Mourning III: Third Veil

Cotton thread, hand-dyed with indigo, stitched on indigo-dyed paper, 11x28 cm (to preserve the deckled egde, but it can be trimmed to match the dimensions of the rest of the series).

In the tatreez tradition, women signalled mourning by wearing dresses embroidered in nothing but indigo. Only when ready to emerge from grief, did they start integrating red details again. This idea drove the series of small pieces of which this is the first. Through the six pieces, red thread makes its way back into the pattern in different ways because despite everything, Life returns.

(These small pieces can be combined into diptychs or triptychs; contact me for a revised price if you'd like to do that.)

In the Third Veil, stitched with cotton over light indigo paper, madder-dyed silk introduces the word حياة (Life) in the pattern: it takes up exactly the same square as حداد (Mourning).

More info & photos: https://majnouna.com/portfolio/veilsofmourning/