In September, local glass artist Jon Kuhn will present his latest piece of art to a noteworthy collector -- Pope Benedict XVI.
"It's not easy to get an audience with the pope," Kuhn said, "but I will be onstage with him."
Kuhn, the head of John Kuhn Studios on North Liberty Street, and his business associate Al Priest, the head of Salem Stained Glass in East Bend, are traveling to Rome for a meeting with the pope to present him with a crystal cross.
The sculpture, titled Light of God, is just over 32 inches tall and weighs more than 100 pounds. It took six months for Kuhn and his staff of eight to make the cross out of 25,000 small pieces of glass, most of it clear with a red diamond-shaped center. Kuhn said that the center symbolizes "the sacred heart of Jesus." The sculpture is valued at $120,000, he said.
It is the latest crystal cross in a series of sculptures that began back in 2008, when Kuhn was approached by Clemmons Moravian Church. The church wanted Kuhn to create a stained-glass window, but he suggested that they instead go to Al Priest for that. Then, Kuhn came up with the idea of making a crystal cut-glass cross for them.
Within a few months, he got requests for crosses from Episcopalian and Baptist churches.
"Sometimes, life gives you guidance," he said.
Though he is making an iconic Christian symbol, Kuhn is Jewish.
"It's about the light of God," he explained, "and the light of God is for everybody."
As he worked on the various designs of crosses, Kuhn said, "it just came to me who should get one of these was the pope."
Priest's initial reaction was skepticism. "I thought, ‘Yeah, that would be great, but how are we going to do this?'" he said. "I found out he was pretty serious about it, and at that point I started figuring out the hoops to jump through and how to get it accomplished."
With his connections with churches from his work on stained glass, Priest -- who is Baptist -- contacted a friend who put him in touch with the Diocese of Charlotte, and began working his way up the chain until, nine months later, they got to meet Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican's representative in Washington. They took the already completed cross with them and asked if they could present it directly to the pope as a gift.
"He said, ‘It is magnificent. Of course, we do this!'" Kuhn recalled. "Within five minutes after he'd seen it, we had (the meeting with the pope) scheduled."
That was in May. Kuhn and Priest will leave on Sept. 26 and meet the pope in St. Peter's Square on Sept. 29.
"This is a gift of love," Priest said, "and it doesn't matter whether you're Baptist, Methodist, Catholic or anything else, the meaning of the cross is the same -- it's the ultimate love of Jesus Christ, and that's all that counts."
tclodfelter@wsjournal.com
727-737
People interested in going on the trip should call Piedmont Travel at 723-5077. People traveling with the local group will be allowed to watch the presentation.
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