with clinical accuracy. In doing so, the artist turned his back on the prevailing critical interest in abstraction and established a strong reputation for his unwavering dedication to naturalism. While he has experimented with fragmentation and scale over the years, and has occasionally sculpted male nudes, the idealized female body has been his primary subject.

Graham began working in bronze early in his career when he settled in Los Angeles in 1971. His work has been the subject of over eighty solo exhibitions and two retrospective exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Japan and Mexico. The Cathedral commission marked the third time that he undertook the sculpture of a gateway in bronze.

The first project in 1978 was Dance Door, which can be seen in the Los Angeles Music Center Plaza. This freestanding bronze door frame, with its door in a permanently open and inviting position, celebrates the human body and its infinite potential for variation in gesture, pose and movement.

Graham's next project for an entryway was the Olympic Gateway, commissioned by the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 games and permanently installed in front of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Although not literally a door, the Olympic Gateway, with its nude male and female torsos, serves as a portal to a world of physical perfection, soaring ambition and human achievement on a monumental scale.

As Graham increasingly became involved in massive public commissions, such as memorials for Duke Ellington, Charlie "Bird" Parker, Joe Louis and Washington D.C.'s Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he explored new methods to overcome the challenges of enlarging small-scale models while maintaining the desired level of detail and surface variation. By the 1980s, he began using laser technology to scan his models, recording an infinite number of points in three dimensions.

Computer software enlarges Graham's images with a remarkable degree of accuracy. He then transfers the computer files to a robotics milling tool that carves through layers of clay to execute the full-scale model. From this model, molds are taken to make waxes for casting the bronze.

The making of the Cathedral's Bronze Doors incorporated this new technology into traditional bronze making. It gave Graham the means to unite the bronze entryway, with its complex iconography of symbolic panels in relief, with the three-dimensional architectural figure of Our Lady of the Angels.

Graham believes the Cathedral's doors are "not about my authorship, but about something that has to somehow relate to the continuum of religion, of spirituality." He considers the doors "insist to be touched" by people and hopes that within a few months the symbols will "go to gold" as the patina is removed by the hands of visitors touching them.

Other notable works by Graham can be seen at museums around the country, such as Heather (1979) at the Contemporary Museum in Hawaii, Stephanie Fragment (1982) at Seavest Collection of Contemporary American Realism, Fountain Figure at the Museum of Fine Arts in Texas, Source Figure (1990) at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Missouri, and at the Natural Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Learn more about the BRONZE DOORS.

Artist John Nava is the designer of the tapestries in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. His central commission is the Communion of Saints, comprising 25 tapestries with 135 over life-size saints from throughout history and from all parts of the world.

Nava also designed the Baptistery Tapestries depicting The Baptism of the Lord by St. John the Baptist at the River Jordan. His Altar Tapestries display a hand drawn map of the streets of Los Angeles and a quote from the Book of Revelations to reflect the Church here and now as the New Jerusalem.

Background

Nava is an internationally noted painter and draughtsman. He studied art at the University of California at Santa Barbara and did his graduate work in Florence, Italy. His work is found in numerous private, corporate and public collections throughout the United States, Europe and Japan, including the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Hawaii, and the Triton Museum in San Jose, California.

Throughout his career as a painter the human figure has been at the heart of Nava's work. His work is represented in such important publications as Post-Modernism: The New Classicism in Art and Architecture (Rizzoli, New York) by Charles Jencks who coined the term "post-modernism" and American Realism (Abrams, New York) by Edward Lucie Smith, the first comprehensive history of realist painting in the United States.

Nava has created large-scale public works, including "Prosephone," a 45' wide mural for the Grain Exchange in Tokyo, Japan and Intersection, a 56' wide fountain sculpture for the 100 Brand Boulevard in Glendale, California.

In 1998 he was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony to paint a life-size, double portrait of Jack and Rebecca Benaroya for the new Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle.

Communion of Saints Tapestries 

When he first was invited to be considered for the Communion of Saints tapestries, Nava recalls, "It would have fulfilled my dream at that moment to have been given one chapel and to do one small piece for that chapel." When he learned that the work was for the entire 300-foot interior nave of the Cathedral, he realized, "It had to be something that worked in a very coherent way with the architecture." Owing to the enormous scale and pressing time requirements of the project, he quickly realized that he would need a technological solution to realize the commission. To prepare full-scale "cartoons" in oil and by hand alone would take several years.

