ATLANTIC CITY — A Catholic artist is betting that an art studio he opened in a city famous for gambling will draw people closer to the Catholic faith.
In Atlantic City, New Jersey, home to nine casinos, artist Jim Dessicino draws visitors to Cappella Studio, an art studio created in a 90-year-old building that formerly served as a convent.
“This is a city where people hope for a bit of luck to change their lives,” he said. “Why can’t it be a place where they create beautiful art that changes their lives?”
Dessicino, 41, spent six months renovating the space, turning the three-story, 5,000-square-foot building into art studios, classrooms, and guest rooms for artists in residence, before opening it in early July.
Dessicino said the process wasn’t easy, explaining that the building required significant upgrades to the roof, plumbing, and electrical systems.
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Now, two months into its opening, Cappella Studio has attracted scores of students to its classes. It has also welcomed its first resident artist — Gabriel Akre, a sculptor who has spent the past five years studying at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. Dessicino said he envisions Cappella Studio as a place for evangelization, where artists can use their painting, drawing, and sculpting talents to draw people closer to the faith, and where non-artists can be inspired by beauty.
“I’m learning that the reason I was given the gift of being an artist is much more to be an evangelizer through beauty than anything else,” said Dessicino, a multidisciplinary artist whose religious-themed works won recognition from the American Institute of Architects Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art, and Architecture in 2016.
Dessicino was born and raised in Atlantic City but lived in Bushwick for about 20 years.
He is a parishioner of the Parish of St. Monica, where he has helped lead people to the Catholic faith by teaching in the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) program.
Cappella Studio is located on the campus of the Parish of St. Monica. The former convent also houses a chapel, which Dessicino chose to renovate first.
“I felt it was important to have a place in the building for people to have Eucharistic adoration,” Dessicino explained. “Fixing the chapel took five weeks because I was basically doing it by myself. It’s a small space. It fits about 24 people.
“But once we opened it, we opened it for Eucharistic adoration Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” he said, “and right away, we started getting 15-plus people a day.”
Dessicino, who lived in Rome for a time and led tours of the Vatican, said he was inspired to renovate the chapel after reading about St. Francis of Assisi rebuilding a crumbling church in San Damiano in 1205. St. Francis was praying in the church when he heard the voice of God instructing him to rebuild it.
“Pope Leo XIV declared the Jubilee Year for St. Francis this year. It got me thinking. St. Francis repaired a church. Maybe I’m supposed to repair a chapel,” he recalled.
After the chapel reopened, people who streamed into the chapel approached Dessicino and offered to help him get the budding art studio into shape.
After the chapel reopened, people who streamed into the chapel approached Dessicino and offered to help him get the budding art studio into shape.
“People started coming up and asking, ‘What are you doing here? Can I help?’ It was great,” he said.
As for the project itself, Dessicino said he was also inspired to open it after reading documents from Vatican II, particularly text about the Church and artists.
“The document specifically asks for bishops to find artists and to have them create sacred art schools and academies where it’s necessary,” Dessicino said, “and that spoke to me.”
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