From crumbling convent to Catholic art studio: A new light in Atlantic City, New Jersey
A former abandoned convent in Atlantic City was rescued and restored into Cappella Studio, a Catholic art studio. Founder Jim Dessicino transformed the crumbling chapel into a space that hosts art retreats, classes, and an adoration chapel, aiming to bring beauty and evangelization to the city. The studio invites artists of all faiths, offering opportunities to meet Jesus through the Eucharist and to experience renewal beyond the city's vice‑driven reputation. Workshops and events at Cappella Studio have attracted participants from across the United States, indicating its growing influence beyond the local community.
about 2 months ago
From a dilapidated convent in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a Catholic art studio called Cappella Studio has been created, restoring the chapel, offering art classes, retreats, and an adoration space to serve both artists and the surrounding community. 1
The former convent, built in the late 1930s and designed to resemble a ship honoring Our Lady, Star of the Sea, was slated for demolition before Jim Dessicino intervened. 1
Dessicino likened his mission to St. Francis’s 1205 call to rebuild the crumbling Church of San Damiano, seeing the convent’s ruined chapel as an opportunity for renewal under Pope Leo XIV’s jubilee spirit. 1
The chapel’s walls, floor, windows, and sanctuary lamp were all in disrepair, with holes and broken glass. 1
Renovation work repaired structural damage, restored the “Mercy Chapel,” and opened it for daily adoration from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., attracting regular visitors. 1
Cappella Studio now provides private studios, lodging for visiting artists, and a range of classes taught by Catholic and non‑Catholic instructors. 1
Its inaugural overnight workshop, “Sculpt a Crucifix,” sold out, drawing participants from across the United States. 1
An artist‑in‑residence program encourages creators to integrate prayer and meditation into their work while experiencing Atlantic City’s oceanic setting. 1
The studio’s adoration chapel places the Blessed Sacrament at the center of artistic activity, inviting artists of all faiths to encounter Jesus directly. 1
Father Robert Hughes emphasizes that the Eucharist is the source of both Christian life and the studio’s mission, aiming to form artists who can produce sacred works for the wider Church. 1
Dessicino describes Atlantic City as a “forgotten‑about place” plagued by gambling, homelessness, and vice, asserting that the studio offers a “light” and a renewal of beauty in the city. 1
By blending art, prayer, and hospitality, Cappella Studio seeks to draw people away from the city’s vice industry toward a deeper appreciation of the “good, true, and beautiful.” 1
Cappella Studio exemplifies Catholic art’s role in urban renewal
Catholic teaching sees sacred and Christian art not merely as decoration, but as a real means by which beauty can awaken the interior life, lead people toward Christ, and serve the common good. Read through that lens, converting a neglected religious space into a living center for Catholic art can be understood as an example of urban renewal grounded in the “ways of beauty.”
Catholic sources describe artistic beauty as more than aesthetic pleasure. Christian art has an intrinsic symbolic character—it “refers beyond itself” toward God and toward the mystery of Christ, moving the viewer “from the interior ‘for self’ to that of the ‘more than self.’”
This is why the Church can say that artistic creation has a capacity to evoke “the ineffable aspects of the mystery of God,” and that—when authentic—it can provoke astonishment, create wonder, and open a person to transcendence.
Implication for urban renewal: a derelict building is not only a physical loss; it can also represent a loss of meaning and hope. Catholic teaching links beauty with “wonder” and with lifting a person out of resignation and despair.
The Church’s cultural approach explicitly treats Christian art as an “instrument of evangelisation, catechesis and dialogue,” but it stresses that this requires the right conditions—especially the ability of people to “seize the message of Christian art.” Simply placing art in a space is not enough; the patrimony must be able to express its message.
In this framework, art becomes a kind of pastoral “language.” Christian artwork can “learn its own language” of admiration, emotion, and conversion—but that also presumes formation, since “biblical illiteracy sterilises the capacity for comprehension of Christian art.”
Implication for a studio model: if a renewed Catholic art space teaches people how to read Christian iconography and sacred meaning—rather than treating religious art as mere style—then it functions as a local “areopagus,” meeting modern city life with beauty that can point beyond itself.
Catholic teaching affirms that the Church’s cultural treasures can be a resource for new evangelization and catechesis—and for rekindling a Christian humanism—when they are “properly preserved and intelligently used.”
Similarly, the Church acknowledges that a true work of art is “potentially a way into religious experience,” and that support for Christian artists helps reach people who may have “no other contact with the message of Christ.”
Implication for reuse of a former convent/chapel: renewal can mean more than preservation in glass cases; it can mean putting Christian heritage back into circulation—into training, creation, exhibitions, and education—so that the building serves life again while the spiritual “imprint” of the tradition remains intelligible.
St. John Paul II teaches that society needs artists not only for culture, but as an “exceptional social service in favour of the common good.” He emphasizes that artists should labor without being driven by “empty glory” or “cheap popularity,” and that there is an ethic (even a “spirituality”) of artistic service.
Benedict XVI similarly presents beauty as something that restores confidence and hope: genuine beauty does not remove people from reality; it can “liberat[e] it from darkness” and transfigure everyday life.
Implication for city spaces: converting a neglected structure into a Catholic art studio can contribute to renewal in several concrete ways that align with this teaching:
The Church warns that a modern problem has been a “divorce” between art and the sacred, which can lead to a failure to treat Christian themes due to lack of formation. The result can include “ugliness” in churches or desacralisation—seen as a “laceration” that needs healing.
Catholic teaching also insists that art and faith must not be reduced to emotion alone: materialist or ideologically driven readings that focus only on aesthetic-formal aspects “sterilise” art’s living spiritual meaning.
Implication: the Catholic “urban renewal” value of a studio depends heavily on what it actually does:
The Church’s cultural guidance on former churches includes practical recommendations about what to remove when a sacred building is repurposed—especially “altars, lecterns, pulpits, sacred images and sacred furnishings generally,” since their presence can be “in opposition to the new use of space.”
This is not a blanket judgment about every type of reuse, but it highlights a key Catholic principle: sacred things must be treated with discernment when the space changes function.
If Cappella Studio operates as a real center of Catholic artistic formation and interpretation—helping people encounter Christian beauty as symbolic truth leading toward Christ—then it exemplifies a deeply Catholic model of renewal: beauty that stirs wonder, supports evangelization and catechesis, serves the common good, and heals the separation of art from the sacred.