JOHN KENNETH CLARK
-ARCHITECTURAL ARTIST
Kenya - Kericho Cathedral
The concept was to create art works working with, mentoring and developing local artists. It has been a very exciting but difficult project with many set backs and challenges. But finally the project is coming to a conclusion.
25 May 2015
A fly-over of the Cathedral the day after the consecration4 May 2015. The building is not quite complete but this video gives a nice sense of the structure and the setting.
image set
The People
At the beginning our artist here is Florence Wangui who has made the glass panels above. We are also able to undertake other projects to commission. Above can be seen the bronze door panels. These were sculpted by Florence Wangui and transformed into bronze by Rajinder Ahmed. For the Kericho project we could also access the work of mosaicists, led by Githhaka Karuri, and sculptors Toumer Yeshim created the crucifix, Peter Kenyanya Oendo, made the soapstone sculptures. We had amazing technical support throughout by the Propolis Studio.
The roof for the cathedral has this outer layer of terra-cotta tiles from Kenya Clay. It was felt that the tiles should not be left simply in this natural state, so we created a design based on cutting the tiles.
The glass used in this project is the American made Bullseye Glass.
This glass can be melted together, known as fusing.
This enables various colours to be melted on a base glass.
It also makes possible the relief sculpted glass used in the
making of the Stations of the Cross.
The Stations of the Cross panels are made using Bullseye Glass.
The mould is the most important part of this process.
This is made from silica sand and plaster of paris.
The glass is melted on that mould to create the relief sculpted glass.
The steel doors and the installation of the panels was carried out by Propolis Studio.
The cathedral has two sets of steel doors, there are relief sculpted bronze panels inserted into these doors. The method of creating the art work for these panels is similar to what is required to make the glass relief sculptures.
In this portion of the website, we will show other glass works that we can make here in Kenya.
This will be added to as we go along.
This is the mosaic that was made for the Kericho Cathedral. It is on the theme of the Garden of Eden. It is made of natural stone. it is 20Mt long and 2Mt high. This extraordinary work was undertaken by with Githaka Karuri and his team.
There are two crucifixes within the Kericho Project. The main,
full sized figure in the cathedral, and a small crucifix in the chapel.
The amazing metal work was undertaken by Toumer Yeshim.