Cauldrons and skillets

The letter Tet reminds me of my childhood, when my family sent me to Hebrew classes – I never learnt very much, but I still remember some of the letters.  In Hebrew the letters are in their great majority, consonants – the vowels are sort of ‘given’ - with a few exceptions, particularly the letter “I”.  When young children and adult beginners learn to write Hebrew, there is a phonetic system by which the vowels are represented via lines and dots under the consonants – but that is removed as soon as possible, and all ‘normal’ writing is written without the phonetic vowels. And of course Hebrew is written from right to left – not left to right.

ALICIA = אלישיה

Actually, my name – Alicia – in Hebrew, is not that deprived of vowels. Although it starts with A – Aleph – that letter usually stands for an H, rather than for an A.  The last letter is also an H. The two ‘I’s are there in this case, but the last A is not.  However the presence of an H at the end indicates that there is a vowel at the end, rather than a consonant. 

ALICIA = Алисия

I once studied Russian too – a different alphabet again – no problem there of lack of vowels, indeed there are too many of them!  You may notice the A at the end of the word is different from the A at the beginning of my name.  And the grammar is hellish!  Again, I remember some of the letters, and I still can sort of ‘decipher’ the words, but cannot understand the meaning…

Anyway, going back to the shape of the letter Tet, it immediately got me thinking about a current project I have, making quilts for an exhibition next year with the South West Textiles group in the Museum of Somerset, Taunton, UK – quite a prestigious place.  Each artist has to select an object from the museum as a starting point for their work.  

I chose to work with cauldrons and skillets, of which the Museum has a very large collection. Cauldrons are round, with a Tet-like shape, while skillets have long handles. There is an amazing room in the Museum where cauldrons hang from the ceiling – black vessels illuminated by red light.

There used to be many foundries in the area making iron and bronze cooking vessels, church bells, etc, active mostly from the 14^th to the 19^th centuries.  And notice - cauldrons have three legs, not four.

However, to be able to work with their graphic shapes, I went to their research department for help, and have now acquired a collection of great photographs of cauldrons and skillets.  Plenty of material to work from!

Cauldron of the more usual shape 

Cauldron of an unusual shape, more Tet-like

Long-handled skillet

I don’t know yet how the cauldrons will relate to exploring hidden possibility and potential, but I shall investigate!

Alicia

(With thanks to Google Translate….)