As a child, Wasmaa Chorbachi admired the proportionality of Arabic calligraphy, but never studied it with a teacher like a calligrapher would. Instead, she played with clay from the river near her home in Iraq. When she came to the U.S. to study art history, she focused on geometry, which is proportional like calligraphy. But the same principle applies to both geometry and calligraphy: you learn the rules so that you can break them. This square tile brings it all together: Chorbachi carves the word barakah - a blessing - into clay, written without the proportionality of Arabic calligraphy, but with love for and knowledge of its rules.

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