"Celestial Fire."
"What did he know, and when did he know it?" Many an inquiry into political scandal or criminal activity has sought to explain and evidence the process that led to the crisis or the crime. When I try to explain a finished tapestry those same probing questions seem important.
Most of my tapestries are attempts to give visual form to a written text. They are inevitably subjective in process, occasionally spontaneous in the turns and twists of how the finished piece turns out, and so, until quite late on, unpredictable. This one is no different. It is based on two texts, George Herbert's 'The Altar', and Charles Wesley's 'O Thou who camest from above'. Both writers use the image of sacrifice and altar, and in this tapestry the two coalesce in the one piece of art.
Informing the entire process is a personal history with these texts, which have had transformative influence on my experience of God. They have shaped my theological style which is intentionally and essentially ecumenical and evangelical. They continue to nourish my spirituality, which I consider a work in progress, and with no final blueprint that predetermines outcome - other than "my heart's desire" to grow in the knowledge of God, and the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit.
From the start, my only fixed decision was to place the defining image of the altar in a central panel set against two contrasting landscapes. One would be reminiscent of my own native Scotland, the other an idealised garden with flowers and trees. This started as a simple contrast to set off the central panel, but what separates them is a ribbon of blue, a river. Somewhere in the working of that river my mind flipped to Eden, and the river that flowed through the garden. The contrast between a landscape I live with daily, and a garden which is more 'I wish' than reality, took on theological significance as reality and ideal. They acknowledge the way life is as I have to live it, and give substance to the turn of the heart in aspiration towards God. Taken together they represent both the discontent and desire that underlie spiritual hunger for God.
Once I had decided on the contrast of untamed sky, mountain, forest, and moorland with a much more stylised neutral background with fruit trees and flowers, the overall setting became clearer.
The irises bottom left have long been symbols in the church of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, the doctrinal core of a Christian understanding of sacrifice. The bottom right has a vine laden with grapes, which is pure George Herbert, and one of his most powerful images for the sacrifice of Christ and the significance of the Eucharist for the church. The tree in the centre is actually one of two things! As a rambling rose it too recalls the Passion which is symbolised by the altar directly above it. As an apple tree (John Goldingay thinks an apricot tree!) it has its own significance in Eden as the place and time of confluence, when divine history and human history were moved purposively from creation towards redemption and beyond.
The altar is shaped exactly in imitation of Herbert's poem, and is done in plain stitch, but cemented in a way that indicates the layers of Herbert's altar-shaped poem. This was an exercise in counting the holes in the canvas and matching them to the lines and letters of the poem! The altar sits on pristine variegated green, behind it a darkened sky but with promise of dawn and new beginnings. The altar is highlighted with metallic thread, which spreads right and left to the rainbow circle, a faintly cruciform hint.
The flame was always going to be both central and focal, and is a representation of celestial fire, an inextinguishable blaze, and a flame of sacred love - the shape is roughly an inverted heart, the mean altar on which the sacrifice is offered. It was at this point, almost at the end of the work, that the full picture began to cohere around its theme, at least in my own mind. The circular border is a rainbow, biblical symbol of covenant promise, as the faithful and steadfast love of God is seen in the sacrifice of Christ as its defining and final revelation.
So, what did I know and when did I know it? The main idea of the focal centre of altar and flame was there from the start, though how it would work out remained to be solved. The background was worked ad hoc, the colours chosen and the flowing lines roughly pencilled in but sometimes changed. The river ribbon of blue has its own symbolism both in relation to Eden, and as a colour often symbolising heaven. Once the lines of the top section were complete they gave the lines of the top of the second section - the river is both a line of demarcation, and a place of joining.
The flowers and fruits were developed in relation to the space. The vine as symbol of the Eucharist and the wine of the Kingdom of God have deep echoes in the poetry of Herbert, especially in the remarkable language of 'The Agonie'. It recalls Herbert's final lines:
O let Thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
and sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.
Doing a tapestry like this is a process of contemplative and prayerful recall. I know the words of both poems by heart, and hope that, at the very least, they sometimes express my best spiritual intentions, however short of them I fall. The finished work, and the creative process before it,is also an exercise in giving an inner testimony visible form. In that sense it is deeply personal, in its own way prayer offered through the work of the hands.
In Praise II, Herbert promises God "Wherefore with my utmost art / I will sing Thee:" I guess a tapestry like this is a thread and canvas attempt to fulfil some of that loving intent.
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