Fabric of Resurrection and Redemption: The Gown of Stillness
Editor’s note: this reflection was originally posted by the Catholic Artist Connection. The mission of the Catholic Artist Connection is to connect and support Catholic artists of all disciplines both professionally and spiritually, to ease the loneliness of being a Catholic artist and encourage the creation of art for Christ.
People look at the same sky, the same images in newspapers, but it’s how we respond that makes the difference. Creativity can be individual, but it can also be universal.
In 1994, I contacted poets, writers, artists, environmentalists, politicians, and groups through newsletters and made a simple request. I invited them to send pieces of fabric, which I planned to use in an installation I was creating, called Gown of Stillness. I enclosed a note: “If this world were a small child in need of healing, I would buy it a hospital gown, extra large, and give it intensive care. I would ask people, all over the world to add beauty, grace and love. The Gown Of Stillness is a visual letter, a work in progress.” The fabric, and the Gown, would represent a symbolic hope for global calmness, for peace.
There was a metaphoric response that was completely and utterly unplanned. Across borders and cultures, across races and faiths, the majority of people worldwide, strangers to one another, responded with lace.
A global language seemed to exist in reference to hope and peace that stepped outside the parameters of language, as we know it. Lace equaled language, equaled hope, equaled peace.
The touch of lace, the sound of the word, the sight of its delicate thread structures represented an organic, un-orchestrated global response to a hope for world calm. Lace became a language defying borders.
I received lace and embroidery from Canadian poets, writers, musicians and composers; embroidery created by a woman who had been raped in The Former Yugoslavia and was now living in a safe house; delicate fabric from a gay Canadian politician; thin material from an actor dying from AIDS; lace from Europe; pieces from wedding gowns and children’s clothing, everyone sharing a universal sensory perspective. Lace equaled symbol; equaled language; equaled voice; fabric overlapped like notes in a global symphony.
I have been working on a room-sized installation titled Stations of the Cross, and it follows the order of the traditional order, but from a modern perspective. The Gown of Stillness represents The Resurrection.
Currently, the Gown contains fabric from 91 people in 15 countries. Each year, its dimensions increase. It currently measures twelve feet by sixteen feet.
I create images of what I see: flowers, mountains, oceans, nature, and buildings. But I am also a writer and create images of language. There’s a place in the middle where we all meet. This is what I see as I work of the Gown of Stillness, a quiet place in the middle where we all meet.
The hope, portrayed through fabric from people around the world, has become a sound unto itself, the sound of lace.
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