Catholic Art School Incorporates Benedictine Spirituality into its Daily Routine

Chanting the Psalms daily and refectory reading are part of the artistic community’s own Way of Beauty

For those looking to train as artists in a Catholic environment, I recommend the Stabat Mater Atelier (see A Catholic Art School with Full Four-Year Training in Classical Naturalism), which teaches the traditional, rigorous drawing and painting known as the ‘Academic’ method. I was privileged to visit them in Tyler, Texas, last Fall and to address the students and faculty.

Recently, the director, artist Robert Puschautz, asked if I would publish a short article by him about the implementation of what I had discussed, as he was pleased with its impact on the students and faculty. Of course, I was happy to do so. It is posted below. He describes how the students taught themselves, based on my original instructions, to chant the psalms. I recommended they do this as part of their spiritual life as Christians, of course, but also as a way to stimulate their creative imaginations as artists and open their hearts to inspiration from God, should He choose to offer it. The musical method is described in my upcoming book, Musica Domestica, a two-volume book of music for the domestic church, co-authored with Andrew Goldstein of the Vigil Project, and to be published by Word on Fire in fall of this year.

Robert wrote:

“At the beginning of the 2025 academic year, David Clayton, Scala Foundation Artist in Residence, Provost of Pontifax, iconographer, and writer, visited the Stabat Mater Studio to offer a series of talks highlighting the essentials of training in visual Sacred Art. He discussed using technical mastery of drawing and painting to serve a Christian worldview, one that points beyond the natural world. He also spent a good deal of time championing the use of chant and a simplified version of the liturgy of the hours. David emphasized that an artist creating work for the Catholic Church’s liturgy ought to be immersed in it daily. After hearing David, a number of students and teachers decided to spend additional time learning his simple method for chanting the psalms in the Gregorian modes.

“I was skeptical that we could implement much of what David taught us, despite his generous sharing of the psalms and materials. Furthermore, lacking musical training, I didn’t feel confident leading the charge to incorporate the practice. I was surprised, however, to find that some students were eager to take the lead and start our days with a version of Morning Prayer. We started very simply with one tone and one leader, and the remaining students mimicked the same tone on the following verse. It took some time for us to develop the habit of praying consistently and beautifully, but each trimester we improve and have introduced an additional mode for singing. Slowly but surely, it has become an essential part of how we start the morning at our studio.

“Inspired by the monastic tradition of table reading, we, in addition to our morning prayer routine, read aloud to the students during their lunch hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays from texts relevant to their artistic and Catholic development. Recently, we have been reading through David’s The Way of Beauty. This has led to great discussions afterward about the importance of idealization for sacred artists, the study of geometry, and the necessity of beauty in all aspects of life. Although most of our time is spent developing technical mastery in drawing and painting, we believe that these simple practices of chanting and prayer in community will deeply form students into artists imbued with a sense of the sacred and as part of the Body of Christ.”

For more information on Stabat Mater Atelier and to see Robert’s work, go to stabatmater.org.

Robert Puschautz in the studio, with a student beyond him

The Good Samaritan After Morot by Rachel Perry, 35 x 47 oil on canvas, 2025. This was her ‘masterpiece’, the detailed imitation of a great work of the past, done as part of her training.

David Clayton to Speak in Tyler, Texas, Tuesday, March 11th

The Way of Beauty - Spirituality for Creatives and Creativity for All

March 11th, 6pm at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 423 S Broadway, Tyler, Texas 

Reception to follow across the street at the Stabat Mater Atelier

Next Tuesday evening, I will give a talk at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Tyler, Texas,on The Way of Beauty - Spirituality for Creatives and Creativity for All.

When an artisan (artist) practices his art well, he is practising virtue, participating in God’s ongoing creative work, and contributing to a beautiful contemporary culture. That culture, mundane or sacred, is Christian to the degree that it bears the mark of divine beauty.

The traditional formation that might have been given to the great Catholic artists in the past did far more than teach them the skills of their craft. It was Catholic inculturation, and a formation that gave them a deep understanding of the tradition in which they worked. It was designed to develop an appreciation for and a deep understanding of the principles that underlie the beauty of the cosmos, and to impart the Christian practices and habits that incline the artist to follow inspiration and order the imagination. 

This talk will describe the core principles of such a formation, and discuss how they can be applied today to art education at any level and, more broadly, to any human activity, so that all of us can contribute gracefully and beautifully to the evangelization of contemporary culture. 

In his short presentation about the New Evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that we must cultivate the art of joyful living to draw people to the faith. The Way of Beauty is a formation that enables us to do just that: when we make beautiful choices, we follow the guiding light of divine beauty which is a source of joy, and draw others onto the same path.

