About my work
A trickster ring of rabbits are spun ‘round by a circling leviathan, while an elephant lumbers under the weight of an entire kingdom on its back. Flags with Yiddish words capture a bit of territory, if only for a moment. Deer run without obstruction straight toward God, as the memory of a vulnerable people is wrapped up in a knight’s formidable armor. This enduring visual lexicon accompanies me into the hills and fields and canyons that have become my studio over the past years, forming a symbolic library that I transform and am transformed by. I gather and interpret these images from the pages of old Jewish manuscripts, from rare photographs of now destroyed wooden synagogues, where hares and unicorns adorn the painted ceilings, and from tombstones I sketched in ruined Jewish graveyards while traveling through the Ukraine. Focusing on the nexus between nature and culture, this journey has led me through broad explorations of cultural experience. As a collector of materials found in nature, my artwork and ongoing research juxtaposes and reinterprets these objects to reclaim wonder in every day life. My process is both a reflection and reconciliation. In the language of Jewish symbols, many creatures are depicted looking backwards, like the deer in the painting “Ehrlichkayt,” touching his nose with his hoof, thereby creating a circle. Often, we cannot go forward without looking backward.