This pipe organ woodcarving project for the Chapel of the Cross, an Episcopal parish built in the Gothic revival style by architect Hobart B. Upjohn, commissioned all woodcarving for two new pipe organs designed for the chapel — the main organ case and a separate antiphonal division. My work followed the building's own architectural language — quatrefoils, tracery, and crocketed pinnacles drawn from the chapel's Gothic detailing — translated into quarter-sawn white oak across both cases.

Pipe Organ Woodcarvings for the Main and Antiphonal Cases:

• Sections of gallery, straight in plan, featuring 13 quatrefoil panels with carved tracery, mouchettes, and rosettes
• Sections of gallery featuring 3 curved quatrefoil panels with carved tracery, mouchettes, and rosettes
• Carved tracery pipe shades to the facade, bass and treble sides, straight in plan
• Carved tracery pipe shades to the curved tower
• Pipe shades below the flats (bass and treble) featuring grapes and scrolling vines
• Curved rail at the tower base featuring grapes and scrolling vines
• Mid-section frieze work with carved running vines and grapes
• Ogee tracery pipe shades
• Pair of tracery pipe shades to the facade, bass and treble
• Carved openwork tracery pipe shades
• 14 crocketed pinnacles

Each element was designed to read as part of the chapel's existing stonework and woodwork rather than as an addition to it. The mid-section frieze, for example, began as a running design of vines and grapes worked out at full scale before carving began, then carved in sequence across each panel to keep the pattern continuous around the case. The same approach carried through the pipe shades, tracery, and pinnacles — each piece cut individually, but designed as one continuous scheme. This project reflects the same design-to-installation approach behind all our pipe organ woodcarvings.

Carving is ongoing; this page will be updated as sections are completed and installed.

Visit:

The Chapel of the Cross | Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill, NC