sarah in nyc

When I took my first painting class in college my professor told me that when there was a piece that I liked I needed to make 5o of them so I could really understand what I was doing.   When I was in college I didn’t quite get the wisdom of that statement.  I am working on an invitation design. My clients are people of real taste and definite opinions. I love working with them.  It also helps that they are really delightful. So over the past few weeks I have been creating LOTS of variations on  the theme. We had been exchanging emails back and forth with some of these variations being sent as attachments. We had a few pow-wows  at services about how things were  going.   Last night we met in person. We talked back and forth and came up with a game plan. No, I’m not going to share the final design –yet. I really do enjoy the back and forth as each of us clarifies what we like or don’t like.  I love the partnership of worki...

that I designed. The bar-mitzvah is the Shabbat in which we read about the red heifer. The bar- mitzvah boy's parents wanted the cow to have a primitive look. I gave  the cow the bemused look. After all, who wants to be pulverized???? I was not at all involved with the printing and love the choice they made to work with both red and black ink. The invitation came in a red envelope. I smudged out the bar mitzvah boy's last name in English. The family regreted that I didn't sign my work, but I usually don't. If you get this invitation, now you know that  I designed it. This is my second invitation for this family. I love working with them. They are creative and exacting, and push me to do my best work.

Usaully, I design a piece and then I make it. In this case, I designed the lettering for the Chanukah bags that my friend Marky made  for her  grandchildren. I was so delighted to see the photos of Marky's hand work. The photos of Marky's work are followed by the sketches I emailed to her. Marky was also sweet enough to send me a copy of the email her son in law sent her as a thank you. He was blown away that Marky ( who isn't Jewish) was able to produce bags with Hebrew lettering. Three cheers for the magic of the internet!!! It's so cool to live in the future.

Noah's invitation, closed. the text comes from God's promise to never again destroy the earth after the flood. The text is written in the form of a stylized olive leaf.  When I work in fabric I control the entire process. Doing graphics, I work in collaboration with the printer. I was lucky that Diane, Noah's mom chose to work with such an excellent printer. Marissa, from Quad Rite has a great eye and worked to make my part of the invitation just look better. Marissa suggested the  muted olive green ink. Diane who loves muted colors found a sage green envelope. Other times when I have done invitations, my work has been begun by hand, but then I manipulate the art work on the computer. This time, I worked the old fashioned way, completely by hand. Each draft was begun anew with pencil and rolling ruler. It was actually pleasant working this way. Marissa shrunk my work down by about 20% . Both Diane and I were grateful to Marissa's experience which made both of o...

Two of my friends were involved with the Longitudinal Jewish Continuity Study commissioned by UJA Federation. The point of that study was to see if, and how young Jews live Jewish lives in America. The study looked at synagogue membership, rates of intermarriage and levels of ritual observance. The Birthright  trips to Israel for Jewish  young adults are an outgrowth of the study. Over the past couple of days, I have had a series of email exchanges with a friend from one of the sewing discussion groups that I am involved with, that made me re-think some of the issues around inter-marriage. My friend, Marky, emailed me a few weeks ago. Marky isn't Jewish, but her daughter married someone who is Jewish and committed to raising the kids Jewish. Marky was looking for a Chanukah themed embroidery program. She was planning to make Chanukah gift bags for her grandchildren. Marky wanted to decorate the bags with appropriate symbols and perhaps the children's Hebrew names....