Aramaic Maaloula

Dear palette, you are material object, symbol and myth all at once; when we buy you, you are no more that a piece of wood light as a feather. But when become our very own, then you become a treasure, a veritable quarry of precious stones, an inexhaustable mine whose depths cannot be plumbed. Do we not say that somebody’s palette is rich and talk of its colours and pastes and iridescent oils flowing from it, this palette from which there streams light?

My story with you, my palette, began more than sixty long years ago and never will it end. The legend will continue in time and in space and even beyond. On you the most amazing rainbow came down and you have become a universe that is my very own, a fairyland universe, a universe of prayer, of values and of poetry. Without you, all studios are empty, for you are like democracy among the nations, like this liberty that reminds us we are free.

O my palette, my pride, pressing you to my heart with this handful of brushes makes me feel in my whole being that for evermore we are united.

Edde, 14/09/05