Fabricate.
At St. Jude Liturgical Arts Studio, we fabricate a wide variety of religious pieces to help create holy spaces in Catholic churches, cathedrals, and schools. We serve religious committees and churches in Pennsylvania and neighboring states by transforming their spaces into more worthy places of devotion. We are one of the most well-rounded church design and restoration services, as we are able to collaborate with a team of craftsmen in Italy to have custom pieces crafted for our projects here in the States. You will be hard pressed to find a studio who puts as great attention to detail into their work as the team here at SJLAS. Whether your church needs stained glass windows, custom sanctuary chairs, or marble statues and figurines, you have come to the right place. We handle the entire renovation and restoration process, from designing various elements, to fabricating them, to installing or refurbishing them in your physical space.
Woodwork
Woodwork fabrication and renovation is often a budget-friendly option for Catholic churches to create a more beautiful worship experience while still respecting their congregations and not spending too much. Our studio primarily uses an experienced cabinet maker who uses Old World techniques to fabricate dovetail construction projects as well as to rework existing pieces to adapt to current liturgical spaces.
The selection of fine woods that we work with includes oak, walnut, cherry, and hand-rubbed stains that can help achieve a certain look. Woodwork is a staple in worship areas, and reaches much further than wooden church pews.
Reredos
Reredos are often made up of a variety of materials, including wood, stone, metal, and ivory. As one of the focal points of the church, reredos should be carefully crafted to not be distracting from the message but still create a holy place of worship. Check out one of our recent reredos projects.
Ambos
Our fabrication team has completed several marble ambo pieces, and we can also complete a more affordable wooden ambo. These can include the holy cross on the front as well as other design elements that you want to include.
Church Pews and Seating
Whether your church pews have become damaged with normal wear and tear, or you are looking to upgrade a section of your seating, we can help. Our carpenter has worked on very detailed and complex altar chairs as well as simple pew seating. Matching the exact wood type and stain to compliment the rest of your sanctuary can be a difficult task — leave that to us.
Metalware
Metalware projects are one of the services that we take the most price in here at St. Jude Liturgical Arts Studio. We rarely turn away a metal work request, and carefully fabricate everything from religious candlesticks to tabernacles. Our gallery of metalware is a great testament to our attention to detail and highly skilled craftsmanship.
Marble Piece Fabrication
Our marble fabricators specialize in religious pieces and can combine a variety of materials to accommodate any particular style, combining Old World materials with Old World craftsmanship. Partnering with a variety of studios in the Tuscany region of Italy, we are able to use a wide variety of different marble material to fabricate pieces that are unique to your worship space and fit seamlessly with the rest of the building.
Our studio has hand carved entire statues, as well as renovated existing marble sanctuaries and shrines. A recent marble statue project we had done was for Bishop Eustace Prep High School in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Our team hand carved a twelve foot high statue of St. Vincent Palotti and installed it near the entrance to their chapel.
Material Matching
Oftentimes, we are commissioned to modify or refurbish an existing marble piece. The issue with this is that marble needs to be added on to a piece of marble that was fabricated over 50 years ago. Matching marble materials to make a piece naturally blend is not an easy task. That is, unless you contact St. Jude Liturgical Arts Studio.
We worked on a project for the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul whose end goal was to relocate a new tabernacle and Blessed Sacrament from a side existing altar to a new location centered in the main Cathedral Basilica, and match the new marble in the process. Our firm not only matched the marble exactly, but fabricated the exact type of shapes, mosaic panels, and the graining and coloration for some marbles which are no longer quarried.
Mosaics
In addition to stained-glass, our studio has been contracted to refurbish and closely duplicate highly-detailed mosaics. Because mosaic projects are a somewhat slow and tedious process, we stay in close contact with our clients throughout the process, to help them see the process and progress being completed on the featured piece.
Honoring the deep history of venetian mosaic influences, our Rome studio recreated an exact mosaic of Our Lady for the Cathedral basilica in Philadelphia.
Church Stained Glass
Stained glass has a long tradition in the catholic church, often used to tell compelling stories. In a physical sense, stained glass conveys the mood and tone of a sanctuary depending on its size, placement, and amount of light shining through.
When it comes to stained glass projects, we are able to accommodate nearly any size and number of stained glass representations. Our artists will start by making cartoons and drawings of what the windows will look like to keep clients in the loop and help them envision a finished project that they can anticipate. We then work with European stained glass artists to bring those drawings to life.
One of our largest stained glass church projects to date involved designing twenty-two windows for St. Catherine of Sienna Church in Virginia. These windows depicted Old and New Testament motifs and themes, and stood as tall as twenty feet. After drawing rough drafts, the designs were brought to life by our studios in Rome.
Stained glass has a long tradition in the catholic church, often used to tell compelling stories. In a physical sense, stained glass conveys the mood and tone of a sanctuary depending on its size, placement, and amount of light shining through.
When it comes to stained glass projects, we are able to accommodate nearly any size and number of stained glass representations. Our artists will start by making cartoons and drawings of what the windows will look like to keep clients in the loop and help them envision a finished project that they can anticipate. We then work with European stained glass artists to bring those drawings to life.
One of our largest stained glass church projects to date involved designing twenty-two windows for St. Catherine of Sienna Church in Virginia. These windows depicted Old and New Testament motifs and themes, and stood as tall as twenty feet. After drawing rough drafts, the designs were brought to life by our studios in Rome.