San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, December 15, 2000
Dave Ford, Chronicle Staff Writer

Where there had been many, suddenly there were few: Friends lost friends, lovers lost lovers, families lost sons and fathers, and religious communities lost congregation members and leaders.

So when the Rev. William Swing, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, dedicated the newly completed AIDS Interfaith Chapel at Grace Cathedral on Nov. 30, it signaled the religious community's next step in offering solace to people affected by the epidemic.

As part of the ceremony, which was the day before the 13th annual World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, Swing consecrated "The Life of Christ," an altarpiece created by famed New York graffiti artist Keith Haring, who died of the disease nearly a decade ago.

Swing, who has been bishop of the 87-church diocese since 1979, recalls attending San Francisco churches in the 1980s that had lost 30, 40 -- even 90 - - worshipers to the disease.

In 1986, Swing organized the first AIDS Caregiving Conference, a nondenominational meeting of spiritual and religious leaders to confront the epidemic's destruction. The gathering was at Grace Cathedral, which had begun to dedicate resources and spiritual healing to those with HIV.

While treatments and services for people with AIDS and HIV have improved the lives of those afflicted, Swing says the AIDS chapel, which was five years in the planning and execution, is "a place where human beings who have either been inside the agony or watched from the outside can come and be quiet, offer a prayer and meditate, and consider the devastation and try to figure out a way to have a more humane and caring world."

Two metal sculptures serve as gateways to the chapel, their bases filled with orchids.

On the chapel walls are symbols of various spiritual paths -- Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish among them -- which reflect the interfaith nature of the chapel, says the Rev. Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral for the past 15 years.

"We want to be shown to be in respectful, open conversation," he says. "The world is getting too small for territorial fightings. We are a very ecumenical, searching city, and this reflects who we are."

A Names Project AIDS quilt panel hangs at the rear of the chapel. It is suspended from the concrete ceiling that San Francisco designer John Wheatman, who planned the chapel's motifs, suggested be painted two complementary shades of blue.

On the far side of the 900-square-foot space sits a glass-topped case displaying the "Book of Remembrances," created by Joanna Sonnichsen, a Menlo Park bookbinder.

The book's vellum pages are bound with linen bookbinder's thread in such a way that more pages can be added. Names written in calligraphy script recall lives lost young ("Michael Lyman, 1968-1992"), old ("A. Crawford Greene Jr., 1922-1994") and in between ("James Jones, 1963-1995").

Two rows of chairs set in the middle of the chapel and a prayer bench before them face the altar and Haring's "Life of Christ." The bronze structure, which is 81 by 60 inches and weighs 600 pounds, is done in three panels decorated with Haring's trademark cartoonish figures.

But the playful shapes belie the emotional solemnity of the piece. Across the bottom of all three panels, an angry mob rages. Above the mob on the left panel, two angels hover; one is falling. Figures atop the right panel depict Christ's resurrection. At the top of the middle panel is a cross, beneath which is a figure with many arms, two of which cradle an infant. Beneath the infant, droplets -- tears? blood? -- rain on the mob.

Haring died on Feb. 16, 1991, at age 31, two weeks after completing the piece. Casts were made for nine original versions and two artist's proofs. The Keith Haring Foundation donated one of the versions to St. John the Divine in New York to memorialize Haring and those who died of the disease, says Frank Malifrando, who helped bring another version of the Haring piece to Grace Cathedral.

Artist Yoko Ono, a good friend of Haring's, owns one of the altars, and helped financially ensure that Grace got one, says Malifrando, 40, who became involved in the project after losing a friend to AIDS in June 1995. The friend's last wish was that Malifrando light a candle to remember him by.

"I thought, 'I can do better than that,' " he says. So he agreed to raise funds to make the AIDS Interfaith Chapel a reality and to bring the Haring piece, which was on display at the Palo Alto Cultural Center under curator Signe Mayfield, to the cathedral.

Among the chapel's artistic touches is a deep red tapestry, 19 feet square, created by Robin Dintiman, of Dintiman Design Associates in Petaluma, which hangs behind the altar. It was donated by Jack Shears of the San Francisco design firm Shears and Window.

The tapestry, Haring's altar, the Book of Remembrances, the quilt panel -- all create a meditative effect that, Swing says, helps mollify people whose lives have been ravaged by AIDS.

"People need to be embraced," he says, "and to be part of a healing environment when they're in the midst of such a devastating situation."

AIDS ChapelThe AIDS Interfaith Chapel, 1100 California St. in San Francisco, is open from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday-Friday and 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. Free. Call (415) 749- 6310 cq, or visit www.gracecathedral.org.

To memorialize someone in the Book of Remembrances, call (415) 749-6344. Please be sure to make clear the dates of birth and death and the name's proper spelling.

E-mail Dave Ford at dford@sfchronicle.com.

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