Today's mosaic rests inside St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in North Hollywood: "Our Lady of Perpetual Help." It's smallish, and off to the left of the main altar--but it's beautiful, huh?
The mosaic replicates a famous 15th century icon that was first displayed publicly in Rome in 1499. The icon might be much older--a paper attached to it back then said it was stolen by a merchant from Crete, then hung in the Roman home of another merchant for generations before being given to the Roman Catholic Church for display. It's Byzantine in origin, but some legends link it back to St. Luke of the Bible--read more about them on Wikipedia.
The original icon is below.
The North Hollywood church has existed since the 1920s as a community, but the present church was completed in 1959. J. Earl Trudeau was the architect.
This is not the only mosaicized version of the icon. While looking for pictures I found one in Detroit (at a Church named Our Lady of Perpetual Help), in St. Augustine, FL, a huge one in Mt. Macrina, which is near Oak Hill and Uniontown...(Here's a pet peeve: why is it that so many websites (even local newspapers) neglect to give their state, zip, or anything that would help someone locate them? Just a thought: your internet visitors may not be local.) To continue--there's a mosaic of Our Lady of Perpetual Help framed by mosaic angels in Farmington, MI (they even credit the artist! Huzzah!) and an enormous outdoor mosaic at a Ukrainian church in Wheeling WV. And many more.
But the North Hollywood one, I have to say, pops.
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