Tour Two: The Wilkinson Founders Chapel

Approaching the Fish Interfaith Center from the northeast, a gate opens onto the lush Dee’s Garden of the Senses, designed by Susan Narduli. The sight and sound of Lita Albuquerque’s Skaggs Solar Fountain captures your attention, luring you to enter this tranquil enclave and refresh your spirit. Sunlight plays on the fountain’s large golden solar disk, as water pours through the copper wall by means of small jets arranged in the pattern of the Water Bearer constellation. Captivated, you pause to rest on one of the white onyx benches that glow softly at night, echoed by matching onyx shards on the wall. The sound of falling water, the feel of smooth stone surface, the aroma of blooming flowers, and the sight of beautiful foliage lead you to reflect on divine beauty revealed in nature.

Refreshed, you rise from the bench and enter the Wilkinson Founders Chapel. The focal point of this beautifully intimate sacred space – dedicated to the memory of Chapman’s Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) founders – is a gracefully curving glass screen, in front of which stand William Tunberg’s handcrafted, solid maple Chancel Furnishings with beautiful marquetry (inlaid wood) features such as chalices and intertwining vines. Soothing heavenly light bathes the room through a circular skylight above the altar and three rice-paper art glass windows.

Reentering the garden, you are drawn toward an opening in the garden wall through which stone of an unusual shade is visible. Created out of Brazilian marble the color of the Southern California sky, Susan Narduli’s gracefully sculpted Chapman Columbarium speaks, not of death, but life – life eternal.