Last winter, in a lane behind Isfahan’s old bazaar, I watched a maker align six slivers of brass, walnut, and bone against a wooden guide. The bundle was no wider than a thumbnail. He did not call it decoration; he called it a promise that the edge would hold.
The pattern is a record of attention
Each star arrives by repetition rather than spectacle: cut, glued, pressed, then cut again. On the finished surface, the eye sees abundance. At the bench, it sees decisions measured in fractions, and a discipline too exact to hurry.