Anonymous Words

The Artist Lab gathered recently to hear Adam Heffez talk about the meaning embedded in the graffiti of Israel and the West Bank.  The theme of this past year’s Artists’ Lab was Text-Context-Subtext and I don’t think there could be a topic more to the point than this discussion.  Graffiti is composed of text as well as image. It needs to be evaluated in its context to fully understand its meaning and subtext.  It is an uncensored expression and as such presents insight into the views of the people in the region.

Adam has written a book Words & Walls: Social Commentary through Graffiti in Israel and the West Bank which shares graffiti that represents the views of not only Israelis and Palestinians, but also the division within those groups, reminding us that each group does not speak with one voice.  Adam is a Middle East foreign policy analyst who became interested in the local graffiti in the course of his work in the region. He lives in Washington, DC, but accumulated his material while living in both Israel and Jordan.  

Adam shared a number of images with us on such themes as Holocaust related imagery, Arab-Israeli divisions, terrorism and peace. We frequently began by identifying where the graffiti was located and considering what languages it was written in as we tried to decipher the intended audience and the authorship.  In many cases Adam tracked down the creator of the graffiti so he often had a first-hand interpretation of the meaning. He pointed out that the Arab community was a closed community where saying what one thinks is not encouraged. That means that graffiti is one of the ways that people can express themselves anonymously.  Often we would see conversations where the opposing or amplifying view was expressed in relationship to the initial graffiti.

I have always been intrigued by the visual impact of graffiti, but had never delved into the content.  In the case of Adam’s material I lacked both the language proficiency and sufficient knowledge of the cultural issues to fully grasp it without a guide.  As this exploration began with visual material I would encourage you to access a slide show of some images at Tikkun or Tablet Magazine.  Among these you will see one that I found particularly moving.  It took the national anthem HaTikvah and translated it into more inclusive verse.  Here is the graffiti artist’s version.

As long as deep in the heart
The human soul yearns Inside, backwards, and forward,
To justice, an eye sees
Our hope will not be lost
The hope of the dawn of days
To be cool in our land
The land of [crossed out] and Israelis


Now contrast that with the actual lyrics below.

As long as in the heart within 
A Jewish soul still yearns,
And onward, towards the ends of the east,
An eye still gazes toward Zion;
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.


The focus on a Jewish nation is clearly dominant from a Jewish soul to worshiping facing east.  The altered version appears to be more inclusive to the Arab minority.  A word which we believed was Arab was crossed out and we debated the meaning of that.  Was it saying that both Arabs and Jews were Israelis and amplifying the inclusive message or was it excluding Arabs?

We examined imagery related to keys, a powerful image in the Palestinian community where many left their homes with their house key in their pocket and still expect to return to open the door to their home.  Adam spoke of, a mall which now stood on the site of a former village, a fact that was not acknowledged by the Palestinians from that original town.  Palestinians are stuck in a sort of limbo, afraid to leave the refugee camp as that would end their right to return and unable to move forward with their lives without leaving the camp.  There is a divide within the Palestinian community between those who remain in the camps and those who left and considerable pressure to stay.  Similarly there is a divide in the Jewish community between secular Jews and the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox.  Graffiti represented different voices from these various communities.

Heffez shares graffiti that represents many perspectives.  He doesn't take one position, but rather his focus is on using graffiti as a means to gain a better understanding of the beliefs of people in the region, beliefs that are unfiltered by political spokespersons. 

A Declaration of Being

I'm a "???".  Most of us can fill in the blank with a number of descriptors. At the Jewish Artists' Lab* exhibition, artist Robyn Awend has an interactive piece which consists of plastic card holders, each pocket holding a card that describes one attribute among the multiplicity of things that can describe a person. The act of taking a card is a declaration of being, of who one is, or at least one aspect of who one is.  It is in the combination of attributes that we begin to define our uniqueness.

Last week at the opening we had a gallery filled with people and vibrating with energy. The catalog looked beautiful and each artwork told a story about a subject we had discussed, but also gave a glimpse into the artist.

The poem I wrote to accompany my painting drew a lot of interest and brought me back to the topic of declaring who one is. " I'm not really a poet ," I protested, conscious of the "real" writers and poets who create far more "poetic" work among our group. The act of declaration seems to carry a responsibility to work at and develop a craft. I'm not sure I'm ready to make such a declaration about poetry. I think about a journal from my 20s filled with poetry, a chronicle of my first marriage. When did I stop writing? I think it was as that marriage wound down, as if I could only write when faced with youthful angst. Since then I've written a handful of playful poems for special occasions, but nothing of the daily fabric of life.

So what motivated this recent effort? In this case it just seemed like the best way to juxtapose the two stories, Abraham and Isaac and Dora and her mother. The other advantage of poetry was that it let me tell the story through the eyes of Isaac and Dora. Not only could I contemplate their experience, but for a brief moment I could step inside of it and imagine it through their eyes. I am accustom to working in a series of paintings, each one allowing me to look at a different facet of the topic I explore. One painting just didn't seem like enough. I could easily have done a series, but lacking wall space in the exhibition, I decided to use a different medium. In the process it felt a bit like discovering an old friend. The sound of words lapping up against each other, giving voice, echoing, weaving in and out, each voice stepping up in turn to declare itself.

