FORT SMITH — Christ the King School students brought a touch of the Vatican to their parish when they presented the church with a Throne of St. Peter inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s 17th century masterpiece that sits behind the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Christ the King School’s Throne of St. Peter, like Bernini’s, is adorned with golden angels, with one important difference. Each of the 300 angels was designed and crafted by a different student.
“The students drew gorgeous pictures of themselves as angels, and then they made plaster relief sculptures of their angels and painted them gold,” art teacher Pamma Henderson said. “The children can come up and show us which angel is theirs.”
Henderson and her preschool through sixth grade art classes were inspired to recreate the Throne of St. Peter at Christ the King Church after travel agent Jennifer Kelly visited their classes to discuss her trip to Rome.
“Jennifer, who has helped us with all our projects, really wanted us to learn the Catholic background behind the art in the Sistine Chapel,” Henderson said. “She came and did a PowerPoint presentation and showed how we could work together and collaborate as artists do. The children were just in awe and felt like they’d been there themselves. Her presentation was the jumping off point for our idea to build the throne.”
Kelly and Henderson collaborated on the project with Van Buren sculptor Shawn Adair. The three had led students in other schoolwide art projects — a Peace Dove, created after the World Trade Center and the Pentagon terrorist attacks, and a tile arch at the school entrance.
“We all approached the project with a different view,” Henderson said. “Jennifer isn’t an artist, but she knew what is was like to walk in St. Peter’s Basilica. I looked at how we could recreate the throne and involve the children in its construction. Shawn looked at how he could incorporate 300 gold-painted angels into the design of the throne.”
Christ the King’s Throne of St. Peter has golden angels on the cross and rays topping the throne and on its sides. Surrounding the cross is a red velvet teardrop.
“There is a glorification of angels all over the throne,” Henderson continued. “Shawn put a teardrop of Christ’s blood in red velvet. At the top, pouring down on the red velvet seat, Christ’s blood shed for us.”
The teardrop also symbolizes Jesus’ life and vitality that still runs through the Church and its leaders. The younger students learned about Church history and St. Peter’s role as the Church’s first pope.
On another, more personal level, the Throne of St. Peter has been a way for Adair and Henderson, both recent converts to Catholicism and members of St. Michael Church in Van Buren, to express their faith in a concrete way.
Henderson, who met Adair in 1997, converted to Catholicism in 2003.
Adair had thought about becoming Catholic for many years. Henderson was his RCIA sponsor.
“It has always been my desire to create works that were somehow involved with worship or for the sanctuary, that kind of context,” Adair said. “As we were first placing this piece on the side altar of Christ the King Church, I really felt that sense of wonder at being a part of something great.”
Henderson gets goose bumps whenever the children can identify their angels.
“We used the Throne of Peter at sixth grade graduation and other special occasions,” she said. “And as the students grow up, every time they go to church they will see the throne and know that they were a part of making something beautiful for God.”
