I am currently involved or looking into a number of interior or church furnishing design projects, which are becoming more prevalent these days as parishes attempt to bring a sense of tradition and beauty to their chancels and naves without having to break the bank by resorting to the wrecking ball. There are two paralell issues here: one is re-renovating churches that had their furniture disarranged or their paintwork dulled-down in the sixties and seventies, while the other involves trying to add a traditional element to a more modern interior. While there may be lavish budgets in places, often this has to be done on a shoestring. Here are five suggestions that can be done with a modest budget:

1. Rearrange the Furniture. The rather Zen-like, insubstantial quality of most modern church furnishings--except when they are Flinstones-style neo-primitive monstrosities--may actually be to your advantage here. Moving the freestanding portable altar in a few feet, shifting the clergy seating so they face inward rather than at an angle, and moving the tabernacle stand back to the center may be enough, at least initially, to restore order to a seriously compromised sanctuary. Such items can be slowly replaced by more dignified furnishings over time, or augmented with new additions such as a tester, altarpiece, or new paraments and hangings. The main issue here is ensuring that the new arrangement confirms to sound liturgical principles, such as highlighting the tabernacle and altar, as well as allowing for easy circulation of the sacred ministers. This is particularly important in older churches which were not designed with freestanding altars in mind.

This private chapel, with furnishings collected and arranged by a Benedictine monk, shows what can be achieved with a logical, liturgical and orderly arrangement of even fairly simple furnishings. While this is intended as a temporary chapel, in a more permanent situation the interior could be ennobled further with color and stencilling intended to highlight the altar and crucifix.

Alternately, one solution might be to eliminate some of the furnishings, or temporarily remove them on an ad experimentum basis. Most older churches were designed to focus on their high altar, and the removal of a freestanding altar--either temporarily, for special occasion masses said at the old high altar, or non-Eucharistic liturgies such as vespers--can do much to restore a sense of ordered clarity to an interior, especially if accompanied by an appropriate liturgical catechesis. More and more parishes are opting to consider this idea, which might have been unthinkable only a few years ago, and rediscovering the wisdom and beauty of facing liturgical East during mass. You will also be amazed at how much circulation space it opens up.


Fr. Chris Marino, a priest of the archdiocese of Miami, renovated Visitation Parish during his time there. Note the results that adding a little color and marble (above) can achieve to an otherwise unremarkable interior (below).



2. Consider a New Color-Scheme. Many older church interiors have been whitewashed or painted beige over the past forty years, while new ones are often characterized by fairly timid paint-jobs. If new furnishings are not possible, it may be possible to restore a sense of sacrality and hierarchy to an interior by using color strategically in such a way that it highlights the altar and sanctuary. A predominantly white interior might have greater amounts of color and guilding within the sanctuary, while an interior with a light-colored marble altar or reredos might be repainted with deeper, vivid colors on the surrounding walls. It is important to avoid large uninterrupted blocks of color or striping along cornices to avoid a cartoonish look; stencilling and ornamented borders can help break up such areas and create a sense of texture and variety within the space. The strategic addition of marble or other stonework in some areas may fulfill a similar function.

Note how stencilling can break up and add interest to large unrelieved areas of color.

3. Add New Paraments and Hangings. Wall-hangings can cover a multitude of sins, from cracked plaster walls to hideous glass-block windows, and, when placed strategically, can highlight the most important elements of an interior. A simple cloth dossal behind the altar and tabernacle, well-draped, can do a lot to restore a proper sense of directional focus, especially if paired with matching frontals. Color is an important factor here. It may not be practical to change large-scale hangings with the liturgical seasons. A color should be selected that harmonizes with the interior, though one should note traditionally green was used as the color of choice for permanent sanctuary hangings. An inexpensive alternative to a proper hanging tester might be one made of draped cloth hung over a couple of ornamental rods. Spreading a good-quality Oriental carpet on the sanctuary floor would also revive a medieval tradition in this context. With regards to windows, the Italian and Spanish habit of hanging light canvas curtains over them to control lighting might be revived here, though in an effort to dull the brash colors and crude patterns of much modern stained glass.