I thought about those other declarations in my life. "I am an artist" took me a long time to state. Back when I painted just for me I used to debate with my husband what made one an artist. He felt that painting for a larger audience was important to the definition. I argued that one who paints is an artist. Even as I asserted that, it was still hard to get those words out when asked what I did. It was only when I started showing my work that it gradually became easier to take ownership of that label. The rest of the world began to see me through that lens, but it still had to begin with that barely whispered assertion, "I am an artist".

"I am a writer" is still in its infancy. I've been writing this blog for over four years. Does that make me a writer or is blogging a category unto itself? Words are a medium that I embrace, but with such truly accomplished writers in the world, it seems like hubris to claim that label. And yet...claiming that one is a "fill in the blank" is often the first step to becoming that.

Yesterday I wore one of my other hats. I interviewed for an interim CFO job. When asked if I would be interested in full-time permanent work, I quickly responded with a definitive "No!". "Why not?" I was asked. "I have other things I want to do, I am an artist," I replied. I marveled at how easily it rolled off the tongue. I realized that I had reached a milestone when I could so easily integrate that part of me with the financial business side of my being. We are each many things and embracing that messy, squirming totality is the first step towards being our full selves.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Criticism Without the Ouch

Our last Artists’ Lab*! Fortunately we have another year to look forward to beginning in October. Our upcoming show is up next week and I've dropped off my piece. I guess that means I've finished my artwork.

As you may recall, my artwork tells a story from my friend of a death march that she was on during the war accompanied by her mother. It has many parallels with the story of the Binding of Isaac, but presents a different take on parental sacrifice and plays with the idea of “binding” in a different sense. A poem accompanies it that contrasts the two stories. You can find the final work on my website and details on the show events.

At our last session we discussed criticism. How to give it, how to take it. The texts we referenced didn’t apply precisely to artistic criticism as they were more focused on reproof and rebuke, but one passage did seem relevant despite this difference.

Rabbi Tarafon said, “I wonder if there is anyone in this generation capable of accepting reproof.” For, (if) one says to him, “Remove the mote from between your eyes,” he would reply, ‘Remove the beam from between your eyes!” Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya said: “I wonder where there is anyone in this generation who knows how to reprove.”

There are two aspects to offering criticism, both receiving and giving and we could often benefit from some help at both ends. Many of the artists had examples from art school, most of how not to give criticism from experiences of art professors who damaged or reworked their paintings. Reworking someone else’s work is not a recommended approach.

David Harris from Rimon joined us to talk about the work of Liz Lerman, a choreographer and artist who created a process for artists to receive criticism in a way that actively engaged them in the process. The process has three participants, a facilitator, the artist and responders. The idea behind it is to create a positive environment for criticism and engage both artist and responder.

 

The responder is asked, “What has meaning for you about what you’ve seen?” This question creates a positive context. The artist then states a question about what they are interested in hearing about. The responder must then frame a neutral question. If the question is a loaded one, not really neutral, the facilitator steps in to reframe. An example from Lerman’s Critical Response Process takes “Why’s the cake so dry?” and changes it to “What kind of texture were you going for?” The final step is where the facilitator asks for opinions. The responder uses the following form, “I have an opinion about _____. Do you want to hear it? If for example the responder wants to offer an opinion about costumes, but they are not the ones that will be used in the final performance, the artist may tell them it isn’t a relevant subject for that reason.

I thought about feedback and criticism from my own experience. I share a studio with my husband and our work is very different. Generally when people come through our studio they resonate more with one or the other. People have different taste and that will color their response. Generally most respond positively or say nothing. I sometimes refer to a viewer as “one of yours” or “one of mine”. That reflects the understanding that different people naturally gravitate towards certain types of work.

I also find that I can draw viewers in by giving them a sentence of context and offering to answer questions. I might tell them of the origin of my recent series that is based on interviews with elders at Sholom Home, most in their 90s. With context, we often have very interesting discussions and they engage with the work.

The other point where I would typically get feedback is when a show is up, but then people keep it in a positive realm. They tell me what they like, not what they don't. Our group agreed that an opening is not a good place for criticism. At that point all the artist can do is agonize.

Artists respond to feedback differently at different stages. I’ve learned not to give my husband feedback when he is in the midst of a painting. The images in his work emerge for him from an abstract and until he has identified his direction, my view alters his process. He needs a certain quiet to hear his own voice. Conversely I prefer input while I am creating as after the fact is too late to experiment with that particular work.

Most critical feedback comes from friends and family as they can offer it in the context of a positive relationship. For the painting for this exhibition, I got feedback from some friends that actually was quite helpful. One commented that the cans in the painting were too much of a focal point. I thought that was a good point and I muted them. Other feedback was to make the figures look more distraught. While I thought that was a good suggestion, it would have involved more reworking than I was prepared to do at that stage. My friend on whom this story is based advised me to make the background look like snow because it occurred in January. I took this advice with some hesitation. It changed the colors that worked for me, but given that it was her story I decided to heed it. In these instances the feedback was presented in a positive context which allowed me to hear it without defensiveness and put it to good use.

