Comely… as the Curtains of Solomon

I’ve been thinking recently about making some prints based on verses from the Song of Songs. When I was about 17 I thought that I ought to actually read some of the Bible. Everything I’d heard so far were interpretations of hand-picked stories. So lets read the words, I thought.

It’s a big, fat book and quite daunting, so I thought I’d pick something short to start with. Oh, the Song of Songs/Solomon. That’s only a few pages. Turned out it’s about love and sex and passion. I hadn’t expected that

Listening to Kate Bush’s Song of Solomon recently prompted me to go back and read it again. And it’s chock full of inspiration for art. As Kate says, ‘Just pick any line, “Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.”’ I might use that one, too. 

Anyway. This is Solomon 1:5. “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.”

For the window shutter, I used a piece of hardboard grille from a radiator box. Does that count as wood?