This interior, already handsome, could be made even more beautiful by removing its carpeting, moving the server's chairs to one side of the sanctuary, and either replacing the existing altar or disguising with new frontals. I note, with approval, that the freestanding altar has its own footpace or predella as opposed to being simply left at the same level as the chancel, though perhaps at the expense of some of the liturgical circulation space.

4. Put in a New Floor. In older churches that were lightly re-ordered in the 1960s, often the only thing that cannot be set right by rearranging the furnishings a bit is the floor, which is often covered with an ugly, sound-deadening layer of carpet, often in a dubious color. Wall-to-wall carpeting plays havoc with accoustics, is often dingy and hard to clean, and instills an uncomfortable institutional or domestic note in otherwise glorious interiors. Simply removing the carpeting may reveal a perfectly usable floor underneath. Damaged floors can be replaced with tiles, woodwork, stained concrete--which can be surprisingly handsome--or even some artificial floor-coverings. New flooring can be added gradually, beginning with the sanctuary or the central aisle of the church and expanded over time.



There is nothing wrong with each of the individual elements here, but they have been combined in a somewhat muddled way. While placing relics within an altar--even visible through a glass front--is traditional and appropriate, this sort of arrangement on shelves is more suitable for a large reliquary cabinet independent of the altar, much less below the mensa of one. Reliquary altars work better if all the relics are placed in a large casket occupying much of the interior, or within a recumbent figure of the saint. The individual statues, each of different sizes, seem placed somewhat haphazardly. Perhaps if they were on brackets underneath the arms of the cross it might be better. The stenciling could also be altered to highlight them in some way, while the presence lamps would be better suspended on chains rather than crowding the gradine.

5. Re-Organize Well-Meaning Clutter. Quite a few parishes assume simply adding catalog-bought statuary, flowers, and candelabra to a bland contemporary design they will be able to bring beauty and tradition to their church. Often the result is distracting and the contrast can even make older elements, not properly engaged with their surroundings, appear museum-like, more like artifacts than aids to devotion. New statuary should never simply be plunked down on a pedestal without considering their place within the church. Rather than simply installing a statue, consider creating some sort of aedicule or altarino-like shrine to mediate between the sculpture and its surroundings. It should feel like a permanent element of the interior and not merely a late addition. The same goes for indiscriminately-arranged flower arrangements, potted ferns, and other odds and ends. Try to create logical relationships between these elements and other furnishings like votive candle racks and kneelers. Nartheces, with their pamphlet-racks and literature tables can fall particular victim to this disease.


An example of one of the Stations of the Cross in a traditional style that could harmonize with a more modernistic interior.



A good example of a consistent application of a modernistic style to a traditional layout. The reredos, while somewhat abstracted, nonetheless includes a centrally-placed tabernacle, crucifix, and prominent images of the saints, and ennobles the style of the interior without clashing with it.

Finally, one overall principle: Work with what you have, and don't work against it. You may not be able to turn your 1950s A-frame church into Chartres, but if you try to find art that harmonizes with its perhaps now rather quaint attempts at futurism, while at the same time seeking to reconnect it with tradition, the result may have a pleasing consistency to it. Simply dropping garish plaster statuary in a dull modern church results in a museum diorama of the history of American Catholic bad taste. Try instead to find common ground, while at the same time ennobling it in some fashion. Many of the examples of the "other modern" we have showcased on this website may give you ideas. While it may lack the grandeur of Rome or Florence, it can still become a beautiful, unified expression of the Faith.



A stylistic "clash," though a fairly minor one. This image of Our Lady of Grace is a very good quality example of a more traditional plaster statue, unlike many today. However, it is somewhat removed in style from its more modernistic/art-deco influenced surroundings, which are actually fairly traditional in their symbolism and layout if not their lines. A more simple Art Deco or Romanesque-influenced sculpture might complement the interior with more success. The placement of a votive-candle stand tucked to one side of the altar shows a very intelligent and orderly use of space that minimizes clutter while filling up largely unusable space, though two smaller flower-vases on either side of the devotional statue, towards the back of the mensa, might work better.

