Illumination

As a child, I loved graph paper and colored pencils or pens with which I made repetitive abstract designs. I did the same with bits of tile, marble, and granite, with M&Ms, with pastels, crayons, colored paper, . . . well you get the drift. I was a fool for colorful pattern.

As a child, I wrote occasional poems, Jeopardy! questions, songs (first for the piano and later for guitar), play-pretend scripts, . . . well you get the drift. I was a fool for words.

In college, I fell hard for something that brought pattern and word together in one beautiful form: illuminated manuscripts. I first encountered them in art history, then met manuscripts at The Cloisters of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. Years later, in London, I enjoyed a major medieval exhibit (the button is still on the wool coat I purchased at the Camden Lock Market), and I marveled over those at the British Museum.

I thought I knew something about these objects, but just the other day I experienced another illuminating revelation. My brother sent the link to a video about the Luttrell Psalter, connecting the images in the work to animals, people, and daily life of the Middle Ages. I was mesmerized once again and hope you will be, too.