Nava decided to use computers in order to composite myriad separate elements that could be layered together - figures, textures and colors - and grouped into the final compositions. Working closely with Donald Farnsworth, a noted Bay Area artist, printmaker, papermaker and specialist in artistic applications of digital technology, a methodology was developed whereby a digital image could be sent directly to the loom, resulting in the woven tapestry.

The process involved research in Belgium with the weavers at the Flanders Tapestries mill and numerous woven trials. This constant testing and development of palettes and digital techniques was done simultaneously with the painting and composing of 135 figures into 25 groups for the Communion of Saints.

Nava says, "The technology made it possible. However, to get to the point where you can push the button and send the image to the loom, that was the craziness."

The Artists Thought's About His Work

The artist has been fascinated that the commission for the Cathedral has been done "completely without irony," and that the message of the image and the message of the Church "is a message of hope, redemption and meaning." Nava believes these are ideas that have been frequently dismissed in conventional modern art.

After the horrors of the 20th century - the World Wars, the atomic bomb and the Holocaust - humanity has routinely been seen pessimistically as "diseased and decadent," Nava explains. The best figurative painters of our time have made great works, but they often have been of a tragic and hopeless image of humans, if not a critical or cynical one.

The Communion of Saints, however, is exactly the opposite, Nava believes. Its theme is one of hope. He would like people viewing the tapestries "to see the humanity of these figures and feel a sense of connection to themselves."

Learn more about the TAPESTRIES.

Artist Marirose Jelicich is the designer of the Liturgical Vessels and Processional Sets for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The simple elegance and timelessness of her designs enhances aesthetic awareness in the worshipping Christian community.

Background

Born and raised in Sacramento, California, she began her artistic career in private schools, followed by Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from California State University at Sacramento. She received her ILC Certification from Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, Institute for Liturgical Consultant. She began her professional career designing and creating jewelry.

Jelicich's first commission began with liturgical vessels for The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, California, after she entered a liturgical art exhibit. This was followed by commissions in California for churches in Bakersfield, Vallejo, Sacramento, Oakland, Hayward, Stockton, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Yuba City, Galt, Monterey, Orange, Los Angeles and San Francisco. She also has designed sterling silver objects for prelates in Leven, Belgium, Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Phoenix, Arizona.

The artist has received for her work the Bene Award, IFRAA Design of Excellence, and the California State Fair Metal Award. She has been featured in several exhibitions and articles and has been an art instructor in Sacramento and at the University of California at Berkeley.

For the last twenty years she has approached a liturgical vessel design "like a fine, fine, beautiful object, like a piece of jewelry." She believes that with a sense of good design and craftsmanship, her objects should last a lifetime, "passed on from one generation to the next."

Jelicich first began her Cathedral commission by creating exciting, beautiful designs, then adapting those designs to practicality. Each work must be produced by machines and be ergonomic, functional in the hands of those who must carry the processional cross and candles, incense containers, and so forth. She works alone in her studio, but does sub-contracting for various stages of the fabrication.

Jelicich's concept for the Cathedral's appointments was formed by Los Angeles being the City of Angels. "I drew a lot of my inspiration from the Heavenly Beings of Angels," she explains. She hopes people one hundred years from now will see the vessels, torches and cross as "beautiful as they were when they first came into the Cathedral, and that they love them just as much as we do today."

Learn more about LITURGICAL VESSELS.

M.L. Snowden is the designer and sculptor of the gilded bronze Altar Angels that wrap and float around the base of the marble altar in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. She also designed the twelve-foot, half ton silver Los Angeles Angel Frieze in the Cathedral's Visitor's Center.

Sculpture for Snowden is "love." She works alone in her studio without assistants or models. "Sculpture is something that flows through me and expresses my emotions, my love, my feeling, my touch." She feels "the angels were something that went beyond words. They rest in a place of truth for me."

Background: 

Snowden came from a loving home and was taught by Jesuits at Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles, where she graduated in 1974. "I am not the product of an art school, but of a life immersed in art," she says.

