Croft Memorial Hall had been flooded on October 20th. We were very lucky to have been able to hold our meeting and extend a huge ‘thank you’ to all involved in the clean up. You can find more pictures of the extent of the flooding on Facebook ‘Croft Village Memorial Hall’.
Thanks to the sterling efforts of the village hall team and volunteers we were very pleased to able to welcome our speaker Father Andrew Johnson for his talk on ‘Ecclesiastical Textiles’.
Fr. Andrew explained that his textile career had started when he was three and before the age of twelve he had tried lacemaking, spinning and patchwork. This lead on to art college and travels to explore other techniques such as sprang and tablet weaving.
Places of worship have used illustrative work such as paintings and stained glass for millennia to relate meaning and textiles such as tapestries can also help with the acoustic problems experienced in large buildings. Many other types of fabric such as linen and lace as well as embroidered vestments, decorative falls and frontals are on view to depict the passage through the church year and as ways of glorifying God.
Having learned many new ecclesiastical words (maniple and burse for example} we were referred to some exquisite weaving and embroidery by inspirational creators:
Syon Cope V&A
The Graham Sutherland Tapestry, Coventry Cathedral
Theo Moorman Altar Frontal, Ripon Cathedral
and Beryl Dean’s Bishop of London Jubilee Cope (1977) depicting all the churches of London
Fr. Andrew concluded by showing us some examples of his own commissions around the world:
He has undertaken work in St.Helena, The Falklands and New Zealand as well as many nearer home like Walwyn’s Castle in Pembrokeshire.
Some examples of Father Andrew's work:
Text: JFG
Pics (of Fr.Andrew's work) Liz
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