Tabernacle Cover

My first church commission

As someone who has always been concerned with imbuing my work with meaning, I was delighted to get this commission. After coming back from the Camino, I decided to spend some time looking for a church where I felt at home. I found that place in the Church of the Messiah (Avenue ROad and Dupont – right across from the Hare Krishna Temple). We are a small community, but we have a carefully constructed liturgy that allows me to feel like a participant instead of a spectator. We discuss the Bible readings during service, creating a unique and intimate experience.

On the 125th anniversary of the church I was asked to create something that evoked the church’s history (which included a fire in the 70’s. Here is a video that chronicles the making of the piece.

I used a Byzantine model, and a combination of two medieval enameling techniques: champleve and cloisonne.
The composition has Christ Pantocrator (a title of Christ represented as the ruler of the universe) at the centre, surrounded by the four gospel symbols. A fire rises from the bottom of the piece representing the fire that almost destroyed the church in the 70’s. There are new growth branches arising from the fire to represent the rebirth of the church after that devastation and to signal its continuing growth.