If I were to ask a question as part of the critical response process it would be, "How do you respond to the fact that I only show a portion of the heads of the two women?" It feels a bit like looking at them through a window. Because we spoke of the story of Abraham and Isaac in terms of negative space, I had decided originally to just show a portion of the figures and actually had planned to suggest less than I ultimately developed. In fact I was not going to paint her mother's face, but it looked too disembodied with just her hands so she found her way in.

If you are in the Twin Cities area, please stop by the show to see both my work and that of the sixteen other artists as we respond to the texts we discussed. Not all of the artists work in a visual medium so the poets and writers in the group will read their work at the closing event.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Posted with Blogsy

Something Worth Sharing

At a recent Artists' Lab* retreat we focused on the balance between pride and humility. The act of exhibiting one's work is a delicate balance between those two points. It takes a certain confidence in one's work to exhibit, similarly to publish even on as basic a level as a blog post. You have to believe that what you do will interest others. You have to trust the quality of what you produce even if it is still a work in progress, no less so than each of us.

I have had the experience of displaying my artwork in a gallery space, each painting nestled within my husband's beautiful hand-crafted frames. Carefully lit, the paintings glow in the spotlights. The underlying stories are drafted with care and posted alongside the work. I look around and marvel that I created this body of work.

Yet before that same show I often have that moment where I decide I don't like any of my paintings and want to start over. Nothing feels adequate and I question my readiness to share my work with the public.

More often I am pleased with some paintings, but uneasy about others. I need to live with a painting for several months before I declare it finished. There is a process of coming to terms with my work that must precede that declaration. When I rush it, I am unsettled, not at peace with my artwork.

Then I stand up and give a talk. I breathe life into my creations with words. I share my process and passion with an audience and as I feel the connection with them I again find comfort in my work.

Pride, humility, feelings of inadequacy, satisfaction. Artists move up and down the scale like a keyboard, striking both soaring and troubled notes.

In the Artists' Lab we look at these topics through the lens of text, then translating it into the artist's experience. In this instance we talked about the story of Joseph (Genesis 37:9-41) and his maturation process from a naive youth insensitively recounting his dream to his brothers, inciting their jealousy. We followed his story as he is brought down and rises again as an adviser to Pharaoh. Along the way we note his movement from imperious speech and pride to a quiet confidence in his ability to both understand the meaning of dreams and the wisdom to respond to their meaning. As artists we also go through a maturation process, learning to trust our work as we find the courage to present it confidently to a broader audience, moving past doubts to believe that we just might have something worth sharing.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

A Curious Artist

Recently I spoke with an interviewer assessing the impact of the Jewish Artists’ Lab*. I found myself struggling with a key question… Did I identify myself as a Jewish artist?

"No, I did not", I replied. I was surprised at the strength of my reaction to the term. Yes I was Jewish and yes, I was an artist, but a Jewish artist didn’t feel like a comfortable label. Keep in mind I am not fond of labels in general as they narrow one’s universe rather than expand it. I’ve found the Artists’ Lab to be a fascinating project and it has caused me to evaluate concepts around the creative process from new perspectives. And yet, the label did not feel like it belonged on me.

"Did others consider me a Jewish artist?" she asked. The work I have done over the past seven years has been on my Jewish family history, the Holocaust and an interview series of Jewish elders. Hmm, probably they do. I asked my husband if he would describe me as a Jewish artist and he replied yes. As someone who isn’t Jewish he views the Jewish part of my identity as a significant descriptor, more so than it would be were I Christian. He argues that it wraps in culture and ethnicity, that one can be Jewish and non-religious, but if one claims to be Christian, one is religious. The content of my recent work is Jewish culture, therefore he views me as a Jewish artist.

Interestingly when I posed the question to my mother she responded no. To her I’m just Susan and she has seen me through enough life stages to understand that I can be interested in something without it necessarily defining me.

So what does being a “Jewish artist” mean and why do I struggle with the term? I certainly define myself as Jewish, albeit not in a particularly religious sense, and I do identify with the cultural aspects and values of Judaism. In part I think it implies a level of religious engagement which isn’t me. I find religion an interesting subject as something that has informed our culture. It is a rich source to mine and offers me another artistic engine. And I do have a particular interest in the religion and culture that is my heritage. It occurs to me that this is not just a recent interest although it lay dormant for many years. As a young college student I took many courses on religion, even a wonderful English course on the Bible as literature. As a child I was captivated by mythology. I was intrigued with how people try to make sense of the world around them, a rather amazing place whatever your religious beliefs. But a curious artist might be a better descriptor than a Jewish artist.

