Chichester Workshop

085 16thDec2019 - Chichester Cathedral - Photo by Ash Mills

WELCOME The Chichester Workshop is a centre for liturgical art, currently located in South Harting, north of Chichester. Alongside the Workshop’s day-to-day work undertaking commissions across a broad range of traditional media, we offer an education programme that includes both practical artistic training and theological engagement with the principles of Christian iconography.

Working in association with Chichester Cathedral, we seek to revive the place of traditional liturgical art within Christian worship.

On this website you can find out more about our team, our work, upcoming training opportunities, and access to other resources including a video series.

cHICHESTER WORKSHOP ARTISTS AT WORK © RUSSELL SACH

Training at the Chichester Workshop

CHICHESTER WORKSHOP, UK

THEOLOGICAL ENGAGEMENT

LITURGICAL ART is art made for the worship of God in Jesus Christ. It presents a vision of the heavenly glories, and earth transformed.

Liturgical art is diverse, including not only painting and mosaic, but also wood carving, metalwork, enamelling, and more. These diverse visual forms relate to their architectural contexts and combine with other art forms within the Church’s liturgy to raise all the human senses to God in a single act of praise.

Eye for detail: Working in the soft light of the Malthouse studio in South Harting, Sussex, Iconographer Martin Earle trims in some of the 180,000 individually cut coloured tiles he’s used to replicate the famous 13th century Pantocrator mosaic depicting Christ on Judgement day.
Taking four months to complete the twelve foot square mosaic resembling the 700 year old work found in the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, the image, one of the most popular scenes in Byzantine religious art will sit above the desk of a London businessman when completed.©Russell Sach - 0771 882 6138

CHRIST PANTOCRATOR MOSAIC © Russell Sach

LAZURUS RELIEFS, CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL, 13TH CENTURY

GOLD CHALICE, ETHIOPIA, 18TH CENTURY © V&A

ANCHANGEL MICHAEL, MANUSCRIPT, 12TH CENTURY © GETTY MUSEUM

THE PROJECT began in 2022 with a residency in Chichester Cathedral we called the Art of Worship. Over three months, artists Jim Blackstone and Martin Earle set up shop in the Cathedral, undertaking commissions in a temporary studio in the north transept. Alongside Aidan Hart, they also presented a series of lectures on liturgical art and hosted a study day. Encouraged by the positive reaction to this residency, the Cathedral invited Jim, Martin, and Aidan to establish a permanent workshop.

We have now developed plans for the construction of a purpose-built studio on land within the Cathedral quarter. In the meantime, Jim and Martin are working in a temporary studio nearby where they have begun to welcome apprentices. Working closely with Aidan, the Cathedral is also rolling out a teaching programme on the theology of liturgical arts for clergy, seminarians, and the wider public.