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Home Arts & Culture Center for Liturgical Art Creates Art for Weller Auditorium’s Chapel 

by Benjamin Middendorf 

 

When students and faculty returned to Weller Hall for Thursday chapel on Sept. 15, they found the building brightened and adorned with new art.

The Center for Liturgical Art, whose offices and studios reside in the basement of Jesse Hall, had spent the summer designing and creating three stained glass windows and a new mosaic across the front of the stage.

The windows and mosaics were designed by director Mark Anschutz.

“We tried to pick up on style and design cues already in the window that’s there,” CLA Operations Manager Evan Balleweg said. “Mark wanted to do more of a literal interpretation of the idea of all of creation, from very, very small things to very large things, all swirling around the idea of the cross and that theology. That manifested literally in these windows through the galaxy and the constellations in the largest window to molecules and DNA in the other one and then a fruit (and) tree of life motif in the middle (window).”

Several students assisted with the creation and the installation of these pieces, including Concordia alumni Austin Romine, who was a recipient of CLA’s fellowship program over the summer.

“It’s always neat to get back into making windows,” Romine said. “There are so many little things that go into building windows, and it’s really rewarding when it gets put up. We can see it now, and we can see the light coming through all the glass.”

CLA has produced many pieces of art for churches and schools across the country since its establishment in 2003. The lighting fixtures and sculpture above the baptismal font and in the narthex were added by CLA last year.

“We recognize that all our theology comes from the cross,” Balleweg said. “So we try to make sure that, aesthetically, everything we do starts from there and then builds out.”

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