Our Lady of Loretto Chapel
(Artwork #90)

Size: 5' x 15'

After 80+ years of religious service to the community, a shortage of priests and dropping attendance in 1997 forced the Archdiocese to close Our Lady of Loretto Church. The parishioners were told that they should now worship at neighboring St. Margaret of Cortona.

In honor of their former church, a namesake chapel was created in a room adjacent to the Cortona main sanctuary. Several elements from the old church were salvaged and reused in the chapel, such as wall hung stations of the cross, the altar, and a pair of doors. Our task was to design a stained glass window for the chapel, in an interior wall common to both the chapel and the main sanctuary.

The merging of two parishes became the design inspiration. The artwork represents the two separate parishes (the rectangular forms) coming together under the canopy of a shared faith (the arch form). The line work is not rigid, but moves freely, denoting the flexibility needed on the part of the many individuals to make the process work.

The rose colored areas and the lines that create their movement represent the spirit of Christian love that will ultimately unite the two groups into one. The single stroke of heavily textured clear glass that runs with the arch and into the rectangles, denotes the spirit of God working within the hearts of the people.

Today the symbolism represents two parishes merging. In the future, the artwork will come to bespeak a parish of individuals, people of diverse backgrounds, ideas and needs, coming together with compassion and respect for one another, under the canopy of a shared faith. Christian love will again be the bond between those individuals.