Five panels explore in colour and symbol the meaning of Shalom as expressed in 5 Psalms. (Psalm 1, 8, 104, 23, 121) The tapestry began by working the letters to make the word, and then each panel from the bottom up, one panel at a time over three months.
Over that time these Psalms were read, or listened to where music was available. The entire tapestry was worked and completed during a very difficult time when solace and inner re-orientation was sought in creativity and contemplative dwelling with familiar texts.
From the bottom, Psalm 121 is about hills, pilgrimage and therefore new horizons. There is a Scottish tint to some of the hills in the background while those nearer are more verdant, and one ready for harvest. Shalom is about that combination of moving forward and yet having a sense of wellbeing and stability.
Psalm 23 is perhaps the least successful of the panels. It echoes green pastures, still waters, the fruitfulness of creation which provides for the spread table and the sense of goodness and mercy’ the left rear field has harvest sheaves and on the horizon fruit trees. The dark valley (grey) and the path of righteousness (blue mix) which climbs to the top of the letter, are separated by a yellow shape which began to look like a chalice – so the wine pouring out seemed a good idea – the cup overflows. Shalom is richly suggested in every verse of Ps 23.
Psalm 104 is a celebration of the majesty and splendour of God and Creation as the expression of God’s creative joy and unfathomable power. At the bottom of the middle panel are the bricks of the earth’s foundations (ancient cosmology viewed a three storey universe). The bricks hold the waters of the sea which are filled by rivers and streams from the snow-capped mountains. Calvin spoke of nature as the theatre of God’s glory, and thus the red curtains open onto the world stage and the backlight is the ineffable and dazzling glory of God. Shalom is to look on the world through the eyes of a wise, generous, Creator whose power is both incomprehensible, and incomprehensibly for us.
Psalm 8 is a night Psalm and the combination of light and shadow, of stars against a night sky with a full moon, of water reflecting light and of the small human dwelling at the edge of mountains, forest and lake, all of these help to hear the question, “What are human beings that you care for us?” The trust that God does so care is an essential of shalom
Psalm 1 is the most structured of the panels, and the one which other people like most! My own favourite is the middle panel on psalm 104. The orderly stitching suggests the ordered life, focused on Torah, the words and Word of God. The trees and their fruitfulness against a blue sky point to a life that is settled, fruitful, ordered and guided by God. Obedience is love for God lived and enacted with gladness of spirit.
The panel is surrounded by rainbow colours, with Heaven above and Sheol beneath, but both surrounded and held by the rainbow mercy of God. This was the first tapestry for a long time in which I varied the stitches, and the first which I started without any clear idea where it was going or how it might look when finished. It is a study in colour, symbol and imagination of very familiar texts – I don’t know whether its richness can be communicated and assimilated by others. For me it was the outworking of inner prayer at a troubled time.
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