An Art School For Catholics - Showcasing Work by Apprentices of Stabat Mater Studios

Students Getting an Authentic Traditional On-the-Job Apprentice Training

The excellent Stabat Mater Studio—an art school I recommend for a soup-to-nuts training in naturalistic art styles—opened its doors this September, and a mixture of full-time core students and part-timers began their intensive instruction in the fundamentals of drawing with executive director Robert Puschautz, and art fellow AnneMarie Johnson.

One key factor distinguishing the Stabat Mater Studio from other classical art programs is that it is a working studio with an openly Catholic ethos, which offers students on-the-job training by participating in actual commissions given to master artists.

A recent project was for St. Joseph’s church in Mason, Texas. Stabat Mater Foundation was in charge of the stenciling portion of this historic church's renovation under the guidance of Studio Io. After the stenciling was finished on-site, the whole studio, teachers and students, came together to complete the Tree of Life mural behind the crucifix, which was then attached to a board behind the altar.

“One of our goals is to share an integrated approach to art with students. We are not just making pretty pictures for walls but trying to create work that reflects the cosmological order of the universe. That means creating a harmony between the architecture, the artwork and objects that go into the church and the mission and function of that liturgical space.” - Robert Puschautz.

You can read about their intensive integrated training program here. It is a uniquely well-rounded program rooted in rigorous academic method training but certainly not limited to it. 

A couple of features particularly caught my eye: 

First, they include training in sacred geometry, harmony, and proportion, which is unique to this school. 

Second, they shepherd the students from being able to draw and paint accurately what they see - which is hard enough - to creating original paintings that draw on the imagination of the artists, and the memory of what they have observed in the past. This final stage is so often missing in the ateliers that have sprung up around the country, leaving artists at a disadvantage, because they can only reproduce scenes they create in the studio. This is why so many naturalistic paintings being commissioned look like static Victorian tableaus in which the girl next door is dressed up as the Virgin Mary. 

Also, Pontifex University is proud to partner with Stabat Mater atelier. Through our online courses in art theory, created for the Master of Sacred Arts program, we offer intellectual formation and deep inculturation that accompanies the training in artistic skills that the Stabat Mater atelier offers. 

Contact Studio Io for church renovation commissions and Stabat Mater Foundation for artistic and decorative commissions.

How to Beautify Ugly Sacred Spaces When Bureaucracy Is Opposed and Costs Are High

Recently, I was talking to a good priest of a parish saddled with an ugly and liturgically inappropriate concrete church designed in the decades after the Second World War. He told me how difficult it would be to improve the interior.

First, he would have to raise money, which was not easy, but that was the least of his problems. Then, he would have to get the design approved by the diocesan architectural committee, and he was pretty sure they wouldn’t approve anything he and the parish proposed. And third, even assuming he could get past those obstacles, the building was listed as a structure of special architectural interest. (Of interest to whom, one wonders?)

So what can he do? Here’s an idea that might work. Commission a limited number of beautiful portable works of art in carved wooden housings. By commissioning and owning their own beautifully crafted but portable pieces, such as a rude screen, a reredos, or other well-placed images and religious statuary, clergy could reintroduce traditional iconography and sacred artistic elements into these otherwise uninspiring spaces. This not only adds beauty to the space, but also allows for a personal connection to the art, making the space more meaningful and engaging for the congregation.

Rogier van der Weyden, Flemish, 15th century: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My inspiration for this comes from my observations of the approach of Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox churches in response to having to worship in ugly spaces. When such communities celebrate liturgies in borrowed buildings or churches of other denominations, which is often the case in regions that are traditionally of the Roman Rite, I am always impressed at the way they can transform a badly designed space, or even a space one not originally intended for the Divine Liturgy, into one of beauty. Often, with little more than the basic minimum requirements for the liturgy, such as select icons, candles, embroidered cloths and other liturgical items, these communities seem to be able to turn the blandest antiseptic interior into a place worthy of worship. When the liturgy is over, they pack everything away, ready for next time. 

For example, here is St Elias Melkite Church in northern California, a mission parish without a permanent home which currently rents a barn on a farm south of San Jose. I attended the Divine Liturgy here recently, and my eyes were drawn to the icons and the objects of beauty, which dominate one’s attention, rather than the steel and prefabricated structure. This effect doesn’t seem to come out in the photographs, in which the modern backdrop dominates the visual impact more than in real life. I think this is because the liturgy is a dynamic event, and while it is being celebrated, the eyes are drawn also to the movement and the source of the voices and sounds. 

I am wondering if there isn’t a reason Roman Rite churches couldn’t do something similar. The costs would be less than those involving permanent structural change, and since these are movable personal possessions, rather than permanently installed renovations, no special permissions would be required from the diocese or local historical commissions. 

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