When first thinking about this project,
it occurred to me that the Twenty Third Psalm, either as a hymn or as
a reading, has been a part of every funeral service I have ever attended.
It is regarded as a text to comfort those who mourn.
Words are a very important part of my life as a teacher, and so it seemed
appropriate to include them in my project. Looking through my treasure
store of fabrics, I came across a length of fine silk, very much like
a veil and similar in size to a curtain, both words used in euphemisms
for death.
Wondering how to apply the words, I realised that machine embroidery
on such fine fabric could be damaging, and mistakes difficult to rectify,
so I experimented with soluble fabric and with ‘Thermogauze’.
‘Thermogauze’ produced a much softer finished word, which
would allow the silk to fold and hang more easily, (together with a residue
of dust and ashes when heat was applied to remove the gauze!)
Colour had to be an integral part of the design, and the rainbow has
always fascinated me, so how else to display the words but in rainbow
sequence. It turned out that the middle lines of the text were in yellows
and greens, not easy colours to see in this context. But it is at this
point in the service that the congregation has to look down at their hymnbooks
as they have forgotten the middle verses, only for memories to become
stronger again as the song reaches the end.
Almost by accident I discovered that by holding the curtain a few inches
away from a plain wall in artificial light, the shadows of the words of
the psalm are clearly projected behind, adding yet another dimension to
the work.
The whole item is of negligible weight and volume, but when unfolded
and displayed, it is rather like taking out old photographs and remembering
people and times gone by.
Applying and couching the individual words to the silk was a slippery
business, and the resulting effect is of words suspended and hovering
in space. As a teacher of dyslexic students, this again seems highly appropriate
to me.
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