Scott Tepper writes: "When Beverly invited me to participate in the Faith Quilt, I was very intrigued, because I had never tried expressing my connection to Judaism through visual arts. I connect to Judaism through text -- as a Torah reader, and through the text study I have done -- so I decided to represent all of Jewish text with the letter alef. It is the first letter of the alef-bet, of course, and as the first letter of the Ten Utterances it is the gateway to all of Torah. Midrash teaches that all of Torah was contained in that first alef that we heard, and yet could not hear (since it is a silent letter), in the Revelation at Sinai. I also make a visual connection through symbology, so my original idea was to have the alef appear in the middle of a large Magen David (Shield of David). I found the velvet cloth, and planned to have the star and alef on that deep indigo starry background, like a vision of Revelation, or a primordial alef of Creation! I chose the paisley fabric for the alef to suggest the psychedelic nature of the revelatory experience. Initial designs showed that once the star was defined in the square, though, the alef would be fairly small. So, I cut the velvet in a hexagon, suggesting the six-pointed star that could be inscribed within, and allowing me to emphasize the alef. The purple/gold "rays" around the velvet complete the vision of a celestial starburst."

About the Artist. Scott A. Tepper - Age: 50. Professionally: training consultant. Non-work activites: ba'al tefillah (prayer leader), semi-pro singer, song parodist, unlicensed mystic, and father.