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Tag : Jewish Artists
February 23, 2021 by admin
Jewish Artists of Color: A Candid Conversation
Inspired in large part by a call to action put out by No Silence on Race last summer to build a more inclusive, anti-racist Jewish community in Canada, FENTSTER (Yiddish for ‘window’) gallery has focused on programming work by Black and Jewish artists — first in their street-front window gallery in downtown Toronto, exhibiting new work by photo-video artist Ella Cooper, followed by an online conversation and artist showcase that has been viewed over 500 times. Out of those initial projects, an idea was born to create a space specifically for Jewish Artists of Color to come together — a closed conversation that would be welcoming and safe, informal and intentional.
And so, FENTSTER curator Evelyn Tauben teamed up with No Silence on Race (whose founder — Sara Yacobi-Harris — is also a filmmaker, among many other things) to give shape to PRISM. Together, they assembled a diverse core team of JOC creatives from across North America — artists, performers, curators and producers from Toronto, Texas, New York and Vancouver. The PRISM core team includes Rabbinical student/theatre artist Kendell Pinkney, Carmel Tanaka – founder of one of Canada’s only Jewish queer trans organizations, JQT Vancouver, writer / cultural producer Devyani Saltzman, dancer/community organizer Adam McKinney and No Silence on Race’s Yacobi-Harris. Over the last months, this group has been dreaming up a context to allow fellow JOC artists and arts professionals to be able to come together with the hopes of building connections, artistic collaborations and community. Despite the limitations of the pandemic, the move to online gatherings presents possibly the best moment yet to begin to seed a new Jewish creative network.
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January 25, 2021 by admin
A Performer Forbidden Her Audience
ILANNA STARR, 25
I am an opera singer. It has been almost a year since I last entered a concert hall, performed for an audience, or had an in-person rehearsal. My industry has been forced to close all doors, cancel performances and wait.
I know this is what we have to do to protect artists, neighbors and loved ones. Yet, the uncertainty of when we will meet again in person has left me and most of my colleagues worried about careers we have spent our lives training for, and the future of the arts that give our lives meaning and beauty.
Today, my version of working from home means daily vocal practice, perfecting my diction in more than 10 different languages, learning new roles and repertoire, and creating and participating in virtual projects. All of this work, normally done in the company of teachers, coaches and colleagues, now takes place through my computer.
The transition to virtual life has rendered artists unable to make music with others in real-time and be heard, transforming the collaborative process of music making. Yes, technology affords some semblance of musical collaboration, but singing along with a karaoke track is challenging and confining, even after months of acclimatizing to this new reality.
I had taken for granted the fact that an audience would always be there to engage with, that I could make music together and in real-time with colleagues, and that I could learn and train in the same room as my teachers and coaches. This pandemic has amplified for me something I have long known: that my life has been fueled and energized by collaboration.
On my own, I have developed new skills. I have created a home studio to record projects, and learned more about sound engineering. I have grown my voice studio online and cherish the hours of the week that I get to share with my students. I have had more time to practice music that I love from all different genres and to better understand myself as an artist.
There have been so many days when I have been too overwhelmed by the state of the world to sing, days when words of encouragement to support fellow singers and friends are impossible to muster, and days when I have been consumed by existential questions and hopeless realizations about the future of performing arts.
But beneath these despondent moments, I believe that when our world opens up, people will pour into venues everywhere. So, though it would seem prudent to pivot and find a more lucrative career, I am more resolved than ever to continue honing my craft. It is extremely challenging to be an artist right now, but when this is all over my colleagues and I will be there to remind you of live art’s unique value—and how much you missed it.
Ilanna Starr is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice & Opera Performance at Northwestern University.
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September 25, 2020 by Eleanor J. Bader
Collage Artist Sally Edelstein: “My Politics is My Art.”
