Osun state represents one of the 36 states of the Federation of Nigeria. It is located in the Southwestern part of the country and the primary language spoken by the indigenes is Yoruba. The state derived its name from a popular river that flows in certain parts of the state, the Osun river.

^{The Osun river: By Vitus Emmanuel Nnaemeka - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0}

Osun State is popularly known all over the country and beyond the shores of the country for the Osun festival. The festival is an annual event that involves a variety of activities traversing several days, often characterized by persistent rain. One of the activities of the festival is the carrying of calabash by a virgin girl, favouritely known as 'arugba Osun', meaning, the carrier of Osun calabash. The onset of the festival involves the lighting of the sacred lamp known as 'Ina olojumerindinlogu', a lamp of 16 faces.

Every year, thousands of people gather from all over the world to partake in the festival and be a receiver of blessing from the Osun goddess. More about the festival can be read in this Wikkipedia article

A tapestry work of the Osun festival

The image above represents the calabash carrying stage of the festival where a virgin girl carries a calabash filled with some secret ingredients from an unknown location to the river. It is the concluding stage of the festival where tourists from different countries and locals gather to receive blessings from the priests of the goddess.

First, I did a sketch of the concept and then started tracing with black threads as below:

Then, I continued and concluded the threading. The work looked like below after threading conclusion:

Then, I finish up the artwork by tracing the rest of the sketch with appropriate colours. Thereafter, the framing was done.

Of course, the face of the virgin is always covered throughout the course of the festival.

FYI: I sold a copy of this art for about $1,500.

Thank you for your audience.

Interested in my artwork? Feel free to contact me on discord at kunle art#4736

NB: This work was first posted in my blog here