ghosts and shadows

it has been a while since I last posted.... but my mind has been churning. I have been invited to be an artist-in-residence on the sisterhood blog at The Forward (an American Jewish newspaper) and so I've been busy with that project. I'm planning on doing a series of clothing pieces - each one based on the different ways clothing is used as a metaphor for meaning. there should be around 10 in total. I'm excited to do the work and get stuck in.

But.. this is what happens. You start working on one idea and then others pop into your head, whisper in your ear and tempt your imagination. Defeated, I have to admit that this would be a really interesting avenue to go down. A series based on the women in the Talmud who are unnamed and yet are a vital part of the story. They lurk in the shadows and haunt the text. Never really having a body, a full fleshed out character - they remain a ghost-like presence on the page...



First up is Rabbi Yochanan's sister. Married off to Reish Lakish to legitimise her brother's chavrutah, she alone is left when the two men argue to death and insanity. She is like the Shechinah, trying to hold the two opposing opinions together under her shelter. But she cannot overcome stubborn men who know they are right, and becomes a lonely widow....

this won't be a series of dresses... or it might be... right now it is just an idea that is forming. it may be more paper-cutting - but playing with the shadows. it might be layers of embroidery on transparent ghost-like fabric...

but whatever it will be. I think I need to find these women and tell their stories.

getting ready

the armoury project has met with certain pitfalls. Between the three of us, we have had death, divorce, miscarriage, and illness to deal with. It's been a bit of a summer. But we've got on with it and now the end is in sight, and despite everything we've individually gone through, we've managed to produce something...


Unazia Karim's beautiful handwritten amulet prayers to be placed on the amulet shirt made by Victoria Burgher


my embroidery on the amulet shirt - using one of Unazia's designs


hand-knitted silver wire, chainmail in my piece

the finished artwork will be installed next monday for the 3 Faith Forum's exhibition for Interfaith Week Event

Armoury

We, (Victoria Burgher, Unaiza Karim & I) won a grant from the 3 Faiths Form to work on a collaborative art project together. And so, been giving funding by a group to harness relationships between religious groups, we decided to build ourselves some armour.... beginning by drawing in the splendid Wallace Collection. But amongst the well-crafted tools for violence and killing, and magnificent yet threatening armour, there was one thing that we found particularly horrific. It was a quote from James Mann, who in 1937, after seeing the death and devastation in the Spanish Civil War, campaigned to save Spain's art and armour from destruction.
He wrote "Human life can be replaced by a comparatively simple process, but the great works of art which have come down to us from the past are irreplaceable."

I'm not sure if it is because the 3 of us are mothers that we found this statement so shocking. The diminishing of the value of individual human life struck us as antithetical to our religious moral sense and outlook on life. That he said it in 1937 after witnessing the trauma, and widespread loss of life in Spain is, in a twisted way, understandable. But the Wallace Collection, in the year 2000, chose that quote to display with with armour he saved, in a praiseworthy manner.

and so we began - talking and drawing the contrast between the violent forms and the delicate surface decoration. The uses of different materials - chainmail, leather, metal plate. and discussing that women today still face various affronts to their basic human dignity, the individual's right to self-determination and autonomy.



it promises to be a fascinating project. I am now investigating chainmail.... (and I thought paper-cutting was meticulous finger breaking work)

new website

thanks to a very helpful tip from Rachel Mars - I now have a new website.
I will still be using this blog to put up and show any work in progress.

if you have any comments, criticisms, feedback or helpful thoughts about the new site - please let me know.

thank you

maybe this month

(scroll down to earlier posts for the paper-cuts)


this is a new piece - just finished. it is white on white embroidery on niddah examination cloths, that are sewn together with red thread. Each square is embroidered with the text 'maybe this month'


(click on image to enlarge)

there are 15 squares to correspond to the 15 examinations that a woman does to herself in the week leading up to going to the mikveh.

Temptress!

(click on image to enlarge)

R Yohanan says: We learn fear of sin from a maiden (betullah). He heard of a maiden who would prostrate herself saying "Master of the World! You created Gan Eden and Gehinnom (hell), the righteous and the wicked. May it Be Your Will that I not cause men to sin."

for years I toed the line. believed in the reciprocal community arrangement of mitzvot. we are all responsible for each other and we all help each other fulfil what they need to fulfil. the laws of tznuit (modesty) are there because we do not live as isolated selves but we are connected to and affect others around us. So women have been covering up in order to help men have a more spiritual life... but what do we get in return? is there any support from the men to our spirituality?



The discussion about modest dress normally begins with a worthy line about keeping the female body beautiful and special - the king's daughter's beauty is within, but ends with shame and disgrace. judging women and their bodies and labelling, not as beautiful or special, but vessels for sin and temptation to sinful behaviour. walking talking yetzer horas (evil inclination). Making women ashamed not celebratory of their bodies, their curves, their sexual selves.

Like an alcoholic blaming the bottle of wine for their own inability to only have 1 or 2 glasses, the men blame the women for tempting them, for their lack of control.



going back to the quote, the maiden (the hebrew is betullah, a virgin) this sexually inexperienced young girl is praying to God because she is afraid of sin. but whose sin is it? Not hers, but the men who may be aroused by her body. Her body who the 'Master' created.

This is a story that men tell themselves about women. It allows men to abdicate their sexual responsibility as they tell themselves that women have taken this role on. It sexualises young women, and puts their bodies in a context of shame and disgrace.

food and sex

'a woman prefers her husband to be a donkey driver, at home every shabbat to satisfy her sexually, even though he only earns 1 kab of wheat, rather than a distant camel driver who has sex once in 30 days, even though he earns 9 kabim' Ketubot 61a

women prefer regular sex to a higher standard of living... those, silly impractical women. (click on image to enlarge)



I have incorporated food associated with sex and fertility, including some from the traditional 7 species (I am a traditionalist at heart) - figs, pomegranates, grapes and of course wheat in the lacework, all of which is dripping with honey...