sarah in nyc

 Wednesday, Esther and Frank came by to pick up the pieces I had completed for them. My task was to somehow turn a collection or fitted early 1960s Ikat dyed silk blouses and a length of beautiful inky black heavy silk shantung into two wall-hangings that somehow memorialized Frank's mother's life.  My work tends to be centered on words, on Jewish texts. This assignment was something of a challenge. The two wall hangings was to be made for Frank and his brother so the pieces needed to be similar but not identical. The two needed to be somehow of equal value so that neither brother would feel like he had gotten the short end of the stick. As I worked  I loved what I was doing---but I wasn't sure if I had created two pieces that were deeply pleasing to me and to no-one else. The work proceeded slowly because each piece needed to be in balance both with itself and with it's mate. The red hand quilting added a percussive beat to the pieces.  I was nervous about what Esth...

 Today is my father's fourteenth Yahrziet. Last night I attended a Shiva minyan and recited Kaddish.  This morning I put up a batch of challah. We will be spending the weekend with dear friends so I am baking challah for my hostess. As I did all of the familiar tasks that make up making a batch of challah I thought about how my father used to bake challah. I thought about our very different approaches to the task. My father was much more methodical. Once he figured out a formula for challah baking he stuck to it with no variations. My father had difficulty braiding the dough so he baked his challot in a loaf pan. Each pan held five quarter pound lumps of dough. My father made up a much bigger batch of dough at a time than I do making at least a dozen loaves at a time.  Despite the differences in our challah baking styles and probably in our approaches to life---doing this act today, of all days connected me to my father.  Today I ran into our rabbi and found out that...

 Right now I am working on several projects at once. While visually they are not at all similar each one is about connecting the user to the past.  I grew up in a house that my parents moved into during the summer of 1957. My mother moved out about a year after my father died. People who are better at numbers than I am at numbers say that was fifty-five years in the same house. My friend Frank grew up quite differently. He was born in Burma. Frank's father was an academic and got on the wrong side of the government so Frank went to kindergarten in Rangoon. I no longer remember all of the places Frank and his brother lived during their young lives but clearly, they saw a whole lot more of the world than I did living in Quincy. Frank's parents sucked up the culture wherever they lived. Frank's mom bought fabrics and had clothes made for her bought shoes ( I was lucky enough to briefly own a pair of her brass-heeled embellished high-heeled mules which I passed on to the girl w...