Matthew Alderman. S. Thomas More with a Patron. Ink on vellum. April-May 2009. Private Collection, New Hampshire.

Here is a drawing commission I did last year for a young lady and attorney (and as of a few months ago, mother-to-be) with a great devotion to St. Thomas More. The patron is shown being presented by her guardian angel to St. Thomas More, who is accompanied by another angel bearing the headsman's axe of his execution. The saint's arms, with the external ornaments of his Lord Chancillorship, are shown at bottom right, with the client's arms (though shown on a generic shield rather than the female lozenge, due, I admit, to an oversight on my part) are shown at left. Much of the composition is inspired by van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, though unlike Rolin, the client is being humbly presented by a heavenly intermediary rather than presuming to simply present herself at the foot of her patron saint.

After years of people asking, "Do you have a website?" and lamely answering that my drawings, furnishing designs, and writing were spread rather thinly across a large chunk of the Catholic blogosphere, I have finally gone and planted my flag on a stretch of digital real estate and established Matthew Alderman Studios at matthewalderman.com. There, you will find information about my abilities as a church furnishing designer, classical design consultant, professional illustrator, public speaker, and also information about commissioning new work, buying prints, having me speak to your organization on liturgical or artistic matters, and a great deal more for your amusement and edification. I am also branching out into the design of liturgical elements like chalices, vestments and other elements, having just completed a tapestry for a parish and eager to do more of the same.

I have also set up a flickr.com photostream of my ink drawings, which will be updated frequently with new work, and a small but growing storefront for buying prints, notecards and other Catholic tchotchkes with my work on them. I also hope to have the capability of selling prints online in the near future, once I am satisified with some quality-control checks. In the mean time, you can continue to email me about purchasing prints, or, if you are located in the greater Minneapolis area, visit the sacred gifts department at Loome's.

I have a number of interesting design consulting and furnishing projects in the pipeline for a variety of churches and chapels across the U.S. and hope to write more about them as the designs develop, but in the mean time, I am always interested in discussing providing my services to interested individuals, parishes and organizations. I can be reached variously at my NLM email account, or at my new email address of matthew (at) matthewalderman.com. Welcome, and enjoy your visit!

We at the Shrine love Eastern Orthodox humor, as anyone would know from our fondness for the long-running The Onion Dome, which recently closed its doors (is outrage!). Much to our delight, we have found another ecumenical fix for inter-church humor, with the doodles of Orthodox blogger Stephen Robinson over at Pithless Thoughts. A sample:




And, continuing our relentless, out-of-place ninja meme:



Also, someone who illustrates a post on bad chanting with the Saturday Night Live skit "Season's Greetings from Tarzan, Tonto and Frankenstein" must have something good going for him.

*Was there fancy graphs in 19th century Russia? ...Er...I'm not sure.

I am told, in the late Middle Ages, that the candles used in the Candlemas procession were often taken home afterwards by the laity and used as a powerful sacramental. Indeed, just as church bells were rung during thunderstorms to ward off lighting strikes (the bells are blessed after all), the Candlemas candles were lit on similar occasions. (I attended the Candlemas procession at Kenrick-Glennon and kept my candle stub in case of just such eventuality, by the way, though come the first thunderstorm of the year I forgot to do anything about it.) Indeed, in Poland, there is a devotion, I think, to Our Lady of the Blessed Thunder Candle, that arose from this practice (though she is also shown with a wolf at her feet. I haven't a clue what's up with that). What I thought was particularly interesting was when I mentioned some of these customs to my dad, he said his late mother (Irish-American Catholic) had sometimes lit candles during thunderstorms, and not necessarily because of a power failure, though not for any discernable sacramental reason, either. Presumably the practice must have survived in some highly distented, habitual way in some places, even if devoid of its original significance. Or maybe she was just readying herself for the power to go out.