I want to be free to wake up tomorrow and go in a different direction with my work if I choose and it may not have a theme that relates to the fact that I'm Jewish. When we nail down the tent poles that define our identity it is much too easy to trap ourselves within. I need to define my world broadly enough to allow for a lifetime of exploration.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Teetering on Finished

I am in an almost finished stage with my painting for the Artists’ Lab* exhibition, but still teetering on the edge of saying it is finished. I recently added a web page with the artwork, story and a poem that knits it together with the story of Abraham and Isaac. Despite this seeming act of closure, I commented to others at the Lab that I might still decide to change it. They directed me to read the sayings that were posted on the walls. Much to my amusement I discovered that each one was on endings and many were quite appropriate to what I was feeling. 

Perhaps the one that spoke most directly to me was this:
When I’m finished, I always wonder what would have happened had I made different decisions along the way. (Brent R. Laycock)

I had commented earlier in the Lab that beginnings were difficult because they require us to choose a direction and abandon others. We move from all possibility to one. It is much the same thing which causes me to pause at declaring it finished. Part of me still harbors the thought of the roads not taken and debates whether I should attempt a change. In the case of this painting which is based on a Holocaust story from my friend, I am hesitating over the degree of artistic license that I am taking. Should I make her look more distressed, should the subjects look as emaciated as they most likely would have been after months in Auschwitz. But I have been thinking of this painting more as one based on the concept of parallel stories rather than a Holocaust painting. The Holocaust just happened to be the setting in which it took place.


As the painting developed it reminded me of symbolist work, particularly that of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, a French artist from the 1800s. I did a search of his work to see if there was anything similar and found his painting Death and the Maiden (on the right), an allegory on the fragility of life.
Here is an excerpt of the painting and below is an excerpt of my painting. If you were to see the entire painting, you would note the figure of the grim reaper lurking stage left, perhaps an appropriate reference point for the story which I painted. My painting can be viewed as symbolist also in that the bread represents life, the strewn cans on the road, imprisonment and futility. The stones represent those who did not survive and the trees echo the stripes of concentration camp uniforms.Some of the other quotes that spoke to me were these:

A painting is like the façade of a house…and you’re like a janitor who goes around systematically trying to close all the windows and doors- but when you get to the top floor to close the last window, a wind blows open the one on the first landing. You rush down and close that one, and then one on the middle floor blows open and you rush to close that. But when you’ve closed all the entries to the house, then the painting is closed - not that it’s finished, it’s just that you can’t enter it any longer. (Graham Nickson)

Kind of like a game of whack-a-mole…

And yet another that speaks to me as someone who likes text and context.
The work isn’t complete for me until I add words, as reading is as important to me as painting. (Veronika Funk)

In the Lab we were asked if there was a difference between finishing and ceasing. We referenced the language in Genesis 2:1-4a which reads:

And on the seventh day God finished the work which he had been doing and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work which He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy.

Cessation was part of the creation story. Like breathing, it gives it space, the space between our breath as important as the breath itself. 

Our discussion shifted to the question of commemorating a conclusion. In the creation story God concludes his work with a blessing and a cessation from work. We looked at I Kings 7:51-8:16 at the conclusion of the building of the Temple. It closes with a blessing and a poem. Well at least I have the poem, perhaps that's the benediction for my work.

With that we turned to the task of creating a ritual for closing our sessions of the Artists’ Lab and for the conclusion of our exhibition. We were all in agreement that it had to involve food and began to map out a ritual that would engage all within the Lab’s community of artists in interacting with the work of our fellow artists.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Posted with Blogsy

Endings

At the prior session of the Artists' Lab* we talked about beginnings. This session closed the loop by exploring endings. We began with a quote from Rabbi Tarfon (Pirke Avot 2:21) who said "It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either." (Captured in artwork by Bob Gill for the Voices & Visions project). In the broader scheme of things we take an incremental approach to finishing the work of perfecting the world. What we leave undone is passed to the next generation. In the short term however we were reminded that we had an artwork to complete for an upcoming exhibition and catalog.

We began our discussion with a question, what do we do or say when we complete a project? The first thought that popped into my mind was, "Am I really done?" My work has a way of resurrecting, even when I think it completed. Often I have to live with it for some time before I conclude it is finished or perhaps needs more work. Assuming I believe it to be done, my second thought is "What's next?" I realized I'm not much good at celebrating completion. In fact I skipped both of my college graduations. I think endings make me a bit anxious because I like knowing what's next.

One of the artists spoke of taking a period of "fertile emptiness" after completing a project. I especially liked that phrase as it is that period that I am finding is both fruitful and scary. It is the gestational time when you don't know what is next, but if you relax into it, the "next" emerges. My faith in the next is not quite solid enough to fully relax into it without it being tinged with a bit of anxiety. What if there is no next? In fact I often find the seeds of the next harvest in the project I have just completed. My process is often one of reflecting on whether I need to expand my scope to a bigger question or alternatively narrow it and go deeper into some particular aspect.

We shifted our attention to words related to finishing and pondered the word "deadline" which purportedly comes for a boundary around a prison beyond which prisoners can be shot. Hmmm, gives new meaning to "drop dead date".