The sculptor developed her relationship with clay at her father's side and worked with him for thirty years. George Snowden was the sculptor of the Carrara marble, main altar and the heroic sized saints on the exterior of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Grief over his death in 1990 kept her from sculpting for ten years, returning to it only when she was able to be alone, emotionally in her studio.

Along with artistic talent and technical tradition, Snowden also inherited from her father thirty-eight of 19th Century master sculptor Auguste Rodin's sculpting tools. Her father received them from his mentor, Robert Eberhard, who was a protégé of Rodin. Some of Rodin's tools were used by Snowden in the final sculpting phases of the altar angels and on the silver frieze.

"Rodin's tools for me are a living connection to people who have devoted their lives to sculpture," says Snowden. In 1992, she was selected from professional sculptors from thirty-two countries as the winner of the prestigious sculpture prize, The International Rodin Competition in Tokyo, Japan. Her winning sculpture was Cataclasis, which represents the three states of energy - latent, emerging and active - that determine the Earth's physical structure. The piece is now in the permanent collection at Japan's Hakone Open-Air Museum, the largest sculpture museum in the world.

Snowden's sculptures speak to the profound forces of nature. Characteristically, the human figure interacting with the earth's elements is the focal point. The dynamic Seismic Ray unveiled in 1999 in San Francisco's Union Square depicts the force along a geological fault line which results in a wave of energy transmission. Tectonics personifies the forces of nature that led to the formation of the Earth. Genesis depicts the creation of a mountain through sheer force. In Verdura a woman is seen surging forth from water, attesting to the dynamic notion of life.

Learn more about the ALTAR ANGELS.

The Judson Studios, one of the most renowned and oldest liturgical studios in North America, is responsible for the creation of the Donor Wall, Mausoleum Angels and the refurbishing of St. Vibiana's Cathedral's stained glass windows in the Mausoleum of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

"We are a cooperating group of artists, designers and craftspeople working in concert toward the finest end product for the client. All of us add our special talents while respecting the gifts of our co-workers. The cement of our studio is our mutual respect and pride in what we can accomplish for the future."
---Credo of The Judson Studios

History: 

Since 1897 The Judson Studios has been a family enterprise. Inspired by his father William Lees Judson, award-winning artist and influential teacher, Walter Horace Judson opened the Colonial Art Glass Company, forerunner of The Judson Studios. Joined by his brother Lionel, Judson moved the studio in 1920 to the former USC College of Fine Arts at 200 South Avenue 66 overlooking the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, California. The landmark building, built under the direction of his father, the first dean of the college, remains home to the studio.

Walter W. Judson, great grandson of the founder, has been president of The Judson Studios since 1968. He considered a career in law, but observed how few attorneys he knew seemed content. "Then I looked around the glass studio and it seemed the workers were more at peace with themselves than most other people." He has taught university courses in stained-glass craftsmanship and has written a textbook, Stained Glass: A Step-by-Step Guide, which is dedicated "to those who are willing to create with their hands their most beautiful thoughts with living light."

Throughout its history, most windows created at The Judson Studios have been for religious institutions, churches, chapels, synagogues, mortuaries and cemeteries. "I am fascinated by man's aspirations to live a better life through the inspiration of an almighty force," Walter Judson reflects. "Maybe that is why we do so much religious work." There are notable public building exceptions, such as the domed skylight crowning the rotunda of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, designed in 1913 and honored for excellence in craftsmanship by the Los Angeles Conservancy and the Stained Glass Association of America.

One of the most prominent examples of stained glass windows crafted by The Judson Studios is the window depicting the Great Seal of the United States and the kneeling figure of George Washington at the Capitol Prayer Room in Washington, D.C. Another is the upper level of the Air Force Academy Chapel in Colorado Springs which contains sixty-four stained-glass window panels that fill the space with warm, glowing light.

The Stained Glass Windows 

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake that damaged St. Vibiana's Cathedral, the Los Angeles Archdiocese commissioned The Judson Studios to survey the stained glass windows, originally made in the early 1920s by the Franz Mayer Company of Munich, Germany. They carefully extracted, cleaned and restored the sixteen windows and nine lunetttes before installing them in the Mausoleum of the Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels.

Judson considers the windows even more beautiful in the new setting because visitors can view them at close range and far away. "Wonderful painting technique...just beautifully made windows," he proclaims.

