The art of the vestment: textile artist’s work can touch the Body of Christ

Liturgical vestments and sacred linens are oddities in a world of mass-produced clothes and fast fashion, and local textile artist Ilone Payne is just fine with that as she demonstrates the hand-stitched embroidery she uses to embellish her creations. 

“Nobody really knows what it is,” she says about her work making linens and textiles for sacred purposes. 

What might help her work become better known is The Craft of Spirit: B.C. Liturgical Textiles, an exhibit at the Italian Cultural Center’s Il Museo museum until March 31.  Featuring a selection of Payne’s work in addition to art pieces, the exhibit includes liturgical vestments and textiles on loan from a number of local Catholic parishes, including St. Helen’s in Burnaby and St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Vancouver, as well as Christian, and non-Christian churches and communities across Vancouver.

Curator Angela Clarke told The B.C. Catholic that the idea for the exhibit came from her interest in Italian immigrant communities and how they brought vestments and textiles from the old country to B.C. She wanted to explore the relationship between the communities’ origins and the materials and designs they brought to worship.

The exhibit contains antique textiles from local churches (Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant) as well as the work of contemporary textile artists. The exhibit’s spiritual textile consultant, Thomas Roach, contributed vestments and art pieces he commissioned for Vancouver’s Anglican Christ Church Cathedral.

Payne initially planned to make a set of vestments for the exhibit but then opted for something more subtle: a complete set of liturgical linens. Among her contributions are an antependium (the cloth that hangs in front of the altar), a tabernacle shroud, and a set of liturgical linens, including a corporal, purificator, lavabo towel, pall, veil, and burse, or pouch.

Like any sacred art, her work has a spiritual component. Cloth is used to adorn and cover. Whether it’s a chalice, tabernacle, or human body, objects with value are endowed by covering them in cloth.

“There is a kind of spirituality where we use textiles,” she said. “We clothe ourselves. There is a sense that we cover up what is sacred. We use textiles for that.”

Many of her contributions represent personal sacrifice on the part of the artist. In the modern world, where so many cultural ideas around art point toward self-expression, it can be perplexing to consider that an artist would dedicate time to something only seen by a few people.

Payne said she sometimes struggles with this reality. Her work is labour intensive and, because of ignorance, often treated with dismissal and contempt.

“Sometimes the things you make aren’t respected. I have experienced that,” she said.

Although some people struggle to understand why anyone would devote so much time and energy to creating textile artwork in a world of mass production and cheap clothing, the proximity of Payne’s work to the Mass makes it worthwhile. “When you make these smaller things, you are almost reaching to touch the altar,” she said.

In that sense, the linens receive greater honour than the art that hangs on the church’s walls. Like the veil of Veronica, a set of linens can touch the Body and Blood of Christ—something even the most distinguished icon will never experience.

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