Collage-maker Sally Edelstein calls herself a “visual archeologist,” digging deep into American mythology. But she does more than this. Alongside the creation of innumerable pieces of wall art that juxtapose the collision between past and present, her blog, envisioningtheamericandream.com, probes the ways that advertising and media steer our perceptions of race, class, and gender and how they can either expand or limit what we imagine for ourselves and our lives. Humor is abundant. So are pointed critiques of the Trump administration. There is also a focus on environmental calamity: Edelstein’s work chronicles the transition from World War II shortages, when “Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Or do without” segued into rampant consumerism at the end of the war and sent Rosie and her riveting sisters back to the roost. She spoke to Lilith’s Eleanor J. Bader about her art, writing, and political rage from her Long Island home in mid-September.
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November 4, 2019 by admin
A Lilith Covered Artist, Validated
I remember many years ago there was an article in an art magazine about the artist Liza Lou, who does beaded work, and instead of placing her work in the context of the history of beading, like Native American beading or women’s crafts, they put her in the tradition of Andy Warhol. Because the way to validate an artist, particularly a woman artist, is to put them in the context of the important male art. What you’re talking about now opens up the possibility of starting to see women in our own tradition.
JUDY CHICAGO interviewed by JORI FINKEL in the New York Times, September 22, 2019. “Judy Chicago on Rescuing Women From Art History’s Sidelines.”
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January 8, 2019 by Eleanor J. Bader
The Feminist Who Illustrated “The Wisdom of the Fathers”
When artist Jessica Tamar Deutsch was finishing her studies at the Parsons School of Design, she decided to illustrate the famous collection of rabbinic wisdom, Pirkei Avot—typically translated as The Ethics of the Fathers—as her senior thesis. It was 2013. Her colorful 128-page effort was then shopped around to every publisher of Jewish texts that Deutsch could find. Rejections piled up. Some bristled at her depiction of pants-wearing women holding the Torah. Others disliked seeing men with their heads uncovered. And still others did not want to take a chance on something they saw as little more than a religious-themed comic book.
Thankfully, Deutsch reports, a small-but-growing Philadelphia company called Print-O-Craft decided to buck the trend and The Illustrated Pirkei Avot: A Graphic Novel of Jewish Ethics, was released in April 2017. To date, nearly 4,000 copies have been sold.
Deutsch sat down with Eleanor J. Bader on a chilly December morning to discuss the book, art, and the creative process.
Eleanor J. Bader: Since the release of The Illustrated Pirkei Avot more than a year-and-a-half ago, you were named one of Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 in 2018 and are currently doing a Fellowship with LABA, at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan. Can you tell me more about your current projects?
Jessica Tamar Deutsch: I’m presently illustrating two different books. One is being written by Rabbi Jon Leener and will introduce children (and adults) to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. It’s sort of a Rebbe Nachman 101. The protagonist is a five-year-old girl named Esther.
The other book is being written by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein and is the story of his Jewish journey.
I also design Ketubot, Jewish marriage documents. This includes interfaith couples and incorporates new traditions where women make a Ketubah for their spouse instead of being the one to receive the document. I love when people make up their own customs. I work with each couple to find meaningful texts but I don’t do the actual calligraphy. I have friends who are amazing scribes so when I make art that I want hand-lettered, I gladly collaborate with them.
Lastly, I’m the resident artist at the Lab Shul. It’s been exciting and an education for me to work with communities that practice Judaism differently from one another.
EJB: You’re juggling a lot! What’s your project for the LABA fellowship?
JTD: The idea is to explore the Hebrew word for truth, emeth.
I recently completed a three-day training to become a doula, to help in the delivery room and be a calm support to the person having a baby. Fellowship funding allowed me to pay for the training and I intend to get more instruction before I begin this work. At the same time, I’m learning about death rituals in Judaism and am working with the Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish Burial Society, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The idea is to be in these two book-ended moments simultaneously and see what happens. I hope to make art from these experiences but I am not yet sure what form the project will take.
EJB: Have you always made art?
JTD: I think you can safely say that I’ve been making art practically since I exited the womb! Before I even went to nursery school, I made a collage by cutting my hair and arranging the strands on paper–and I’ve always painted. In elementary school I became obsessed with Renaissance paintings.
