Needle in; needle out

Designer opts to create church vestments rather than swimsuits

Catherine Comer displays her handiwork at General Synod 2004.

When priests don church vestments are they acting like prima donnas in fancy dress? Liturgical arts designer Catherine Comor doesn’t think so. She believes God can minister to the congregation through this “visual liturgy.”  For Comor the altar is the focus of the worship space and the vestments simply accent it.

“It’s not about clergy outdoing one another in garb. If an airline pilot

walked into the cockpit in shorts and a tank-top, he would not instill much confidence in either his passengers or his crew.”

When Comor was a 12-year-old preparing for confirmation, she became fascinated by Christian symbolism and now sees her works as “personal preaching tools.”

“Symbols ground us and focus our worship. And in the Anglican Church we value ceremonial dress. As a parishioner I enjoy that there is colour, texture and motion giving significance to the priest as God’s disciple who embraces us all.”

Not only Anglicans, but also Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, the Eastern Orthodox and United Church clergy have all sought her work. Her designs are appearing across the continent, in Texas and Halifax, Toronto and Lethbridge.

She admits that much of her early work was “cookie-cutterish.” All the crosses and doves looked the same.  There was much “clunky symbolism on polyester.” It was not as stimulating as the motifs found in traditional vestments such as the Coronation Tapestry or the Ely Crown, the Glastonbury Crown of Thorns or the Tudor Rose. Now her work is more stylized and personalized. One of her designers, Sharon Gashgarian, was given the simple instruction, “Make me something beautiful.”

What resulted was a glorious banner of an elegant Phoenix rising from the ashes. Another modern piece, a stole called “Ribbons of Life,” swirls with lively streams of colour on a pure white background.

Comor imports traditional damasks from England and Italy and raw silks from China. She also employs natural Canadian wools and cottons. Despite the name of her company, “Traditions in Fabric,” many of her works are modern and incorporate interior design fabrics.

More churches are embracing the liturgical calendar, putting fabric designers like Comor in high demand.

Five colours dominated the traditional liturgical calendar of the Church: white, symbolizing the purity and joy of the Christmas and Easter seasons as well as baptisms and weddings, purple for the penitential seasons of Lent and Advent and confession, red symbolizing the fire of the Holy Spirit associated with Pentecost as well as confirmations and ordinations, black conveying the sorrow of Good Friday and funerals, and green for Trinity, a season of spiritual growth.

Gold also celebrates the high feasts days of Christmas and Easter. Recently blue has been introduced for Advent and the feast days of the Virgin Mary, and rose for the third Sunday in Advent and the fourth in Lent, thus extending Comor’s palette.

After receiving a church commission, Comor will sit down with the congregation and discuss various themes.  She helps them determine whether the work is to be suitable for all the liturgical seasons or just one or if it is to reflect the life of that local church.  Then she will send them some renditions in pencil and later some paintings with fabric swatches.  A lot of congregations encourage fundraising for such special projects so monies are not drained from missions or church repairs.

Eighty per cent of her altar coverings are memorial gifts.  Her company also offers gift certificates and a registry.  

Swimsuits or vestments

Comor’s mother, Mary Ensor, grew up in India where she learnt traditional techniques for exquisite East Indian embroidery.  She tried to teach her young daughter that it wasn’t hard, simply, “Needle in; needle out.” But Catherine had little patience as a child, although she did manage to earn her Brownie sewing badge by creating some clothes for her Barbie doll.

Later she studied technical patternmaking and construction at George Brown College, followed by needletrade management at York University.  After graduation she had two job interviews, one with a company producing bathing suits and another with Maison Bouvier, which creates church vestments.  “I could have drafted patterns for either but I loved the spiritual connection with the church vestments.”

For five years she worked as assistant production manager at Maison Bouvier, then for fifteen years as production manager of vestments at D. Shuter Robes. Both companies gave her a strong background in traditional vestments and restoration. Then seven years ago, she opened her own company in Brantford, Ontario.

Comor also runs workshops to help parishioners design their own banners and altar cloths. She demonstrates various techniques and offers them leftover fabric scraps. “I hate to throw anything out.”

For insurance purposes she encourages congregations to itemize all their vestments and tapestries. “They should be recognized as church treasures along with chalices and silver plates and documented as part of the interior space.”

A popular speaker at the annual meetings of altar guilds, Comor advises them on restoration and helps them design storage space, so each item in their care suffers the least amount of stress.  One workshop simply involved covering hangers with quilted fabric to reduce stress points on garments.

While quilting is popular in North America, embroidery guilds are folding.  Their skills could be lost to future generations.  So Comor freely offers technical advice to amateur embroiderers.  And she’ll also share their work, embroidering a piece that a parishioner has cut or sewing a piece someone else has embroidered.

She helps put parish treasures back into worship.  She refinished a century old altar cloth at St. Jude’s, Oakville, lifting the delicate lace off a threadbare backcloth, then gently attaching the mint-condition embroidered flowers to a new silk damask cloth. The restored altar covering should be good for another hundred years.

She considers it a privilege to hold history in her hands and tries to restore century-old work using identical embroidery techniques.

“I’m passionate.  I want it done right.  And I hope people will lovingly restore my pieces sixty years from now.”