Saturday, October 31, 2009

Priestly garments

Choice A for white--Chi Ro is bright gold, even though it looks dark in this picture
Choice B for White

Fr. Flynn wears this one as the play opens.

Making these has been mulling over and over in my mind for months. Yesterday, I finally got the time to do them.

The green was not a problem. I made the center motif months ago, and showed it to you in my blog. The white one required some thinking, because in the script, the playwrite describes it as "blue and white vestment". In Catholic liturgical circles, blue was not a color of a vestment that was used within the past century.

Some churches would make/buy a white vestment with blue trim for feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The vestment would only be used for feasts honoring Mary, such as her birthday, Sept. 8, the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, Annunciation, March 25, Assumption, Aug. 15. So it was used very sparingly, and most churches couldn't afford to buy something that was used so little.

In the progression of the play "Doubt", the wearing of the second vestment, the white one, could have been in late fall/early winter, and may have been the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Dec. 8. So I chose a motif picturing the Blessed Virgin Mary as a possible embellishment for it. But to make it more generic, or possibly usuable for other occasions, perhaps they used the typical symbol for vestments, the Chi Ro, which symbolizes Christ.

So what do you think? BVM or Chi Ro? I'm on the fence. Comment to tell me which you think looks best.

The green one is finished, and will not be changed. It is what it is.

Need to get all the "On Borrowed Time" things organized today. The actors and actresses will try them on tomorrow.

3 comments:

MonkeyGirl said...

I vote for Chi Ro - for two reasons - more options for re-use in the future and a much more dramatic impact from the back row. BVM is very pretty but her detail is going to be lost on the crowd. Just my humble "picky" opinion!

sewwhat? said...

Very good opinion from the design perspective, and I agree, it is more dramatic. I never thought of the options for re-use factor, but that is so true. Thanks--great humble/picky opinion.

NV said...

Ditto that. (Another case of brain-sharing in action!)