Holy Trinity Church Bosham

The Design

 I have taken the oblong shape of the altar frontal as an ideal format to balance three elements of the composition. 

On the left, representing the sea dependent nature of Bosham’s past and present, is an aquatic representation of the superabundance of creation, seen in kelps and seaweeds. 

In the centre is a Trinitarian net with three floats and a large haul of fish. This could refer to Christ’s instruction to his wary disciples to put out further into deep water and let down their nets, leading to the miraculous draft of fish, the 153 caught said to represent the nations of the world. Our vocation to be fishers of men is also symbolised, which ties us together with the historic fishing tradition of the parish. At a deeper mystical level the fish are depicted swimming freely in and out of the net, which opens the idea that we are willingly caught in the net of faith. We give ourselves into the seeming constriction of Christ’s service only to find in it complete freedom. 

The right hand section depicts the fish that the people of Bosham laid outside the city gates of Chichester during the plague thereby sustaining the enclosed inhabitants during their direst time of need. In repayment the citizens left their money in water troughs to decontaminate it.

Taken together the iconography reads as a single statement: God’s beneficence in creation is mirrored in the call to live in faith within the Trinity and, in turn, cause us to fulfil our calling to serve others. Our discipleship takes the form, in the most literal sense, of feeding the hungry, to the broader meaning of meeting the spiritual hunger of the world 

Mark Cazalet

The Weaving

The process of translation from design to tapestry begins with a conversation between the artist and weaver who discuss how the image will translate and begin to establish the colours and tones that will make up the basis of the palette of yarns to be woven.

There then follows a period of dyeing and weaving samples of colours to achieve the correct look and feel for the tapestry. A number of yarns are blended together before being woven which allows the weaver the ability to create both subtlety and strength of colour. During the sampling/dyeing period the cartoon is also being produced. The cartoon is a tracing of the original design which is then enlarged to the size of the tapestry and is placed behind the warp threads during weaving. The cartoon is essential as it is the guide for the weaver and ensures an accurate translation of the image. 

The first few days of weaving are very important in ‘setting the tone’ of the tapestry; the weaver has to consider both the small area which he is weaving and the piece as a whole in order to get the right balance of colour and tonal values in the tapestry.  As the weaving progresses it is wound round the bottom beam of the loom so that only a fraction of it is visible at any one time. The finished tapestry can only be seen in its entirety when it is cut from the loom; because of this it is important to record the different combinations of colour so that the weaver knows exactly what has been woven into the tapestry and can adjust mixes or make new ones when necessary.

The Altar frontal tapestry measures 257 cms x 91 cms and took approximately 10 months to weave, with the pulpit fall taking approximately 6 weeks to produce. Both tapestries are woven in wool and linen on a cotton warp at 2.5 ends per cm.

Philip Sanderson