My maternal grandparents were in the textile business so growing up I was around fashion, color, and fabrics. When I got to Parsons, I began with the intention of studying fashion design, swapped over to fine art for a semester, and finally completed my BFA in illustration. Along the way I took several sewing classes but, for me, sewing was soul-wrecking. I’ve always loved drawing best.
EJB: By combining your love to Judaism with your love of painting and drawing, you’ve figured it out.
JTD: I think so! I grew up modern Orthodox in New Rochelle, New York, and was one of those kids who absolutely loved Judaism. In fourth grade I had a cheder-style teacher who taught Torah as a song. Judaism became music to me.
EJB: Have you always been a fan of graphic novels?
JTD: As a kid I read Archie, and I’m only now learning about some of the greats.
When I was at Parsons, I’d walk by a store on my way to class called Forbidden Planet. I discovered a book there called Blankets by Craig Thompson. I bought it and remember thinking to myself, ‘This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ In it, Thompson described growing up in middle America, in a religious Christian family, falling in love and experiencing heartbreak for the first time, and then moving to New York City. This spoke to me.
The art I like best tends to make the everyday look sacred and Thompson did that. It was eye-opening to find his work.
EJB: How about your relationship to feminism?
JTD: People have asked me why, as a feminist, I made a book about male wisdom. It’s a good question, but I think we have to deal with things we find uncomfortable in our traditions.
I think that some of the discomfort comes from the progress of Jewish feminists, something I benefit from. People my age can’t relate to a time when only male voices were canonized.
Rabbi Eve Posen and Lois Sussman Shenker have written Pirkei Imahot: The Wisdom of Mothers, The Voices of Women as a feminist response to the Pirkei Avot. It’s fabulous. They’ve written it in the way you would construct a Mishnah, by turning to powerhouse women for advice. The people who are making new Mishnahs today are keeping Judaism alive.
EJB: How did working with the Hebrew text affect you?
JTD: What I love most about Hebrew is that it is a playful language and the ways my publisher and I interacted with my manuscript allowed us to title it The Illustrated Pirkei Avot. Perkei means chapters of collections and avot can be translated as fathers, but it can also be translated to mean important things; the book can be called a collection of the most important teachings or the most important wisdom, instead of Ethics of the Fathers.
EJB: How has your feminism come up against the realities of different Jewish communities?
JTD: I often assume that what I am up to is considered unconventional, but I may be wrong about this. I was speaking at the Sixth Street Synagogue in Manhattan’s East Village about the book and there was a man there, dressed in black and white, with peyes. After I spoke, he came up to me and said it was inspiring to him to hear a woman deal with Mishnah in a serious way. That’s change happening.
Still, there are things in Judaism I don’t want for future generations. For many women, diving into Jewish texts can seem daunting, I am disheartened when women assume they must rely on male teachers. We forget that the Torah is something manageable, something they can learn. When women role models aren’t present as clergy, it’s difficult for women to see themselves in a direct relationship with Torah. They may miss an opportunity to develop their own study skills or learn from someone who might have a better understanding of their lived experience. When I want to learn something, I go to a text, and on my own, try to find an English translation and then wade in.At the same time, while I’m grateful to have supportive male colleagues and teachers, I often have to deal with being the only female voice in a particular space. it can wear me down and feel lonely.
EJB: So, how do you handle it?
JTD: I’ve started writing something I call The Torah of my Kishkes: The Diary of a Twenty-Something-Year-Old Jewess. It’s the place I put my thoughts on Jewish practice, the disappointments, joys, and hopes for the future. It’s been the best way I’ve found to deal with the knots in my heart. I also make sure to take care of myself by running, doing lots of yoga, seeing friends, and playing music. In addition, I’m now taking a dance class for the first time.
EJB: What is your favorite art-making activity, something that you do for pleasure?
JTD: I love being outdoors with my sketchbooks. Sketchbooks are the best. There is no expectation or judgment when you use one.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lilith Magazine.
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