Creating a Family

Today, I got about as close to production sewing as I ever get. In two weeks, my synagogue is doing an artists’ studio tour to showcase the work of synagogue embers who are also artists. I am happy to have been selected to be part of the day. Participants pay a fee to visit the various studios and are welcome to make purchases while they are on the tour.

I may not be the smartest business woman in the world, but I do know that people are more likely to buy lower priced items. Thus, today’s flurry of havdalah bags. Yup, I invented these. When they are done they will be filled with sweet smelling spices. you hold the bag when you recite havdalah, the prayers you recite are right on the bag.

Today I made the fronts of eleven bags. That is a multi staged process. I photo transferred the text eleven times onto a long strip of blue silk shantung. Then I began to build the borders. Many of the fabric strips come from pieces that I worked on recently, or not so recently.

I suppose that if I had a different sort of a personality, I would make sure that all of the pieces ended up looking the same.

I like for people who buy my work to all in love with a particular piece. So they all vary a bit. Sometimes the variations come from making something that didn’t quite work, work. No, I’m not telling you which of these were saved from the jaws of failure.

I think of a group of pieces made at the same time as a family. Like family members they resemble one another, but aren’t identical.

I hope that some of you can come on Sunday November 20. It ought to be a fun afternoon.

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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sarah in nyc

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