Stations of the Cross - #1 Jesus is Condemned to Death by Caela Conn Tyler

Background: The original bas-relief Stations of the Cross hang in the Church of the Ascension Episcopal Church in Denver, CO. Their untraditional contemporary design, conceived in the 1950’s, was deemed appropriate for the architecture and ambiance of the sanctuary at Bethany Lutheran Church (in Denver).

Design Concept: I approached the designs for stitching with one major concept in mind. I sought to replicate the idea of bas-relief without incorporating significantly raised or textured stitches. This concept led to the use of an unstitched background and to the frequent inclusion of body and clothing edges stitched in threads of the darkest value, yielding the illusion of the bas-reliefs’ shadows.

Color Determination: The colors used in the Stations of the Cross were determined according to several parameters. First, I considered the sanctuary itself. The Bethany Needlepointers recently completed altar rail kneelers using gray as a background (the upholstered pews are likewise gray). Of course, the extensive use of gray in the stations also related to the original bas-relief sculptures. In consideration of the original source (bas-relief) I interpreted all skin tones in values of gray rather than using flesh toned threads. All of the clothing uses a blend of a color with an equal amount of gray. And the crosses contain a combination of hand dyed threads in both browns and grays.

The sanctuary’s contemporary stained glass windows contain blues, violets, and a bit of green. Those colors were also used in the kneelers. Therefore, for the most part, I used these hues for the clothing. Since, Jesus (and Simon of Cyrene) were depicted bare chested and wearing work pants, I interpreted Jesus’ pants as being faded blue jeans (Simon is wearing khakis). Of course, I followed tradition by clothing Mary in blue. Other figures’ clothing are worked in violets, both red-violets and blue-violets, and soft greens. Specific color use was determined according to the sex of the figure and the location of the hue within the entire series. (I did a picture board of the series to ensure that the color use was balanced.)

Stitch Selection: Stitches that offer some extent of pattern interest were selected. Specific determination depended on the sex of the figure and the relative importance of the individual. Nobuko was used for Jesus’ pants since the stitch could easily be reversed to support the directionality of the forward leg. All other men’s clothing uses stitches with a plaited, two-directional quality (plaited, web, and serendipity stitches). The women’s clothing is rendered in various box stitches – scotch, mosaic, cashmere, and rice stitches. Because of her importance, Mary’s dress is worked in an alternating scotch stitch; the light play enhances her stature. The bodies were stitched in tent stitch so that single-strand fine shading could be done. The halos presented a challenge in that I sought an ethereal quality, not solid or heavy, so I chose Alicia’s Lace worked with a single strand of rather fine metallic. Finally, the crosses are rough hewn, hence the use of irregular split stitch.

PS: This is the most challenging design I have done. My total design time including determining thread hues/combinations, stitches, clothing shading, charting all body fine shading and halos was 500 hours.