From time to time I will receive a commission for a major church project. The following photographs detail a project I completed for Peace Lutheran Church in Danville, California. In this instance, I was part of a team from the Grünewald Guild in Leavenworth, Washington, an organization dedicated to producing art in the context of faith. One artist would be painting murals on the walls of the sanctuary, and another would be working with members of the congregation to produce stained glass windows. My task was to produce a chasable, stole, and altar cloth for the dedication of the new building which was to take place on Easter Sunday, 1999.

While the other two artists, Richard Caemmerer and Joe Hester, went to Danville to complete their tasks, I worked at home in my studio. The information I was given was: The main color should be white, the metal features in the sanctuary would be copper rather than brass, the Pastor likes to incorporate liturgical dance into his services, and the size requirements. Other than that, I was on my own.

These photographs were taken in the sanctuary of my home church on Whidbey Island before the pieces were shipped off to California. Here, the chasable and stole are being modeled by my late friend, Steve Schrecengost. The white fabric is 8 mm silk habotai, the background to the piecing is copper tissue lamé, and the “rock wall” piecing is hand-dyed cotton. All of this was then covered with a layer of white silk organza to tone down the colors, and machine embroidered around the “rocks.”