Making Art and Jewish Art
A female-scribed Torah is just the next step for Judaism, for the community. I was moved by Kadima's vision and leadership in having undertaken the project. I cannot speak to its impact on my art just yet, but my association with the women involved in the project has been beneficial in multiple ways. I am grateful to have such fine, strong, and visionary women to work and associate with.
My inclination toward art in general and Judaic art in particular is in large part about identity. Creating art enables me to speak about myself and my relationship to others. Being Jewish has always been a central part of my identity.
I grew up in Michigan with five brothers in a fairly observant Conservative Jewish home. My family was among the founding families of Congregation Ahavas Israel, a Conservative shul in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As such, our shul was a second home to me. Due to discord arising over our family business, crisis ensued and my parents separated from the shul and the Jewish community.
Without this formal connection to the Jewish community, I was left to deal almost exclusively with the non-Jewish community, where my identity was challenged and sometimes marginalized. While being other has established both my need and capacity to make art, making Jewish art per se enables me to rebuild my lost sense of connection with the Jewish community. Making Jewish art also enables me reshape this connection in more creative terms.
I pursued advanced Jewish studies alongside my art studies. I earned a master's degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1990. In addition to this, I studied painting at Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem and Illustration at the Parson's School of Design in New York, with an eye toward doing contemporary Jewish art and design. Lastly, I pursued rabbinic studies for a couple of years, which accounts for the title of my business.
Torah & breastplate
The Torah is the ultimate ritual object for the Jewish people. It embodies the formative myths of our people, and we are shaped in relationship to our reading and engagement of those stories. The Torah symbolizes what I value: family, community, truth (G-d). The breastplate is placed on top of the Torah to adorn and protect the Torah and what it stands for.
To begin my piece, I will review the work of other artists, from ancient to modern, and will likely read scholarly, poetic, and other writings about the breastplate. Then I will start making sketches in pencil. Whatever I have seen and read will influence my sketches, which is where I begin to join the dialogue regarding breastplates. I hope to have something to add to the discussion on breastplates, in both a written and a visual statement.
After the pencil illustration, I will make a 3-D computer drawing, then a stereo-lithographic (resin) prototype, then the aluminum matchplate or other master mold. Finally, I will cast the piece, which will then be polished and finished.
The sense that I might create something that will adorn and protect something I love, a symbol for what I most love, moves me to create the breastplate.
