Nuit

Kiln Fired Painted Stained Glass set into White Hand-Carved Plaster with Antiqued Wooden Frame.  *Hanging hardware and wire installed for window hanging (designed to be viewed from one side only). by Aloria Weaver, 2023 13x13” "Nuit was also know as The Queen of Heaven.  This was an epithet used by many cultures to refer to a sky goddess throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Near East (Ishtar, Astarte, Inanna, Isis, Nuit, etc.), as well as the Christian Madonna / Mary. This piece explores the juxtaposition of the Islamic form of stained glass window, the qamariya, with medieval glass painting, a European Christian tradition and representational art.  It examines the cultural melding influence of the migration of Islamic culture through Africa and into southern Spain which heralded the European Renaissance.
 Using the traditional methods of transferring a design of Islamic geometry and piercing plaster by hand to create a gypsum window grill featuring pieces of colored glass (called qamariyas: moon-like, or shemsiyas: sun-like in Arabic), I incorporate medieval kiln-fired glass painting  in order to tell a story, to provoke inquiry, to rekindle meaning.

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