Two Mirrors

This piece was created in March 2025 as part of Reggie Ezell’s class on Letterforms Inspired by the Saint John’s Bible.

THE LETTERFORMS

The inspiration for this work began with the letterforms themselves - the Incipit script created by Donald Jackson for the Saint John’s Bible. For me, these letterforms are timeless, having a beauty and weight that are grounded in ancient forms, combined with a modern flow and style. 

THE QUOTE

I wanted a quote whose spirit would match the attributes of the Incipit letterforms. This quote is part of the Bahá’í Wedding Tablet and I have used it in every wedding ceremony I have had the privilege of being celebrant for over the last 20 years. Like the artistic masterpiece that is the Saint John’s Bible, this quote and aspects of the Bahá’í faith from which it is borrowed can be appreciated regardless of one’s spiritual affiliation. You can learn more about the Bahá’í faith here:  www.bahai.org.

THE BACKGROUND DESIGN

I wanted to create a background that reflected elements of the quote - the vast galaxies that we tiny individuals inhabit and the stars from which we are born. This dictated my choice of colors and use of shiny star motifs. I also wanted to incorporate the concept of the two mirrors - which can also represent the two individuals forming a couple. Here these moon-shaped arcs serve to center the text and prevent it from seeming lost or floating in space. 

THE MATERIALS & TECHNIQUES

The piece is 10” x 14”, on Arches 140 lb hot press. I taped the paper to gator board and created the background with very loose wet-on-wet watercolor technique using several Kuretake Gansai Tambi 呉竹顔彩耽美 pan watercolors. To prevent the letterforms from being overwhelmed by the background, I lifted pigment from the center of the page using a dry sea sponge. When completely dry, I added lines radiating from the center using several colors of Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle watercolor pencils, then lightly touched these with a watered brush. The small stars are gilded in palladium leaf using an Instacoll base. I choose to create the two mirror forms using a very thick emulsion of Gansai Tambi in White Gold 白金色 on the dried background as I thought gilding these forms would compete too much with the rest of the piece. 

After everything was very dry, I fixed the center surface with Krylon Workable Fixative and our old friend gum sandarac. I then completed the lettering using a Mitchell #2 nib and ink made from Kremer’s Manganese Violet dry pigment.

LESSONS LEARNED

With this and every other work I’ve produced in Reggie’s classes (I also took his 26 Seeds year-long course in 2024), I’ve become more confident in my abilities to produce a cohesive work from its conception to completion. 

In this work, I also learned that it would have been easier to do the gilding after having done the lettering, and easier to do the gilding section by section in much smaller areas, instead of one quadrant at a time. The small dots were very time consuming to gild and I had to go over the edges of most of them with leaf twice to get a good result without orange Instacoll showing through.  

At Reggie’s suggestion, I made a few color copies of the background on good paper to practice the lettering and try out different colors of ink. This worked great - the final choice of ink color was both obvious and surprising!

You can follow my creative practice, which also includes Japanese calligraphy and fiber arts, on Instagram @cscihak.