This evening while poking around the local Barnes and Noble, I noticed a book entitled Marx: A Very Short Introduction. The author is Princeton academic Peter Singer, the famous ethicist (cough) and proponent of the theory that animals have rights while mentally-handicapped newborns do not. (Let's leave it at that; it gets worse from here). It occurred to me there's a golden opportunity for shameless cross-promotion here: "Marx and Singer together: Now with twice as many bad ideas!"

Also, memo to the lady talking to her friend in the Shakespeare section: "Temptest" is not a word.

Overheard in a conversation between three schoolgirls (possibly carefully-disguised ancient alien astronauts on vacation) talking very loudly on the other side of the street:

"But you, YOU, nearly destroyed an entire civilization!"

The other alternative is the school play this year is entitled Big Bad Cabeza de Vaca*, or When Conquistadors Attack! or or somesuchlike.

*Sung (poorly) to the tune of Big Bad Leroy Brown, obviously. Not to be confused with Arthur Brown, who was merely the baddest beaux-arts architect in San Francisco town, and who, I believe, had a protractor and not a razor in his shoe.

From Wikipedia's entry on the, er, back half* of our good friend the Chesterbelloc (emphasis mine):

An 1895 graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, Belloc was a noted figure within the University, being President of the Oxford Union, the undergraduate debating society. He went into politics after he became a naturalised British subject. A great disappointment in his life was his failure to gain a fellowship at All Souls College in Oxford in 1895. This failure may have been caused in part by his producing a small statue of the Virgin and placing it before him on the table during the interview for the fellowship.

*Unfortunately he did have some rather, er, back-half moments on occasion, and certainly was the crankier part of the dynamic duo. But then, Chesterton had enough good humor for four men of normal size.

Matthew Alderman. St. Margaret of Scotland. March 2010. Private Collection, Virginia.



Matthew Alderman. St. Nicholas Owen. March 2010. Private Collection, Virginia.
While her feast-day in the modern Roman calendar is much more familiar to me, today is the feast of the Hungarian-born Anglo-Saxon princess St. Margaret of Scotland in the old pre-1970 calendar, so-placed because of an oversold seating conflict with St. Gertrude the Great on her actual November 16 death-date. On account of this, I thought I'd share two recent drawings I did for a client and friend in Virginia, of the saint, and also of St. Nicholas Owen, the dwarf Jesuit carpenter responsible for the most impenetrable and complex priest-holes devised during the Elizabethan and Jacobean persecutions. I decided to borrow some elements from the late 19th and early 20th century "Glasgow School" design style popularized by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and incorporate them in the drawing. This doesn't have too much to do with the symbolism (and indeed, it is not an explicitly religious style, though I know of at least one church built in this manner) but it is a local (if slight) nod to St. Margaret.

St. Margaret is usually shown with a book and a cross or crucifix, repeated here. I had to elaborate a bit further on her relatively limited iconography to flesh out the drawing; and while not truly a symbol of hers, she is often shown with her hair in plaits or braids like I have shown. The cross shows Christ the King, chosen as she was a queen, and the book has the arms of Scotland (the lion) and the cross of St. Andrew (Scotland's patron) on it. The brooch at her neck has the arms of Edward the Confessor, her uncle, on it. The flowers are a fairly generic representation of her feminine virtue and qualities, and there are some slight suggestions of Celtic knotwork in the border.

There is even less of an iconography for St. Nicholas though there are a few fixed points: lay clothing, lumber, and some sort of carpentry tools. The few images I saw of St. Nicholas show him in civilian clothes (with one rather anachronistic exception), hence the hat and ruff. I have added a large and vaguely clerical cloak to suggest in a loose way his status as a laybrother, though it is not meant by any means literally. It also suggests a bit of his mystery--as a Jesuit secret agent of sorts and patron saint of escape artists, he ought to have a little bit of dash to him. The little IHS is for his status as a Jesuit. The item in his left hand is the weight that was attached to his feet while he was tortured and eventually caused his chronic hernia to go critical and kill him. The three nails embossed on the weight are a reference to the Passion and also sometimes incorporated in the Jesuit monogram. In his left hand are a builder's square, stacked lumber, and a planing blade of some sort; I'm not sure what it's called but it's used to shave off excess wood. The angel is holding a model of the English manor where, I believe, he was finally arrested. One image I have seen shows him with a similar model, though I do not know if it is meant to represent all recusant houses or a specific one.

