Song of Songs Mosaic

Hand-dyed silk organza, gold acrylic paint, Japanese obi threads, backed with vintage gold silk organza. Approx. 3’x4’
This piece is inspired by an image I saw during a lecture on Ancient Glass of the Holy Land at the De Young museum in San Francisco. Pieces of what might have been a table were found at an archaeological dig in Cesaria, were they had lain for the better part of 2,000 years. I set myself the goal of creating a piece that captured the feeling of the mosaic glass with encased gold symbols and images. All the images and words were rendered by hand with a tiny paint brush.

The words that rim the piece are from the Song of Songs, the designs are tracings of ancient Islamic tiles, many of which refer to gazelles, to doves, to flowers etc,  

Translation of words in blue arch PDF