Via Lucis

Via Lucis was created for Heritage, a Catholic retreat center in eastern Georgia where retreatants are invited to encounter God through nature, sacred art, and each other. The artworks are installed in Resurrection Meadow, a five-acre field bordered by oak-pine forest. The client imagined the artwork as jewels of the meadow and requested that it depict the Stations of Light, actively engage visitors, and facilitate joyful spiritual reflection.

The Stations of Light is a devotion focused on the appearances of the Risen Lord from Easter to Pentecost, as narrated in the four gospels. Via Lucis (“way of light”) includes fifteen works: a large depiction of the Risen Christ and fourteen smaller stations, each depicting a particular encounter with Jesus. The Risen Christ is life size and stands at the meadow entrance. The fourteen stations are arranged throughout the meadow in seven groupings, according to chronological and thematic sequence. In this way, the visitor is called to enter into the disciples’ experience as they encountered Christ after his resurrection.

Movement and procession characterize this devotion as a “way” of light. Paths connect the stations and engage the body in the soul’s work, making physical the prayerful encounter with Christ. The stations are displayed at various heights and arrangements to invite curiosity and encourage dynamic engagement. Bright, saturated colors in the glass animate the biblical events and accent the landscaping like wildflowers among grasses.

For Via Lucis, site-specific light is crucial in the design phase and in the moment a visitor encounters the art. Each station combines a drawing of Christ and disciples with a digital photograph of dappled light taken at Resurrection Meadow. These two elements are merged into a single layer, symbolizing Christ as the Light of the World and embodying the idea of encounter that characterizes both the scriptural events and the retreats at Heritage. For retreatants, the stations become visible with the sunrise and recede with the sunset. Throughout the day, the individual scenes are illuminated as they hold the light in suspension while it passes through the colored, dappled glass. Each encounter is necessarily unique, affected by season, time of day, weather, and vantage point. Via Lucis thus reminds us that, like the disciples, we meet Christ in a particular time and place.