Editor’s Note: Matthew Chicoine interviewed Chris Lewis via phone call on August 7th, 2025. Some of the questions/answers have been rearranged, edited, and paraphrased to provide the best reader experience without losing any integrity of the answers given.
What inspired you to start creating Catholic art?
I had been a graphic designer for a number of years and I was a convert. I converted as a practicality to get married in the Church but eventually I started to have questions about the faith I accepted, and was being pulled to learn the faith for myself which led to a profound and authentic intellectual conversion. However in my 30’s I was diagnosed with lung cancer and this experience shook me spiritually. I learned I was grateful for my gifts and thought maybe I should use these gifts to help share the faith.
I started doing Catholic art for fun and as a cathartic experience. I used to be an illustrator. And I would hand-draw everything. I went into graphic design for stability.
When I started out sharing my sketches on social media my art took off. When you started Baritus Catholic in 2018, I was still working at my full-time graphic design job. Two years later, I decided to go full-time with Baritus Catholic.
How did you decide the name of your company?
I love reading ancient history. I was reading about the fall of the barbarians to the Romans in the 300s. There was a war cry that sounded like a trumpet, it was called “baritus”. That’s actually where we get the word baritone from. The war-cry and trumpeting reminded me of the angels ushering in the end time judgement in Revelation and the war-cry at Jericho in the Book of Joshua.
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