The Glory of Gold

Anyone who follows my blog (namely my husband and my mom) knows that I love illuminated manuscripts. Much of my artwork is reinterpretations of well known medieval illuminated manuscripts. One of my favorite aspects of an old illuminated text is the gold leaf applied often to the first initial in the text and added into the details of the illuminated border.  An illuminated manuscript is not considered illuminated unless one or many of the illuminations contains gold foil or gold specks painted on it. In medieval times when illuminating texts was extremely popular, often (if not exclusively), the texts were of a religious nature so gilding them was a way of exalting the content within.  And even though they say diamonds are a girl's best friend, let's face it gold ain't too shabby either. In an effort for my artwork to have that authentic illuminated look, I would use several layers of gold paint to highlight different areas of the border. The gold paint looked nice and in a certain light practically glowed but alas I knew it was not the real thing.  For a while now I've been wanting to learn the art of gold leafing so my pieces could more authentically be described as illuminated artwork.

This past summer though I had the privilege of learning the art of gold leafing from an accomplished artist in Jerusalem who spends her days gilding the artwork of many well known artists in Israel as well as her own artwork.  The artist, Ronit, was so sweet and patient it was a pleasure learning from her.  Upon returning to my studio in NY, I had a ketubah order to complete and was so excited to implement my new skill of gold leafing.  Ironically the groom sells custom design furniture that is often gold leafed and asked that I use it in their ketubah.  (although as a sidenote the gold leaf used on furniture and the gold leaf used on paper/parchment is of a different nature.)

Here is my first gold leafing attempt, the enlarged initial letter "Bet" is made from 23 karat Italian gold.  I love the way the gold is raised and not flat like the paint used to be, it adds character and class to the artwork.

Here is the actual gold, you have to be so careful with this stuff if your finger touches the gold it will literally disintegrate, yet when applied to the glue base it lasts forever.  Pretty amazing.