So how are endings dealt with in Jewish text? When a section of the Talmud is completed, one says "Just as I finish this part may I be privileged to begin a new one.". The Torah is read through to the end and then begins again. We talked of the word gollel גולל which means wrap around, like a Torah scroll, no true beginning or ending. Beginnings feeding into endings feeding into beginnings. Even the creation story in Genesis 2:1-4a is followed by yet another creation story in 4b-6. And then God still hadn't gotten it quite right and started anew with Noah. So creation is a never ending process with destruction and new starts built in. Perhaps not so different than my process after all.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

All Beginnings are Hard

We began our Artists' Lab* with an exercise to loosen up, a few rousing rounds of Do-re-mi which of course begins with the phrase "Let's Start at the Very Beginning" as our theme was beginnings. We were asked to consider why beginnings were difficult. What was the challenge with beginning a painting or any creative effort? I proposed that we begin with all possibilities open, but once we make that first brushstroke we have begun to narrow our options. Each stroke commits us to a direction as it simultaneously closes off others. It is at the beginning that we are most conscious of the weight of those choices. The creative process is often one of carving away from a universe of all possibilities to one singular creation. 
 
In the Artists' Lab we often reference text for insights and we began with an beautiful excerpt from Chaim Potek's In the Beginning. The character David is told, "all beginnings are hard. You have to work at the job of studying... you cannot swallow the world all at one time." Later David adds, "especially a beginning that you make by yourself. That's the hardest beginning of all."

We then shifted to another book titled Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life by Irwin Kula. Kula talks of the anxiety and failure that accompanies creativity. The moments of "flow" are unpredictable and much of our time is spent trying to find our way. Creativity comes out of uncertainty and letting go of the familiar so by its very definition is challenging. Kula outlines four stage to creativity: Inspiration, Preparation, Incubation and Illumination. He defines inspiration as identifying a problem we want to solve. Preparation is skill development, the hard work of developing a craft or researching an idea. Incubation is for me the most interesting and difficult stage. I am learning to trust that ideas will come, but in their own time and often by not focusing too intently on the challenge. Kula gives a wonderful example of how Thomas Edison would doze off holding a ball in each hand. When he relaxed enough to loosen his grip the balls would fall to the ground and wake him. He would then make notes on ideas that came to him. I find that much of my writings and ideas for artwork happen in that semi-awake state when ideas flow freely, usually early morning when I awake or as I practice breathing in yoga. The final stage is Illumination. Often it feels a bit magical. It can't be scripted, but rather invited in after we've done the hard work that precedes it.

 We turned to how the Bible treated the subject of beginnings. In Genesis in the first act of creation, God declares, "Let there be light." He later creates Day and Night by dividing the light. How does creation occur? Why through naming and through differentiation. Day is distinct from Night. It is a singular creation that contains all that makes it unique, carved out of the whole of light. Midrash (Jewish commentary) talks about how God created many worlds before he got to the working model that we know so well. Creation is an improvisation, failure a step along the way. All meaningful reference points for artists as we approach the act of creation.
 
*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Essence and Absence

Today at the Artists' Lab* we continued to explore the work that we are doing for the exhibition. I shared my work with some of the attendees and found that the story is indeed powerful in the retelling. I have also made some alterations to the painting that make it work better visually. Can you tell what I changed?

The cans were too distracting, but as they were part of the story, I wanted to keep them in the image. I did a wash of blue black over them to make them less obtrusive so the emphasis remains on the two women. I also changed the flow of the path so it curves off to their side and is more irregular in form. Every painting is filled with many little decisions that help create the final image that you view. Some are conscious, others just happen as we find what pleases our eye.

At the Lab, our discussion began on the subject of Essence and Absence. In basic dictionary definitions, essence was defined as the property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is. Absence was the state of being away from a person or place. We were then asked to write down the essence of our project in one word and then what is absent.

The essence came easily. I wrote the word TOGETHER. Dora and her mother were either going to sit down and get a bullet in the head or continue walking. What was important was that they would do it together. Each was inextricably bound to the other. Hmm, an interesting turn of phrase as the story which was its inspiration is often referred to as the binding of Isaac. It took me a moment to come up with what was missing although it was fairly obvious. They were on a march with other prisoners and guards, but none of them are included in this image. The focus is only on these two women. I found this very simple exercise valuable, especially in my work which is so focused on story. What am I trying to convey? What is at the core? What do I omit, and why?

We then looked at a number of works by artist David Moss and discussed them relative to these themes. Moss is best known for his beautiful illuminated ketubahs (marriage certificates) and is credited with reviving the art form. What I found interesting about his work was the thinking that goes into it. Some artists just create and the process is outside of conscious thought. Moss has a process not unlike mine, minds that make and savor connections between imagery and ideas. He has a book of ketubahs called Love Letters which includes the many that he has done for couples as well as his correspondence with them as he tried to find the essence of their relationship and reflect it in his work.

