Jeri Warner

The vestment “Marking the Dust and the Void” is designed to mark both our human knowledge and the void of our understanding as revealed in Ecclesiastes. It was inspired by 2 verses. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, we are told of the void in our knowledge of time. “God has permitted humans to consider time in its wholeness, yet we cannot comprehend the work of God from beginning to end.” Ecc. 3:21 tells us what has become the Ash Wednesday mantra for Christians, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

This artistic religious vestment is based on the Christian chasuble.

Humans live in time. We ritualize our time to mark and understand our remembrances through holidays and holy days. Many Christian religions follow the Liturgical Calendar. The vestments worn by celebrants reflect in their color the time of this calendar.

Ash Wednesday marks the entry into Lent, a time of repentance in preparation for Easter. The phrase “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” is a ritual statement marking Ash Wednesday and an entry into the Christian time of Lent. Foreheads are marked with a smudge of ash that is a symbol of our finiteness, and yet it connects us with the infinity of the universe.

Dust connects us to the holy. The back of the chasuble includes fabric that was decomposed in the dirt, dyed with acorn and walnut dyes, and embellished with stitch. The yarn was soaked in mud to create its connection to dried dust. A traditional chasuble includes an embroidered panel and orphrey panels that extend from it. These have been embroidered to reflect the universe.

Dust exists throughout the universe. It is the element that stars and galaxies are created from. Yet 80% of space is dark matter, devoid of dust. It is extremely cold and dark. It is an image of the void that Ecclesiastes points out we cannot understand. While our tendency is to fill a void, it is by recognizing the void that we experience more of the fullness of time. In the vestment, the blackness that fills the holes represents the black matter with the experience of galaxies that fill the universe.

The front of the chasuble continues the sense of the void. The largest void facing churches is the lack of the feminine. It creates a void in our understanding and knowledge of the eternal. The front panel is from my grandmother’s quilts with handmade lace surrounding it, then dyed with walnut dye. 

About Jeri

Jeri Warner is an emerging textile artist who entered the art world after retiring from Trusted Mentors, the award winning non-profit she founded. She is a recipient of a Herbert Simon Foundation Creative Risk Grant. She grew up sewing and now explores the potential for expression in textile. From the moment of our birth, we are wrapped in textile and throughout history, it has been used to express the deepest needs of life. She employs the decomposition of fabric in her art to explore the unexpected. 

Her art connects with the spiritual elements of ourselves and is a reflection of her love of theology. For her, space has become an entry to the spiritual and is an exploration of time and immensity at a moment when religion seems to focus on the small.