The relative proportions of red and black between the two images indicate that one was a martyr and the other not. The two were intended as a set, and the patron chose to use a reddish-brown wood for the frame, which nicely picks up on the red in the drawings.

I am currently planning out much of my summer and fall drawing and work schedule, so please feel free to contact me regarding future illustration commissions.

A recent crie-de-coeur text message from a friend: "Church in the round - why??"

Previously, on All Souls Day, the same pal sent me just one word via text: "Catafalque!"

In a previous post, I compared (or implied the comparison) the Knights of Malta in terms of their massive awesomeness to ninjas. On sober reflection, it occurs to me that the proper and more accurate comparison, because of their swordsmanship and their brilliant navigational and naval warfare skills, is to pirate-ninjas. (They wear black and have ships. Full stop.) In fact, in cold, hard, objective terms, during their days of attacking the Ottoman fleet, they effectively were pirate-ninjas, or at even something like pirate-Shaolin monk-samurai-ninjas.* Which makes it even more awesome. Okay, maybe ninja-privateers.

That is all.

*Okay, no more TVtropes.com for me.

Overheard at a lecture on Carmelite spirituality:

Man: I was enrolled in the Green Scapular for healing as a child. If I get the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, will that be a problem? Do they build on one another?
Friar: (jokingly) There's not going to be a disturbance in the Force, no.

Readers of this website will recall my longtime interest in the work of Irish illustrator and stained-glass designer Harry Clarke, whose stunning and somewhat idiosyncratic style represents some of the most creative and unusual work done in the liturgical and ecclesiastical sphere. While always innovative and drawing on a vast network of both sacred and secular precedents (it is difficult whether to classify him as Art Nouveau, Symbolist, Celtic Revival, or something else entirely), his designs always drew on his own deep knowledge of Christian symbolism, theology, history, and lore, and while sometimes controversial, were praised by the likes of even the cranky Dom Roulin in his Modern Church Architecture.


I read with interest in the Irish Times that it seems a new book, Strangest Genius: The Complete Stained Glass of Harry Clarke, has been published showcasing the artist's 160 stained-glass windows, which will be a worthy successor to Nicola Gordon Bowe's excellent (if rare) 1989 The Life and Work of Harry Clarke, whose largely black-and-white illustrations afford a somewhat inevitably limited view of the subject. It appears itself to be the work of a considerable amount of leg-work and original research on the part of the authors. I have not been able to obtain a copy, but the website set up to promote the book looks quite promising. It appears the full content of the website itself will be launched in association with RTE (Irish Television) in October of this year. If anyone knows anything else about this project, I would be interested in hearing more.

(Image source: here).

I apologize for the long hiatus in entries. The last few months have been hectic, even by my usual rather stringent standards, while last week I rejoiced in the quiet (if somewhat foggy) arcadia of Acadia National Park off the Maine coast with my family, where I hiked, feasted on large quantities of helpless lobsters, and read most of the late Michael McCarthy's handsomely-illustrated last treatise on ecclesiastical heraldry. In any case, things have quieted down somewhat back at GHQ in Wisconsin and I hope to resume with daily postings here and over at The New Liturgical Movement.

In any case, this item is about a week overdue, but will be of interest to our readers in any case. David Clayton, who I have written of in these pages before,and who is a talented iconographer and artist of considerable experience, very kindly wrote up a thoughtful article on my own graphic design and illustration work. He comments:

He talks about his art as though its just a hobby on the side, but I find it interesting. He has, in my opinion, a natural sense of composition and his lines flow gracefully and rhythmically. He fills up the space without it being too cluttered. [...]

