By Kate Kellogg
News and Information Services
Michael R. Kapetan, sculptor and lecturer at the School of Art, will offer the public a rare glimpse of fine sculpture-in-progress during his six-month residence at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
An ecclesiastical sculptor who specializes in wood carving, Kapetan will be Artist-in-Residence at the cathedral beginning in January. He will work in a studio that is part of a public tour of the building. The cathedral is a national religious institution, which is “dedicated to education and expression of the finest in sacred art and culture.”
“I look forward to sharing my work and technique with people who tour the cathedral,” Kapetan says. “I think there is a natural connection between art and teaching, because both are ways of reaching out and drawing people into new knowledge and common experience. I also look forward to creating art that shares in the purpose of the cathedral and the arts of the cathedral—the visual edification of faith and spirit.”
Kapetan has created liturgical sculpture for Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Unitarian churches. He recently completed a commission to carve the pulpit, Bishop’s Throne and iconostasis panels for the Eastern Orthodox Church of St. Clement Ohridski in Dearborn. The project took 10 years to complete.
The largest single project he plans to carve in the National Cathedral studio is a piece of liturgical sculpture unique to the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity. Called “Epitaphion,” the item is a representation of the tomb of Christ on which an icon of the entombed Christ lies on a table-like platform beneath a dome.
In addition to his work for the Dearborn church, Kapetan has carved sculpture for the First Presbyterian and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox churches in Ann Arbor, and for St. Thomas a Becket Roman Catholic Church in Canton. He supervised the art shop for film director Robert Altman’s production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the U-M.
Kapetan has exhibited both secular and religious sculpture at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Meadowbrook Music Festival and Cranbrook Art Institute.