We viewed his rendering of the Binding of Isaac. Interestingly this was made for a Jewish day school. A story of a father about to sacrifice his son would be enough to give a child nightmares, but apparently the children quickly learned to read the imagery and tell the story. The images of this 45 foot scroll are color coded and through changing forms, but constant colors, they tell the story through ideagrams. We were given the text of this passage and asked to find the various sections within the images. You can do the same with the images at the top of his website. Although I don't think all of the imagery is included, it will give you the flavor of how he uses color and forms to tell the story, all without using representative imagery.

In his imagery Abraham is symbolized by white forms, Isaac red and God blue. we get to extrapolate that a light blue represents the angel who speaks in God's stead. Time is represented by yellow, an interesting way of representing the passage of time, a concept which is given as much significance as the protagonists themselves. I particularly enjoyed some of his clever use of form. When Isaac asks his father where the ram is that they will be sacrificing you see the brown which represents animals in the shape of a ram's horn morphed into a question mark.

What I found particularly interesting were images that showed Isaac within Abraham and Abraham within Isaac, and both within God. To me it reflected the concept of being bound in a far different way than the narrative, bound to each other, what happens to one, happens to the other.

During our recent open studio event I was visited by some friends from our humanist Jewish group. They asked me if I would be willing to do the commentary at Rosh Hashanah using my painting. Rosh Hashanah is the time when the story of Abraham and Isaac comes up in the readings. The show will be up in the same building during this time so it will be an apt opportunity to explore this work further and my more contemporary interpretation of the themes of the original story.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

They Walked Together

After returning from the Artist Lab* my overly active brain often goes into overdrive. I was thinking of yet another painting I could do for the exhibition, an idea I had put on the back burner, but of which I was recently reminded. Of course I kicked into gear at 2AM and reached for my iPad to sketch out an image. Sometimes I'm not sure whether to celebrate an idea or mourn sleep.

I had originally been thinking of another direction for my painting. Then at the last Artist Lab we talked about negative space and I began to think about representing a story in a more simplified manner than I typically paint, leaving more to the viewer's imagination. The story I had in mind was one from my dear friend Dora. She and I had talked about me painting some of her stories from during the Holocaust and last week she reminded me of that discussion.

After the Artists' Lab discussion of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice Isaac, I realized I had a story with some symmetry. We were asked to imagine Abraham's torment upon being asked to sacrifice his child. The limited text allowed each person to reflect on the strength of that bond in their own life and what the prospect of severing that connection would feel like. Dora's story speaks to sacrifice, the strength of that bond between parent and child and how a proposed sacrifice averted death, all elements in the original biblical story, no less dramatic but arranged in a fashion that feels more comprehensible.

The most pivotal relationship in Dora's life during the war was with her mother. They were together in the ghetto, in Auschwitz and in Bergen Belsen. Dora has told her stories many times and is often quite matter of fact, except when she speaks of her mother. Then her voice quivers, tears catch in her throat and she is visibly moved. Her mother died a few years after the war, a huge blow for Dora. She would not have survived had it not been for her mother, for on many occasions her mother took decisive action to save her life.

The story Dora told me was about a death march. When they set out they were given three objects, a loaf of bread, a blanket and a can which she recalled had a picture of a chicken on it. The road was soon littered with cans as they had no way to open them. They tied the blanket around their neck and soon found that it felt like a noose. They shifted it from first one shoulder, then the other. The bread they guarded, saving a portion, not knowing for how long it was to last.


They walked for miles, everyone in a weakened state. The road once littered with cans was soon littered with bodies for if you sat down you got a bullet in the back of your head. Dora, exhausted, asked a guard when they would stop. He motioned to lights ahead at a village as their destination. With that hope she pushed onward. But when they reached the village, they continued on.


With no energy remaining, Dora began to contemplate the appeal of a bullet in the head. She turned to her mother and said she was going to sit down. Her mother and several other women tried to dissuade her for they all knew it meant instant death. Finally unable to dissuade her, her mother said, "All right, we'll sit down together." "Not youuu!" Dora replied. While she could contemplate her own death, the threat of her mother sacrificing her life along with hers allowed her to summon the strength to carry on.

There is an odd parallel to the story of Abraham and Isaac. In each case the threat of death loomed, a parent contemplates the loss of their child and a sacrifice is proposed. It was only when sacrifice was offered that death was averted, sacrifice waived. There is also a paucity of detail in this story, a distillation to essential facts. The three objects create imagery for the story - can, blanket, bread. A path littered with cans, then bodies. In the story of Abraham and Isaac there were also three items, the wood, the firestone and the knife. In the narrative I was struck by the phrase, they walked together, true in both stories in both a literal and figurative sense. What happened to one, also happened to the other. For Dora and her mother who had survived the whole war together, the only certainty was that they would act together.

I knew how I would paint this. A face partially hidden, a blanket tugging like a noose, the road with cans fading into the distance, hands cradling bread, and an arm reaching around cradling Dora, her mother's hands holding her upright. The trees echo the uniforms of the concentration camps and instead of bodies, stones memorialize those who fell.


*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Negative Space

We began this week's Artists Lab* with a text, that of the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac and the things that were unsaid. With little explanatory text we were forced to determine the motivations and feelings through actions alone. The empty space in the story allows us to imagine Abraham's torment at being asked to sacrifice his son, through the experience each of us holds of a parental bond.