Although I can say with certainty I like his work, I find it difficult to pigeonhole as well. Clearly, the subject matter reflects his faith, featuring lots of saints (and he has Catholic figures such as Dante there too). [...] it [draws] me in and make me curious about the personality of the person depicted. These seem to me to be just the qualities that are needed in illustrations, which accompany text. I wonder, Matt, do you get any requests in this regard?

I appreciate his compliments, as well as his critique, and I agree from my own perspective, my art is rather hard to pigeonhole. David considers it through the lens of illustration, which delights me, as ultimately I consider myself more of an illustrator than a fine artist--though I also consider Dürer, Harry Clarke, Martin Travers, and Alphonse Mucha, some of my primary influences in style though not always content, to be primarily illustrators as well. David himself comments that:

Much of the quality artwork of the last century has come from illustrators. This point was made to me years ago when I was working as a lowly freelance sub-editor at the The Sunday Times in London. The art critic, Frank Whitford (who was a charming gentleman) always used to include reviews of illustrators’ art exhibitions in his weekly round-up. I can remember him reviewing a show of the work of E.H. Shepherd, for example, the creator of the images of the characters in the Winnie the Pooh books. I asked him why he included so many illustrator’s shows. He said it was because illustrators were, in contrast to most artists nowadays, trained in the skills of drawing and painting and were directing their skills i conformity to an external purpose (rather than self-promotion). Consequently they very often produced the most interesting and original work around

This is something I have found myself--aside from the intrepid handful of traditional painters and artists like David and my other artist friend Anthony Visco, the only true advances in art these days are coming from children's book illustration. (Just as, outside of the classical world, probably the most interesting bit of architecture undertaken in the last twenty years were the computer-animated sets for the second round of Star Wars movies, which almost makes up for the dialogue, plot, acting, and bad theology. Almost.)

As to David's question, I have in the past come close to doing book illustration, but unfortunately the stars have never quite aligned. My work is becoming less and less of a side hobby these days and is now rather in the line of a small subsidiary business, so I hope I will have the opportunity to take on larger projects like this in the future.

I would like to respond, though, to David's comment that he is not sure he could use my work in a devotional or liturgical context, while thinking them well-suited to illustrative work. I do understand what he is getting at, as there is always a tension between the devotional and the decorative, and that balance is hard to achieve. I appreciate that he is nonetheless able to appreciate the illustrative and technical quality of my work in spite of this. I am always still learning. Certainly, ink illustrations cannot be used as decoration in a church, and my style might need some adaptation in that context, but in addition to being illustrative, I do see a devotional function it as well. I hope in time to provide inexpensive prints of my work similar in function though better in quality to the old holy-card style prints, oleagraphs and woodcuts, that hung in people's houses as ensigns of popular piety.

I think part of David's reticence lies in the perceived similarity to the work of Aubrey Beardsley in my own style, which has been remarked on in the past. When someone told me that, I went and looked at some of his designs and actually, with the exception of his use of blocks of black, I didn't find much I liked (his cherubs always look kind of sinister, among many other things). I am also now experimenting with less black backgrounds, for the sake of variety, though I choose them mostly because they help the delicate linework stand out better.

My own style, while definitely strongly influenced by Art Nouveau, derives much more from other artists and illustrators of the same period, as well as, in lesser amounts, medieval and early Renaissance precedents, Liturgical Movement graphics, a little bit of Baroque decorative ornament, and about a dozen other things. (Though more and more, as it all blurs together, it is becoming very hard to tell where I get what from who anymore). But in any case, I do appreciate his comments and his great generosity in writing such a kind, complimentary and thoughtful review of my own work, especially as I am still quite new in this field and lack his own considerable experience! I am still developing and there is much room to grow.

To those of you who may be considering commissioning work, please remember I am always in the market for such projects, and this summer it looks like I will have a good bit of free time to devote to them. I look forward to hearing from you.