The Donor Wall 

The Judson Studios created the Donor Wall, which is built alongside the Hollywood Freeway along the walkway. The wall consists of a series of eight sets of angels in five glass panels each, for a total of sixteen angels. Each diaphanous angel floats to a companion angel and is hand etched into the glass. The names of major donors to the Cathedral are etched into a separate piece of glass suspended in front of the angel windows.

The Mausoleum Angels 

Two guardian angels holding torches are carved in glass near the entrance to the Mausoleum. Designed and etched by The Judson Studios, they remind us of the love we have for our departed, that they are in God's care. 

Thoughts by the Judsons 

Walter W. Judson hopes the work of The Judson Studios becomes part of the "music" of the Cathedral, a part of the whole now that "the heart of the city is becoming this great church." He hopes that those people who might be disconcerted by the Cathedral's contemporary architecture, "will come and relax enough to understand that the angels don't sing in Latin, and churches don't have to be Gothic."

"A work of art is anything supremely well done." -- William Lees Judson

"The true test of stained-glass windows is that they live gloriously in the sun and die beautifully with the darkness." -- Horace Judson

Learn more about the STAINED GLASS WINDOWS.

Simon Toparovsky is the designer and sculptor for the main altar, life-size crucifix for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. He is an artist of Los Angeles and Lake Como, Italy and this has been his first liturgical commission.

Background

Toparovsky studied at Philadelphia's Temple University, Berkeley's University of California and Oakland's California College of Arts and Crafts. He has subsequently taught at the University of California at Los Angeles, Otis/Parsons, as well as participating in workshops in England and in New York, California, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Georgia, Alaska, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. His works have been exhibited in public and private museums in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Vienna, Zurich, Tokyo and Milan, among others. He has consulted numerous times for the National Endowment for the Arts.

When Toparovsky first received the commission to design and sculpt the bronze and wood crucifix, he had "an enormous rush of energy, but simultaneously felt the burden of two thousand years of art history come upon me, thinking that now it was my turn to do this interpretation."

For many years Toparovsky has been interested in "depicting the human condition," to artistically express "the idea that along with joy and beauty in life, there is death and confusion and sorrow." He desired to show in his art "the individual transformed, managing to embrace, not just endure, all of what life offers, and celebrate that to a conclusion that is radiant and energizing and good for the world." Designing the crucifix allowed the artist to fulfill his aspirations by portraying the brutality of Christ's suffering while showing His triumph and serenity as He embraces death for the good of humankind.

Toparovsky has been "physically affected" in powerful ways by his experience of crafting the crucifix. He recalls being "grateful that I was fifty because at age forty I would not have been able to handle this." There were many times that he "was filled with awe at my capacity. As soon as there was a moment of fear, I was swept with this grand feeling of satisfaction of what I had accomplished up to that point, which gave me the faith and the courage to make the next step."

As he constructed the basic shape of the 6'6" human form as one piece out of chicken wire, foam, tape and plastic tubing, he remembers "that there were times I realized I was working in ways I had never worked before, and it kind of astounded me." He used burlap and wax on the outside surface which allowed the bronze casting to show the texture of the burlap, suggesting flayed skin. Instead of changing the shapes in the piece by warming the wax and manipulating it gently, he used a sledge hammer creating intense textures on the surface. "This more physical, almost trance-life thing that went on in working with the crucifix was different than anything I had done before."

Many people shared their ideas about the crucified Jesus, but Toparovsky knew that he had to "transcend everyone's individual vision." Now that it is complete, he hopes that as people view the crucifix that it "really touches their hearts."

Toparovsky lives and maintains studios in Los Angeles and near Lake Como in northern Italy. Working in bronze and cast iron, he has created panels, figures and objects from nature as elements for installations that include water and landscapes. With this work he has designed private gardens as well as large scale public art projects.
 
Simon’s art has been exhibited internationally and purchased for important collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York; the Getty Center, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
 
Toparovsky is currently working on garden installations in Italy and California and has recently finished a commission for a private altar crucifix. He will have a public exhibition sponsored by the City and Province of Milan (Italy) in April 2003.
 
