Stained Glass

There are four stained glass windows planned for the chapel: St. Padre Pio, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Philomena/St. John Vianney, and St. Luke. I will go into more detail on the lives of the saints and why they were chosen in future blogs. The stained glass is being custom-made by Utopian Studios in Mesa, AZ. We are blessed to be able to have one of the finest stained glass artists in the country, J.R. Lupkin (shown in picture), design and paint the glass. He started his work in stained glass art and fabrication in 1959 and graciously agreed to come out of retirement to work on our windows. His work can be seen online at http://www.utopianstudios.com/ as well as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Tucson and St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Phoenix (voted best church interior by the Arizona Republic in 2008). The picture shows Mr. Lupkin next to the scale drawing of our St. Padre Pio window. We wanted the windows designed with meaningful images and symbolism. For example, when you see each window, there will be an element of water in each one, symbolizing the cleansing water of baptism. The top of each window will have the cross and Eucharist to symbolize that healing comes through the body of Christ. Only one of the saints was verified to be a martyr and that window will be the only one with clouds in it. It is exciting to see the windows "come to life". Mr. Lupkin and Utopian Studios are very precise in their work and we have no doubt that the windows will be exquisite. (If are interested in donating towards a window, please contact me at melissav@ctk-catholic.org )