Description
Medium: white stoneware clay, multiple glazes,acrylic, gold luster & wax patina
Size: about 21.5” tall x 14” wide x 8“ deep
The Book of Ruth is an exquisite tale about the bond between women. The narrative is unique in Scripture because it centers around a female family struggling for survival in a man’s world. It is a tale as well of the problems existing in a land as a refugee where one is not wanted as Naomi and her family did. Ruth was not a refugee, rather a foreigner in Judah with its own version of problems. Ruth and Naomi’s story is about absolute commitment, embracing connection, and love as a spiritual path.
Because of a famine in the land of Judah, Naomi, her husband and two sons became refugees in the land of Moab ( todays Jordan). Naomi’s husband died. After some time the sons married Maobite women. They lived in Moab for about ten years and then the two sons also died leaving all three women as widows.
Naomi decided to journey back the long way to her homeland Judah. She urged her two daughter in law’s to stay back in Moab to build themselves a new life in their own home land, under the guidance of their own deity.
Ruth, however clung to her Mother in law and said the words we all are so familiar with: “ Do not urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. For wither thou goest, I will go; Wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your Elohim my Elohim.” Ruth: 1:16
So Ruth became a foreigner in a foreign land, the integration was successful when she gave birth to a son named Obid . This was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
I wanted to capture the moment that Naomi pauses before the long, long journey back to Judea, her homeland in which Ruth will be the foreigner. Naomi has her right arm gently over Ruth’s shoulder and her left pointing the direction in which her new homeland will be.