The Commission
In 1998, Toparovsky was among several hundred international artists invited to submit portfolios to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to be considered to create works of art for the new Cathedral. Although he had never been commissioned to create religious art, his work has been based on representing the complexities of the human condition. He was asked to consider a design for the main altar crucifix in the winter of 2000. The Cardinal commissioned the work in the Spring of that year.
 
The original work was created in wax, clay and fabrics, over a period of two years, in the artist’s Los Angeles studio. The casting was done at the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank. The bronze corpus of the "Red Crucifix" is slightly larger than life-size and weighs 410 pounds.
 
Toparovsky’s initial concept was to create a benign, transcendent Jesus, floating and beyond suffering. Father Vosko (the Cathedral’s art consultant) suggested that he read the book “A Doctor on Calvary”, Dr. Pierre Barbet, (1953) which clinically describes the brutal physicality of crucifixion and the punishments that preceded it. This difficult reading changed Toparovsky’s mind. Ultimately, he created a piece that engenders the pain and suffering of the human Jesus, and also, represents the idea of Jesus-- the radiant spirit. In the finished work, the rich surfaces of the cast bronze show flayed and abraded skin and the figure is misshapen from swelling and broken limbs. The face transcends pain and the uplifted hands, although in spasm, appear to bestow a blessing.
 
The cast bronze corpus is mounted on a 14 foot tall wooden cross of American Sycamore. Sycamore was chosen because, by tradition, it is considered to be the wood used to make the original cross for Jesus. The feet of the Corpus are just 39” off the floor.  The installation was designed to allow the veneration of Christ’s legs and feet.

Learn more about the CRUCIFIX.

Liturgical artist Jefferson Tortorelli designed and constructed the Cathedra, Ambo, Ambry and Presider's Chair for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. A modern, Liturgy Visual Arts national award winner, his work focuses exclusively on pieces used in community worship spaces.

Background

Jeff's grandfather, a master carpenter, and his father, a master machinist, were the greatest influences in his life. His maternal grandfather taught him to use a hammer and saw, and at the age of five, he built his first bookcase. While attending Catholic schools in Los Angeles, he grew up around his father Frank's metal machine shop, working there at the age of nine on weekends and during the summer. He built his first chair at age eleven.

While earning his degree in Finance from the University of Southern California, Tortorelli supported himself by working in machine shops. After graduating he worked in the investment field for fifteen years, but became dissatisfied with business. Although he had no formal training in art, design, engineering, or construction techniques, other than the guidance of his father and grandfather, he decided to follow his heart.

During his business career Tortorelli always built things for himself, but his parish priest gave him the opportunity to build some liturgical pieces for Holy Name of Mary Parish in San Dimas, California. He discovered that he most was fulfilled making ritual pieces for worship spaces.

Tortorelli's designs are executed in wood, metal and stone. Age old techniques of joinery are employed -- eliminating the need for glue or mechanical fasteners. All finishes are a special blend of oils, developed centuries ago, which invite the touch of the hand.

"I have truly been blessed in my life," Tortorelli reflects. "I am able to create with my mind and hands pieces that will be used in the worship space of a community. I cannot think of a more rewarding endeavor." Work for the Cathedral is Tortorelli's first national commission, reinforcing his conviction that "this is what I was meant to do." His commitment has not been easy at times as he supported his four children, but he hopes that the Cathedral commission will allow him to continue his work in liturgical art.

Tortorelli was told by Father Richard Vosko, liturgical art consultant for the Cathedral, "The places where we worship shape the way we pray, and the way we pray shapes the way we live." He hopes that his work "imparts to that worship space a sense of spirituality and helps us on our journey."

When asked about his philosophy and his beliefs, Tortorelli refers to the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 for his belief in the dignity of all humans.

"How beautiful will be the day when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, is a priestly work, that just as I celebrate Mass at the altar, so each carpenter celebrates Mass at the workbench, and each metal worker, each professional, each doctor with the scalpel, the market woman at her stand, are performing a priestly office!

"How many cabdrivers I know listen to this message there in their cabs; you are a priest at the wheel my friend, if you work with honesty, consecrating that taxi of yours to God, bearing a message of peace and love to the passengers who ride in your cab."

Please visit http://tortorelli.com for more information about Jefferson Tortorelli.

Learn more about the CATHEDRA, the AMBO, the AMBRY, the PRESIDER'S CHAIR.