These are among the murals Kim Senior designed and painted with students, as part of the Decorative Painting Apprenticeship Program.
With minimal cost to St. Cornelius Catholic Church in Chadds Ford, a suburb of Philadelphia, the master decorative painters and apprentices stippled and dabbed twenty-thousand square feet of white walls with faux finishes and decorative painting transforming the plain white interior of the contemporary church over the last six months into a richly decorated house of worship with faux wood graining, marbling, gold leafing, stenciling, murals, glazing and Venetian plaster.
Thirty-eight students and nine instructors participated in the program. Students came from Canada, California, Minnesota, Missouri and many from the east coast states. Teachers came from Scotland and throughout the United States. Classes included glazing, gold leafing, Venetian plasters, stenciling, wood graining and marbling, sky painting, silk plaster, mural painting and canvas installation. Students with novice through advanced skills registered for the opportunity to work with the masters.
Each student was trained on sample boards first. Once the skills were perfected, the students worked closely with teachers on actual walls, ceilings and columns. Teachers were vigilant to maintain consistent quality of work, as well as blending separate decorative techniques into one unified design scheme.
As a result of this program, the white walls of St. Cornelius are alive with illusions. A textured glaze warms the sanctuary and wood grained paneling appears below the chair rail in the courtyard area. Rich Venetian plaster glows around the entrance to the sanctuary. A landscape mural of wheat fields and the “Heavenly City” decorates the narthex and clouds and sky appear to float in the vaulted ceiling above.
Monsignor Greg Parlante of St. Cornelius is thrilled with the result and dubbed it “the divine makeover.”
"And so the project expanded to include other areas of the church, with one of the notable additions being a faux stained-glass window of Pope John Paul II, a modern saint to many Catholics.
The image is so lifelike that viewers wonder if it was projected on the wall and copied, the monsignor says. It was not. Artists Kim Senior and Cindy Hernder created it freehand. " Gary Soulsman, News Journal of Wilmington, and Delaware Online
St. Cornelius Catholic Church is located at 160 Ridge Road, Chadds Ford, PA 19317 in the Brandywine Valley suburb of Philadelphia.
For more information about the Decorative Painting Apprenticeship Program, LLC, call Bernadette Forese, Executive Director and Cofounder, at (610) 368-3899 or visit www.DPAP.org."
