I thought I share a short work- in- progress update. I started on the book of Esther. There's no chapter 3:16, so I moved to chapter 4:1 as Donald E. Knuth does in his book "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated"

"When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry."

The book of Esther tells the story of a beautifull young Jewish woman who becomes queen of Persia and saves her people.

Haman, the enemy, wants to eleminate all the Jews. King Xerxes orders a decree which spells out the destruction of the Jews. When Mordechai, Esthers cousin, hears of this he rents his clothes and puts on sackcloth and ashes.

When I read this verse I knew I had to make something with burlap (hessian) fabric. As this is used to make sacks and is coarse.

I also started researching in which language the decree would have been written and. I came across: Aramaic, Old Persian (Cuneiform). It's a script the Persians invented and looks very interesting. In Iran is a piece discovered which recorded the feats of the Achaemenid king Darius the Great. I have used this script and have used papyrus (which I bought in Egypt about 12 years ago :)) The Persians most likely used papyrus to write on.

So far some background on my research. I'll show a few pictures of my progress so far!

 Revealing Ezra and Nehemiah 3:16

Ezra and Nehemiah

The book of Ezra has no chapter 3:16, but I could go on in chapter 4 and use verse 3. Instead I have chosen to put Ezra and Nehemiah together as it's the same time period and also describes the same topic. 

Nehemiah 3:16

16 After him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, the ruler of the half part of Bethzur, unto the place over against the sepulchres of David, and to the pool that was made, and unto the house of the mighty.

Ezra before him and many men after Nehemiah started coming back from excile and had it in their hearts desire to rebuild the temple: the gates were burned and Jerusalem was still in ruins. 

They got a lot of opposition.

Once I started designing a few things came in mind:

There was a lot of prayer involved and answer to prayer too. I thought about a ladder as a symbol of prayer going up and down. A ladder also would have been used in a literal way.

There needed to be ruins, grave yards, sword and trowel ( 4:18 For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded.) And symbols of hope.

Lot of free motion, but I thought the wall was too solid. Risking cutting some layers away.....

I was nearly finished when I started writing the verse over and under the rainbow. I really didn't like it:( So I cut of the whole top part and instead used a black, mottled fabric. This way the sword and trowel could be hand stitched and be more visible. I am glad I took the pain. It's nearly done now. Need to darken the stones and do some more free motion stitching. I have done a lot of slow stitching on this as I thought it quite fitting with all the manual labour this is depicting. 

Revealing 2 Chronicles 3:16

The finished piece and a  little detail picture.

2 Chronicles 3:16 

Finally got my act together and started designing and creating again! I'll post a few pictures to show my progress. I have carved a pomegranate from soft rubber to use as stamp. 

U used liquid inks and textile medium to paint. For the pillar I have used Intense pencils and a waterproof marker to write the verse. 

At the moment I am adding gold seed beads to fill in the pomegranates. The chains are free motion quilted. I noticed my free motion quilting is a bit rusty:)

Starting on Ezra

I am back! It has been a couple of years without any progress on this project. I am still endeavouring to keep working on it. Still haven't finished my piece on 2 Chronicles. But got inspired by Ezra, so I decided to keep going and hopefully come back to Chronicles later.

Ezra 3 has no verse 16 in it, hence moving forward to chapter 4:3

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.

A bit stuck.

And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars, and made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. 2 Chronicles 3:16

This verse talks about the two massive pillars that stood in front of Solomon's temple. They even had names: Jachin and Boaz.
This verse especially describes the decoration on the capitals of these pillars.

I have compared 1 Kings 7:15-22 and 2 Kings 25:17 with Chronicles and have come to the conclusion that:
The pillars were made of bronze.
On top were 2 rows of pomegranates attached to chains.
Above that were nets of checker work and wreaths of chain work.
Above that was lily work.

Pomegranates made appropriate ornaments for the temple, not only because of their intrinsic beauty but also they appeared on the hight priest's robe (E. 28:33). OK I know what they look like. But what about nets of checker work or lily work?


No one knows exactly how these pillars must have looked, that's why I came across divers renderings when I googled.

I have been pondering over the design for a while now.....And I am very stuck.....I do have a slight idea (see my sketch book scribbles), but have no idea yet HOW to make it and WHICH technique to use and WHAT materials to choose.

I know I do procrastinate when I am in that state. I just have to start on testing a few things. Experimentation is the key here I guess. Let's start tomorrow :)

some pillar designs and pomegranates I came across.

which one is the most Biblically accurate

what to use??? paper, copper thread, silk, monoprinting??? Trying to use my stash.