The seventh chapter of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, is titled “Sacred Art and Sacred Furnishings.” Within that 1963 document, paragraph 124 states: “Ordinaries, by the encouragement and favor they show to art which is truly sacred, should strive after noble beauty rather than mere sumptuous display. This principle is to apply also in the matter of sacred vestments and ornaments.” As a local “ordinary” refers to a diocesan bishop, an abbot or a major superior, the paragraph addresses the place of sacred art within our own community. While this conciliar document refers to all endeavors of artistic merit, including music, our focus this month, for the third installment of “The Artists of the Abbey” series, is on the words “vestments and ornaments,” items so central in our liturgical life and our experience of the sacred. We introduce Bob Trump, a gentleman in St. Louis whose talent and expertise are matched only by his generosity in sharing his gifts with the world, and whose work is now enhancing liturgies at Portsmouth. 

Three miters designed and built by Bob Trump

Bob Trump has been a friend of mine since 1980. I was the production designer that summer of the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival & Elizabethan Faire, produced by the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, held then in a county park. Bob was a craftsperson participating in the festival, demonstrating lace-making with delicate antique bobbins and hand-spun threads. I had been on the Rep’s properties staff for four years, and Bob eventually followed “suit,” as it were, when he was hired as the men’s tailor in the costume department. We had a long and productive run in our respective departments, albeit providing what Sacrosanctum Concilium might label “mere sumptuous display,” working together for 25 seasons’ worth of plays, musicals and operas.   

In 2005, I retired from my Rep job, my free-lance work and my teaching position at a local university to enter the monastery. Bob was one of the many colleagues I feared I would see little of in the ensuing years. Instead, a wonderful thing happened. After decades of building costumes for theatrical liturgical scenes on stage (for example, Puccini’s Tosca, Steven Lutvak’s musical Esmeralda, and others), Bob’s work again took a direction similar to mine, this time to make habits and vestments for the monks. I remember him sharing with us that after years of building stage vestments out of expensive but glitzy fabrics, the better to be seen by the audience, he was intrigued to have a legitimate reason to research historical liturgical patterns and construction methods, and to replicate them using appropriate fabrics and trims, also expensive perhaps, but now striving after the “noble beauty” the Council identifies. 

The author of several books on tailoring, Bob brought the medieval and Renaissance worlds forward into the computer age, devising ingenious and accurate patterns for our monastic habits, white albs and voluminous black cowls. By taking only a few key body measurements and manipulating the paper patterns, he was able to accommodate any physical type, tall or short, stocky or lean. Monastic communities around the country, after hearing of his attention to detail, his affable easy-going manner in fittings, and his willingness to share his sartorial knowledge and research, reached out to him. However, content to continue sewing men’s stage clothes in his workshops in Webster Groves, he turned down many offers which would have surely brought him financial reward. 

The “day job” he maintains at the Rep requires him to choose very carefully which commissions he accepts. At present he has designed and created miters, or pointed hats, for Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis. Bob says, “In looking at my records, it seems that I've made seven miters for Cardinal Burke. I didn't realize there were that many – two gold and five precious.” Bob’s friends around the world send him photographs of Cardinal Burke celebrating Masses and professions while wearing a Bob Trump original, one of the most recent a liturgy celebrated in Budapest, Hungary. In anticipation of the abbatial election anticipated for Portsmouth Abbey in January 2022, Bob has designed and presented to us three miters, now treasured additions to the Abbey collection. 

Remember that Sacrosanctum Concilium makes reference to sacred “ornaments” as well as vestments. These can be taken to mean altar cloths, altar frontals, banners, chalice veils, palls and burses which often match the vestments and colors of the day. Bob recently elaborated on what has come to be known as the Portsmouth Cross designed by Fr. Peter Sidler. A variation on the Cross Moline associated with Benedictines, it consists of four equal-length arms of the cross, each ending in a delicate split. It is seen on stationery, publications and most prominently above the main doors of our church. Bob has subtly updated Fr. Peter's 20^th century design to a 21^st century sensibility for our exclusive use at Portsmouth Abbey. The first sample of this design arrived recently in the form of a small square rigid white pall which is placed over the chalice on the altar holding the Precious Blood. A pall is also a large plain or elaborate cloth used to cover a coffin while in the church for services. Symbolically, the beautiful Portsmouth pall will be gently placed over the prostrated figure of Br. Benedict Maria when he makes his Solemn Profession on November 1, All Saints Day. The updated Portsmouth Cross design will eventually be embroidered onto the chest area of a set of new concelebration chasubles which Bob has been commissioned to design and build for the monks. For the time being, his work is being delayed by the lack of available yardage for such a large project, precipitated by circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. It is not only the “building trades” which are affected as in the building of houses, but also those “building” church vestments.   

Bob’s gift of time, talent, and treasure to the Church and to our own monastic community is truly extraordinary. As is his humility, seen in his recent communication to us: “I always admire the brothers so much for their dedication and work, perhaps because I could never do that myself, but am glad to be able to help and contribute in the way that I am capable of.” We are most fortunate to have Bob continue his collaborations with us from afar and look forward to other examples of his “art which is truly sacred.”