Thursday, October 01, 2020

A New Sculpture at Clear Creek Abbey

This past Sunday, the abbey of Our Lady of Clear Creek in Oklahoma unveiled a new tympanum sculpture over the door of the main abbatial church, a beautiful Romanesque-style Christ in majesty surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists. This was done by Mr George Carpenter, a trained blacksmith and self-trained (!) stone carver, who lives with his family near the monetary, and has done several other projects for the monks, including iron-work, light fixtures and stone-carved altars. Our thanks to reader Luke Zehr for sharing these photos with us.

The lintel beneath the tympanum, which is decorated with sculptures of the Twelve Apostles, and the two historiated capitals under that, were done in 2013 by Andrew Wilson Smith, who is also self-taught in the art of stone carving.
The following three photos courtesy of Andrew Wilson Smith.
The artists and their work, Andrew Smith on the left, and George Carpenter on the right.

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