What is the Shape of an Offering?
Prayers are always heard, maybe a bit delayed, but are always heard. - Photo by Sundaram Ramaswamy (legends2k) used by Creative Commons Attribution Permisions.
I recently posted about my Sacrifice | Offering project. While I always have many projects and pieces I’m working on, the next I know I want to do in this series is offering me unique challenges. I want the next piece to also serve as my first submission to the EGA Master Craftsman i program I’m enrolled in. I believe it’s the right fit.
In my explorations around sacrifice and offerings, I was looking at the “Women of the Book” project. I noticed that Parshat Tzav wasn’t taken assigned to anyone yet. While I don’t know that my work will fit their criteria, I did realize that this was a clear sign. It brought together my concept around Sacrifice|Offering, Torah study, and the framework for my first EGA master craftsman submission. I’ve actually had two ideas for what this Tzav inspired piece could be. One is a broader vision, closer to something that would fit the Women of the Book project. The other is a simpler diptych that would work well for the master craftsman program.
The master craftsman program submission, which is focused on color for embroidery design, needs to be the same design in two different color schemes. What I’m searching for though, is a shape, and idea, a form that fits both Shalom Offerings and Sin/Guilt Offerings. When I read Tzav, I read the sin and guilt offerings really as one offering (כַּחַטָּאת וְכָאָשָׁם) - Leviticus 6:10. Although, with deeper exploration I may need to do three pieces to encompass all three offerings. I’ve begun researching and playing with shapes and ideas, but I really am interested in using this to create a bit of a dialogue, all through the process.
So, I’ll put it to you all — what shape do you see when you think of an offering that can be both for Wholeness (Shalom) and for Sin/Guilt, if you just change the colors? What reaction do you have to this whole idea? What do the words Peace/Wholeness and Sin or Guilt trigger for you? If you read Tzav (Lev 6:1-8:36), what images and feelings does it evoke for you?
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Mini Manifesto:
Culture: I am fascinated by both culture on most levels. I mostly focus on American culture and what makes us who we are as a country, but I'm also intrigued by sub-cultures in the USA and the growing global cultural trends.
Technology: Technology is one of the strongest drivers of cultural and even spiritual changes in the last 100 years, and possibly the next 100.
My immediate thought was of a circle, round, or egg shape. These shapes are whole and organic. Sin can be seen as the breaking of the wholeness and guilt as the emotions we feel when witnessing that break. Through the sin/guilt offering, one is seeking to re-establish the wholeness, so the same shape could be used as an expression of what is hoped for through the offering.
I'm thinking of a broken spiral or circle, that can be made whole.
I'm also thinking of a puzzle: fragments that can be put together.
This is an incredibly exciting project!
–Ye'ilah