That led into an interesting discussion of negative space, whether used in a visual sense or in a written story. What do you leave unsaid? What do you allow your reader or viewer to add from their own experience? This is a release of control and a difficult lesson for me who always wants to explain too much.

Then I thought of my series on the traces of the former Lithuanian Jewish community. I had called it the Silence Speaks Loudly and when I spoke I often talked about negative space, what is defined by what isn’t there. Definition by absence. Traces of writing on a wall suggest a lost community. A coal chute, a gate to a tunnel, bottles in the earth speak to people hidden, stories buried. Perhaps I get there in my own way.

We were asked if we begin a painting with the positive space or the negative. Having just come from my studio where I was beginning a painting, I reflected on my process. I was working on a painting for the Artist’s Lab exhibition on Ruach, God’s breath. I had been taken with the sentence in Genesis of Ruach hovering on the water in the moment before God said, “Let there be light”. To me that is a metaphor for the creative force and I was interested in exploring that idea.

I had been thinking about what that moment would be like and had done a small painting as preparation (see image) prior to the one I was now working on. I wanted a larger canvas to expand on the sky which while dark held movement, an active sky of blue blacks, dark as midnight, but beginning to stir, about to birth light. The creative process is stirred before it happens. I considered whether that first light would be yellow or white and what form it would take. I decided it would be white and would resemble a Lucio Fontana canvas with a slash in the middle, a shocking gash in the heavens. White slices the darkness, just enough light to emit a glimmer so we can see God’s breath spreading out like wings, hovering on either side.

I had created the darkness, the inverse of God’s effort, and then used a wet brush to remove paint and wipe it away where I wanted to create the light and the breath. Light coming from dark, not too different than as told in Genesis, but of course first I had to create dark. So what is positive space and what is negative space? Darkness was as much of a presence as light. Oh how metaphorical!

Just as I was weighing what was what, we shifted gears to view the artwork of two artists Noma Bar and Tang Yau Hoong. Each examined the question of negative space. Interestingly the way they examined it also blurred the line between what is negative or positive space. It depends on your perspective and to see fully you must shift back and forth, negative becomes positive, positive, negative. Remember the classic face and goblet exercise? These two artists each provide a clever and whimsical expansion on that concept.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Remembering

Yesterday was the day on which we remember the Shoah. In my community of the Twin Cities it is held at a different synagogue each year. Each year fewer survivors remain. This year I was unable to join my community in this commemoration as I am in Madison, Wisconsin gathering with other artists from Minneapolis-St Paul, Madison and Milwaukee. Each of those cities is participating in The Jewish Artists' Lab, a project of which I've written in this blog.* This was the first time we met with the other cities to discuss how the projects are developing.

On the first evening I was glad that they incorporated a Yom HaShoah commemoration. In some ways it was more personal as it encouraged greater interaction within our group. The facilitator spoke of the enormity of 6 million deaths and the difficulty of fully appreciating the loss of individuals when framed in such scope. She then recounted the story of one individual and asked each of us to in turn recount the story of someone lost in the Holocaust who in some way touched our life.

My mind began to race. Which story would I recount? I have done so much work around the Holocaust, my problem was not a dearth of stories, but too many. I waited while several of the artists told their story. Each clasping hands and joining the growing group in the center after they told their story. My heart was beating a little faster waiting for my opening, hoping I wouldn't choke up. It is often unpredictable when I tell these stories, sometimes factual and calm, sometimes caught in emotion.

When I rose, I began to tell the group of my grandfather who came to America in the early 1900s. He was the only one who came, leaving behind about 50 family members of his extended family. Virtually all of them died at Treblinka, no record in the Nazis Holocaust records as Treblinka was a death camp. They only kept records of those viewed as worker inventory, good for a few months of labor at best.

I told them of the film I had of the Jewish community of Radom, Poland, a homemade film done in 1937. It captured the community when it still thrived, five years before so many of its Jewish residents were murdered. In the film they were still light-hearted, playful as a former resident filmed them circling through the streets of their community. When I watch the film I watch for men who resemble my grandfather. Several of his brothers remained in the town.

Then I told them of the one person with whom I felt a special connection. Her name was Szajndla Wajnberg . She was a second cousin. We share the same great-grandparents. She was 19 years old in 1941 when the Nazis required her to file an identity paper. She was a beautiful young girl. Her photograph is in a circle and feels more like a keepsake one might give a boyfriend than a record for the Nazis. She was murdered the following year. We often use euphemisms. We say "she perished" as if the event that caused her death was remote, detached, rather than an act of aggression.

Our common great-grandmother was named Szajndla also. She died in 1920 and her great-granddaughter was named after her a few years later. Had I been born in Poland, my name, Susan, would more likely have been Szajndla. An accident of timing and birth meant my father was born on this side of the Atlantic, his cousin on the other. I took the hand of the person next to me.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.

