Designing and making the tapestries for the Lady Chapel
/The vibrant tapestries in the Lady Chapel were designed and made by artist Bobbie Cox (1930-2018). Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1990-1991.
I was one of the people Canon Edward Turner visited when searching for an artist to design and make a pair of tapestries for the Lady Chapel, one for the altar frontal and one for the wall immediately behind it. This was Easter 1989 and in May I received his invitation to prepare designs for submission to the Dean and Chapter and the Cathedral Fabric Committee. One other artist was invited to do the same.
On my first visit to Rochester Canon Turner explained that the two tapestries must be seen essentially as a related pair, be abstract in design so as not to conflict with the figuration in the tall stained glass windows above, be sympathetic to those windows and incorporate their basic colours of red and blue. After much discussion the Dean and Chapter had agreed on a theme: it was to be 'meetings'. Meetings could be of all kinds: those recorded in the Gospels, aspects of suffering and resurrection, concepts of creativity, birth and transformation, and much else. It was hoped that the theme of 'meetings', which was relevant to the Lady Chapel, would also touch the casual visitor and encourage contemplation.
Designing is a key element in producing a tapestry, particularly when it is for a specific site. The challenge for an artist is to take into account both the contextual requirements of the client's brief and the architectural needs of the site and yet produce designs which are true to his or her own creative instincts and style.
My first job was to spend time in the Lady Chapel and observe its use, architecture, historical associations and changing light. I photographed, measured light, measured spaces and wrote impressions. On a second visit I attended an early morning service of Holy Communion, had a chance to meet other canons and hear what they would like the tapestries to do for the Lady Chapel. The Head Verger kindly showed me the whole range of vestments used for different occasions.
Notebook extract, 10th July, 1989
'During the day visitors flowed through this magnificent space, a detour off the nave, for most a quick visit, some paused, some sat. Tapestries should bring focus and colour down into the lower part of the chapel. The design should be quickly apprehended especially by casual visitors, challenge them to pause and find meaning in its detail and see the connections made with the architecture and the glass above.
'Early morning communion - bright light - altar and back wall became the focus, the officiating priest standing between the two. Background must be calm, not fidgety and of sympathetic colour to his vestments - today's chasuble green and blue, tomorrow's foxglove and scarlet, slate blue and crimson or white and gold.
On the front and backs of all chasubles is the V shape - a strong symbol of meeting. Priest's hands often raised in this angle, and brought together over the altar emphasising centrality, as do the windows: in each are central figures, with other characters looking in from left and right. Centrality goes right up through to top point of arch. The congregation sits round the site - a 3D situation - the relationship of altar to back wall not static'.
During these two visits I thought a lot about the theme, 'meetings' - ultimately symbolic of man's meeting with God - which had to be realised through the abstract qualities of line, colour and shape. If it was to be readily accessible to its viewers, who for the most part would be more used to a pictorial message, the design must be simple and direct.
Abstract designs demand of the viewer individual interpretations based on their own experience.
Weaving contributes its own texile qualities to the design through warmth, texture and colour. its construction brings a discipline to whatis possible in line and shape. It was also an appropriate medium for expressing this particular theme. Weaving becomes fabric through the meeting, interweaving and resolution of vertical and horizontal threads and for this reason is regarded as a symbol of totality and integration in some cultures and therefore sacred.
I also looked at frescoes of meetings in 12th century churches which, though pictorial, have used abstract means to heighten the subject, such as the kiss of Judas at Nohant le Vic in France where intensely agonizing lines of drapery meet at the kiss, intensifying the emotional moment, or the tension of the two fingers meeting in Michelangelo's creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel.
These various thoughts influenced the design I worked on. I decided that the tapestries should each be made in two halves, thus creating a centre line to which shapes come in from left to right in a V. In the altar frontal these were to meet with clarity and firmness, a symbol of resolution in blues and reds. In the tapestry on the back wall the unresolved shapes, jostling together along a horizontal band low down, were also to meet centrally but with discord, tension, irregularity, indicating difficulties, struggles, emergence of journeys and development. Colour at the top was to move from ochre and golds slowly down through big bands of syncopating rusts and pinks leading the eye away from the glare of the windows down to reds and the blue band of meetings. These big bands were to be calm below the figurative windows and dependant on their textile qualities to give them luminosity and life.
This was something not easy to convey in a painted design and I wondered therefore if it would seem too simplistic to a committee and not seem to give sufficient importance to the context of meetings. Another design I prepared compensated for this by filling the space with a patina of meetings but it proved fidgety and busy, conflicting with other needs of the site. I tussled between the two, feeling the first was what I believed was right but the second more likely to be acceptable. In the end I submitted the first, not expecting that it would win the day, and went off to America on holiday and began to plan my winter's work.
