Friday, June 13, 2008

Illumination

I just love this theme. I'm traveling quite a bit between now and our August 1 reveal, so I hope I can find time to put together something meaningful. We'll see.

When I first read the theme, I immediately thought of the St. John's Bible. I read about it years ago when the project first began. In 1998, St. John's University in MN commissioned former calligraphy to the queen Donald Jackson to illuminate and hand write the bible. They have created a fully comprehensive and completely inspiring website which describes the whole process.

illum3

Donald Jackson and his assistants did tons of study and research. They used hand made inks and hand ground pigments. They invited school children to illuminate their own favorite passages.

illu2

They thought carefully about the mission, the history, the vision, the tradition and the translation.

st-john-bible[1]

They created spectacularly dramatic images and used beautiful gold leaf.

illumination

I'm not exactly sure what my quilt will look like, but it will incorporate letters and something metallic!

1 comments:

Kristin L said...

What a spectacular project!

I can definitely see how this could inspire one to use lots of gold!

:-)