Breastplate

“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

Ephesians 6 v 12-14 (NRSV)

What images come to mind when you read this passage? What powerful abstractions: flesh, blood, dark powers and battling cosmic forces. And what sort of armour do you envisage putting on? Medieval chain-mail perhaps or since the words were addressed to first century Greek Christians living in Ephesus; a bronze cuirsass?

But as I sat in the Side Chapel at St James’s one summer’s morning in 2023, feeling ‘under attack’ the image that came to mind was a white, light-filled flak-jacket; body armour for the modern age designed to protect against shrapnel and high velocity bullets. But the physical strength of carbon steel and ballistic fabric offers no protection against cosmic forces…  another sort of flak jacket is needed.

My artistic practice includes writing ‘poetic instructions’ to craftspeople, inviting them to make something that I am unable to make myself. Blacksmiths, dancers, glass-blowers, potters have all collaborated. And so, I wrote the poem that I eventually sent unannounced to seamstress/artist Kim Thornton that starts with the words: “Seamstress, make me armour, a breastplate to protect the heart.”

Kim writes: “Whilst I was making something tangible, it seemed to be almost ethereal. I imagined it as a jacket to protect Sara in the next world – something fashioned as armour yet vulnerable and fragile. The brief required it to be sturdy enough to take on a bodily form and support objects. It was a challenging piece to make, since any mistakes would be visible because the fabrics were so delicate.”

Kim Thornton, Seamstress

And what of the 7+1 talismans? And what talismanic objects would you choose to take onto the ‘battlefield’?

My kit-list includes an amethyst for protection, especially against the ‘merciless powers’ of addiction, olive-oil to anoint and Christ-en anyone or anything that needs it, a bronze coin minted in the penultimate year of WWI to pay the Charon the Ferryman if required, my paternal grandmother’s confirmation cross engraved with her name ‘Constance’ meaning standing firm, a phial of proto-bread seeds harvested by the St James’s community in 2020, a compass and in an inside pocket, a lamp and copper ‘battery-cell’ to provide inner light and conductive warmth.

BREASTPLATE was made to fit me, although I have never worn the finished article. But importantly, it implies a body, even one that is absent. An important decision was how to display such an ephemeral piece in the voluminous space of St James’s. In the end, the choice felt inevitable.

The invisibly suspended, unyielding, steel rod intends to suggest a Crucifix hung above the altar; the holes drilled in the steel are set 150mm from each end of the bar, to mark the likely crucifixion-nail points in the wrists, normally skewed between the radius and the ulna to hold the dead-weight of a hanging human body. BREASTPLATE could be read as both a Good Friday and an Easter Morning piece, a sort of gestalt of presence and absence, death and resurrection. And an invitation for us, to put on the Christ Force; the only sure protection for our Earthly journey “so that (we) may be able to stand firm on that (and indeed any) day”.

I hope BREASTPLATE enriches and comforts you this Easter.

Sara Mark, April 2025