Breathing Deeply

 I often am surprised by what I don’t know about Judaism.  I am especially intrigued with how certain texts relate to creativity. The Artists' Lab is on the theme of Text/Context/Subtext. I hadn’t thought of Jewish texts as a catalyst for my artwork and am pleased to discover they can function in that way. I come out of sessions of the Artists' Lab* with all of my synapses firing.

As we were in the midst of Passover last week, the Jewish Artists’ Lab touched on topics related to the Exodus from Egypt.The rabbi began the session asking if we felt enslaved or liberated by our artwork. I thought of when I have a painting that isn’t working and need to let it go to start anew. I often feel a sense of enslavement, hesitant to paint over it, yet not satisfied with the result. Others talked of that mix of feelings when one starts an artwork, both anticipation and also a sense of obligation to one’s work.

The focus of the session was on "Ruah" which means “breath”. Ruah is spiritual and creative energy, the breath of God. We began with a passage from Exodus 6:9 that talks of when Moses first tells the Israelites that he will deliver them from bondage. The passage says they would not listen to him because of m’kotzeir ruah (literally shortness of breath) and cruel bondage.

We talked about how oppression can create such distress that one can’t hear or perhaps imagine a different life. I found myself thinking of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When one is seeking to meet basic needs, concepts of imagination, spirituality or creativity may be of lesser focus.

We played with words and their meanings. "Inspiration" as filled with creativity, the breath of God, derived from the Latin "spirare" which means to breath. "Expiration", emptied of breath as when we expire.  I love the layers of meaning embedded in words, metaphors hiding in plain sight.

In addition to the passage itself, the rabbi also shared responses through time, from Rashi in 11^th century France, Sforno in 15^th century Italy to Hirsch in 19^th century Germany. There is a long Jewish tradition of sharing commentary across time and geography. Time indeed compresses as we join around the table.

We turned to a more contemporary response, Aviva Zornberg in The Particulars of Rapture. She posits that “in order to hear we need to clear ourselves of obstruction, open ourselves: for that reason we read the narrative of the Exodus, culminating in the Song of the Sea, before reading the shema prayer (which means “hear”). ” The Exodus prepares us to move past “shortness of breath”, past oppression and obstruction, to be able to hear again as represented by the Shema.

But what of Ruah as it relates to creating? In fact the first use of the word is in Genesis 1:1-2 where God creates the world. The passage translates to “In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, when the earth was astonishingly empty, with darkness upon the face of the deep, and ruah elohim hovered upon the surface of the waters, God said, “let there be light”.” Ruah exists even before that first act of creation.

I thought about the relevance of these passages to the creative process, the idea of clearing ourselves of obstruction, breathing deeply in order to welcome ruah into our life, enabling us to hear and create. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that so many of my ideas come to me in child’s pose in my yoga class as we practice breathing.

Also in this vein we discussed Counting the Omer, something with which I had not been familiar. This is a verbal counting of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. The purpose of this count is to remind us of the link between Exodus which Passover commemorates and the giving of the Torah which is the focus of Shavuot. The Kaballah focuses upon these 49 days as a period of spiritual growth preparing for the acceptance of the Torah, again a clearing out of obstructions, making room for Ruah.

Breath and smell also bear a relationship. The Havdallah ceremony entails smelling a blend of spices to close out the Sabbath, bringing us back to the work-a-day world. I find myself thinking that many of our sessions have focused on the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling. We use our senses to let the world in and in turn to create.

In each session the first half is discussion, the second an exercise. Our subsequent exercise was two-fold, one a yoga breathing and visualization exercise and the second one with words. The word exercise, which is a little easier to capture in this medium, focused on writing our story in six words, a distillation that challenges an essayist like myself. My short-lived attempt at Twitter ended in frustration at its word limit. I met with a little more success in this endeavor. I’ve written in this blog of setting the table to invite surprises into our life so I came up with two six word stories to reflect my life themes: "Solving Puzzles, Telling Stories, Inviting Surprises" or “Setting the Table for Unexpected Surprises”.

So let me divert a little from the Artists’ Lab and give you an example of that. As a planner by nature, I can plan too much and not leave enough room for the unexpected. Part of me likes to know what is coming even though I know surprises are the wonderful gifts that have moved my life forward. I’ve learned how to set the table, create circumstances that invite surprises in while still preserving some structure. Years ago I used to take my mother on trips to Europe. I always would reserve a hotel in our first city and our last, but in between we played it by ear. I think you would call that “planned uncertainty”. We’d arrive by train at the station and book a random hotel. That way we had flexibility in our schedule and an opportunity for surprises while still preserving the certainty of a hotel upon landing or before departing. Had I planned out every detail I would have known exactly where I was going and when, but not the wonderful detours of discovery.

Ruah and surprises, perhaps there is a relationship. Sometimes excessive planning enslaves us, blocking us from hearing that quiet voice inside of ourselves, obstructing us from creativity and the chance discovery. Opening ourselves up to the unknown, the unplanned, the breath of God, isn’t that the very essence of creativity?

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 17 artists exploring the theme of Text/Context/Subtext through study and art making.  The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Text/Context/Subtext is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.