Working while yukky

Last Friday our dear friends came to town.

We went out to lunch. I was however coming down with a cold so I crawled into bed as soon as we finished luch.

I have been sick with what my friend Marla calls the yucks. The yuks tend to be accompanied with large quantities of snot. The yuks are still with me.

But I have been working.

This challah cover bordered with African mud-cloth is now complete.

I could not be more pleased with how it turned out.

Yes, I am particularly aware of the power of using an African textile in a Jewish ritual object during these particular weeks.

I love the graphic impact the mud cloth adds to the challah cover. I purchased the mud cloth at the African Shuk on 116th street. Each time I purchase something in one of the stalls at that shuk the the exchange is always more than just the exchange of cash for goods. Each purchase always ends with clasped hands and an exchange of blessings.

I have also been working on Isabel’s tallit. I know isabel from my synagogue. For most of her life she has chosen to dress herself as if she were a child from the mid 1940’s. For the past year or so she has shifted to wearing clothing that makes her look like she is from 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Isabel’s Torah reading describes the garments of the High Priest. she wanted her tallit to reflect the colors used in the sanctuary. She wanted to use the pomegranate and bells that appear on the hem of the High Priest's robes as the motif on the strip of her tallit.

I was not surprised that Isabel chose a heavy weight silk charmeuse for her tallit. It is exactly what I would have expected from her.

I painted the silk for the main body of the tallit in layers This was an early stage of the painting.

Each layer of color needs to be heat set before you add the next layer of color.

This is about three layers of color later.

I have been working away on the pomegranate and bell stripes. Those too have to be worked up in layers.

This was the first layer.

I then stippled additional color onto each pomegranate and outlined the pomegranate and added gold details.

Next, I outlined the bells.

The I filled in the bells and added some details.

Next I’m going to add a bit of trellis work connecting the bells to one another. This design is based on an older Moroccan design.

I like how nicely the pomegranate strip goes with the painted silk.

Isabel is clearly of the more is more school. last night I met with a set of twins. I am making their tallitot as well. Their tallitot are all about restraint and editing. You will see those tallitot as they are being created over the next couple of weeks.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog