Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546033
schools, developing out of the practice of homemaking through crafts. This history was an exciting opportunity for the look of the show. I suggested the girls' classes could involve crafts for beautifying the home, like weaving and textile arts. In The Handmaid's Tale, Serena Joy practices gardening to occupy herself and to practice faith. At the Lydia Academy, I thought the Aunts might teach craft as a means to morality. The girls spend time embroidering flowers to train patience and discipline. The busywork is intended to beautify the home. For our sets, it was a real opportunity to create an aesthetic around the school where weaving, embroidery and pattern making could create the beautiful world the girls inhabit. The Art Department designed tapestries carrying moral messages—one in the dining hall tells the story of the girls growing up and passing through the stages of their youth, changing costume along with their societal role, until the ultimate goal of motherhood. The tapestries communicate themes to the girls: innocence, godliness, piety, nurturing, shepherding, thankfulness, growth. Imagery in the tapestries and select pieces of art reflect these themes: a tree with abundant ripe fruit, the sun shining down from heaven, a lamb in the arms of the virginal Mary. Because girls and women are forbidden to read, the Art Department of The Handmaid's Tale developed a whole library of symbols in Gilead. The grocery store Loaves and Fishes took inspiration from Soviet graphic symbols. At the Handmaid training facility, The Red Center, the Aunts wore a pin based on a very old symbol for fertility. For the Lydia Academy, we created a symbol based on the inverted triangle, traditionally denoting female fertility. Reflecting Gilead's focus on nature, we formed a flowerlike shape stacking the triangles to symbolize the school as a place where girls grow and blossom into womanhood. Graphic Designer Theresa Shain, who was one of the first people I brought on in the Art Department, iterated through fifty-odd versions. This symbol was employed throughout the school. Theresa developed it into patterns for use on woven textiles, the school flag, leading in windows and doors, wood floor rosette inlay, painted on metallic columns and in ceiling frescos, as the form for the Aunts' pin, and a large planter on the front lawn. A. LYDIA ACADEMY SET BUILD CEILING DETAIL STILL WITH GRAPHIC DETAIL BY THERESA SHAIN. B. CURTAIN PATTERN DESIGN BY THERESA SHAIN. C. TAPESTRY DESIGN BY THERESA SHAIN. D. RESEARCH IMAGE KINGSWOOD COLLEGE. E. & F. LYDIA ACADEMY SECTION DRAWINGS BY ETIENNE GRAVRAND. E D A B C F