Photo by Ronald Herzman

Catherine Schorn, “L’amor che move…” needlepoint (2023)

“I finished [reading] Paradiso in early 2023. And was so dazzled by it that, you know how it is–you say to yourself, How can I express how great this book is?  The vision of Paradise; the Pilgrim’s journey to find his way… To move  through love’s stages… And that final sentence, ‘L’amor che move il  Sole e le altre Stelle’ just takes my breath away even now.

“Then it struck me that Ron’s [Professor Ronald Herzman] 80th birthday would be coming up later in 2023.  I like to make cross-stitch things for family births and marriages, so I decided to thank Ron for exposing me to Dante by stitching him that sentence to hang somewhere.  It took a long time… I remember working on it in the quiet of our little cottage in Lubec, Maine, during a solitary sojourn there before John retired–he couldn’t come that trip so I just listened to the wind in the trees and worked getting this perfect sentence onto the fabric.  The sun and moon figures I borrowed from a pattern I’d used before. And the three stars were the last touches.”   -Catherine Schorn