Janet's Tallit

I was thinking I'd get some photos when I delivered this, but when you deliver something at the end of Purim festivities, there tends to be not quite sufficient light. Another time! As such, I only have a couple pictures its progress.

For the atarah, Janet wanted the text from the beginning of Psalm 121 (I lift my eyes to the mountains...). I painted it in in silver with a charcoal metallic border around the letters to make them more readable, and added a translation in English along the very bottom. She also wanted mountains on the tallit, and so I did some painting.

I centered the mountain so that when Janet wears the tallit, you get a clear mountain scene on the back and a more abstract colored look from the front. The green pattern along the bottom was later shaded in using a lighter green to give a sense of new green fields, snowy mountains, and bright blue sky. The sky part was my favorite. You know how, on certain perfect winter days, the sky turns a brilliant, crisp blue? That's the color Janet wanted. I dyed the fabric in a gradient. I knew a whole lot of the tallit was going to be just blue, so I wanted some whorls and freckles and variations in the dye to give it texture and interest and keep it from being too stark. I love the color. When I got the dye set and everything washed proper I kept touching the fabric. I just wanted to wrap myself up in that color!

What I don't have pictured here are the pinot. Each corner has a square of a white velvet, taken from a decommissioned Torah cover. Since that fabric has absorbed so much holiness and positive intention, it seems proper to find it new homes in ritual objects.