Oakland California Temple Drawing

The Oakland California Temple is one of a series of detailed pencil drawings and paintings created by the artist Chad S. Hawkins. In 1989, at the age of seventeen, Chad started this unique temple series, becoming the original LDS artist to involve hidden spiritual images in his artwork.

In the Oakland California Temple drawing, the hidden image is based upon a prophecy that Apostle George Albert Smith made in the summer of 1924. Elder Smith prophesied that sometime in the future, a white temple would surmount the East Bay hills. It would be as a lighthouse to ships as they passed under the Golden Gate from the far-flung nations of the earth. The Oakland Temple is a direct fulfillment of this prophecy made by one who later became a president of the LDS Church. The magnificent temple rises as an ensign in glistening white stone on the hills overlooking the city of Oakland and over the waters of the famous San Francisco Bay, which leads out to the Pacific Ocean. As a reminder of the prophecy, Chad placed a lighthouse scene among the trees with a beam of light focused towards the famous bay.