To my amazement in November Michael Skinner phoned to say that my design had been chosen and could we meet to discuss the possibility of two more tapestries - one each side of the altar to complete the symmetry. I was very pleased - this extension had been something originally considered by the Committee but dismissed. I had, however, mentioned at the end of my submission how much the project would benefit from returning to this idea.
I now had a major job on hand, and one I could look forward to making with confidence - the part a well worked out design plays in the role of making. I planned to start making in February but, first, I had to extend the design. A sub-committee had been formed to agree this and to see the project through. I recall with pleasure those consultative meetings - Canon Lea's judgement and perceptive eye for detail and Michael Skinner's enthusiasm and calm support.
In adding a tapesty on either side I was able to extend the blue horizontal line right across the South wall. The blues became greens at the meeting point on the left, and mauves on the right. These colours were taken from the windows above. The big syncopating bands of colour remained similar, only paler, not so intense, keeping horizontal links throughout. Again this happens in the windows. On the altar frontal the blues on the left became greenish and on the right mauves.
The extended design was accepted in December and I had two months to get ready for weaving - finding reliable sources of material, putting in orders, drawing plans to scale, establishing the right spin for yarns, calculating weaving techniques by making samples, long days of spinning and dyeing, resulting eventually in some 16 kilos of coloured skeins hanging up to dry. This made for a good start.
Weaving is a constantly demanding process both physically and mentally. I work on a vertical frame. The weaving grows line by line from the bottom and is beaten down to make it firm. It cannot always be done seated. Even if its cold, weaving keeps me warm. I work on a trolley which moves up as the tapestry grows.
It is essential that I stick to the design but there are constant decisions to make as I cannot predict exactly what is going to happen on a tapestry of this scale. I have never made one like it before; there is always the unknown - something unexpected presents itself. As a new tapestry grows so does its presence emerge - it leaps from the little paper plan into life day by day and soon becomes a statement in its own right. While line by line something new is building - so durable that it can outlive me - to see it grow is compulsive and gives a great sense of achievement and satisfaction. But there are mornings of gloom, returning freshly to see that something which happened the evening before should not be there - it must go, must be unpicked.
In making No. 1 the first difficulty I met was that my big range of blues did not really glow in dim light. They sank together. I found that, if I twisted two unexpected colours together, e.g. mauves and turquoise or blue and red, I achieved vibration - Impressionist painting techniques, adding considerably to the preparation of the yarn but with worthwhile results. I also wanted to weave the shapes within the back wall tapestries with fretted, softer edges in contrast to the firmer lines of the altar frontal. Colour is dependant on its neighbour and getting the big bands to achieve a gradual movement of colour without becoming bland and soft was difficult. A little unexpected edge was needed here and there. One sunny day my youngest daughter visiting said 'Mum, what jazzy colours. Are you really putting these in a cathedral?' But when evening came and simulated the light of the Lady Chapel, she could see how necessary this was.
By early summer I had completed the first two halves. I was anxious but excited as the two came together and met. Each half had been 170-200 hours of weaving time and still I had the backs to finish. And then I went straight into weaving the other two big tapestries, through the summer and autumn, but with the all the benefit and experience of having completed the first.
In January all three big tapestries were completed, making quite a presence around me. I started on the altar frontal straightaway. It seemed small after the others, the wool finer to suit this scale. The crisp edges in the pattern demanded a new technique. When it was finished, I turned seamstress to make the throw-over it was to hang from. So all was complete to be packed and ready for hanging 25/26th April and dedication on the 27th at evensong.
As we hung the tapestries one by one, members of the Cathedral looked in and responded with spontaneous warmth, which was reassuring. The altar frontal was hung last and had the immediate effect of bringing the whole ensemble together.
The service of dedication at evensong which followed was a magnificent occasion, very well attended, brilliantly conceived, with its superb music, an especially written anthem and an extended carol, the appreciative words from Canon Turner and the dedication by the Dean. Even the light that afternoon was kind and made the tapestries glow. For me, as the artist, it was an immensely rewarding way in which to celebrate the end of a longjourney.
Bobbie Cox
The Friends of Rochester Cathedral were founded to help finance the maintenance of the fabric and grounds. The Friends’ annual reports have become a trove of articles on the fabric and history of the cathedral.
Keeping the Cathedral standing, warm, lit, beautiful and ready to receive worshippers and visitors is a never-ending task.
