Chapel Trilogy: Closet 2004

Mary Welch

Sharon Kallis fore,  Jill Foote-Hutton, back

Julie Custer and Teresa Redden

Horst (center) Robin Worley (left)

7 Chairs

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The Illumination Chamber Project

Illumination Chamber Final 2012 from Pongrey Productions on Vimeo.

This experiment in perception begins with a one-hundred-year-old doorknob which is set in a doorplate embellished with an inlay of gems and gold leaf. As an illuminated manuscript begins a story, the bas relief letter ‘A’ doorknob invites you to continue reading. Next to this ornate rectangle is the word MOMENT, writtenon the door of the Illumination Chamber. “A Moment.” Give a moment of your time. Open the door and step in.

Enter an entirely mosaiced room. The lines of the Etruscan influenced pattern on the floor, continue up the walls creating a striped wainscot. Lines curve into vines on the upper walls. Stars cover the domed ceiling. Now, close the door. The walls glow. The floor glows. The ceiling glows. The whole hexagon shaped room glows. Stand in the center space with every plane - the floor, the walls and the ceiling - illuminating the dark.

Reach for one of the five porcelain handles placed around the top of the wainscot. Truth, Beauty, Love, Happiness, Soul. Turn a handle and gentle light pours out. Not enough truth or beauty? Turn the handles. Not enough love and happiness? Turn the handles. Need a bit more from living? Turn on some soul, baby, and stand in the light. Just take a moment of your time. Illuminate some big ideas. Evolutionary ideals avail themselves to you, right here, right now.

Now, step out into your everyday world. Close the door. Continue on with yet another experience in your pantheon of strange beauty in unusual places.

The Illumination Chamber is scheduled for a Fall 2013 completion. Arrangements are in the works for the exhibit to be installed at the Historic Seattle’s Good Shepherd Center Chapel in Seattle, Washington.