Musing On The Quality Of Silence

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN.

A simple instruction that many of us remember from our early years, first as city-dwelling toddlers learning to cross streets or enter a new environment, then throughout the educational phase of our lives as we absorb the knowledge necessary to become an independent adult. Often underrated, silence is the foundation of each word of that instruction.

To stop is to stand back momentarily from everything that has or requires momentum. To take a breath and allow time to slow as you make the courageous decision to subordinate yourself to the needs or requirements of another person, animal, undertaking or event. To do so is to direct all of our senses, not just five but the intangible sixth, to fulfill their innate purpose. Like the color we perceive as white contains all other colors (according to Isaac Newton’s prism demonstration), we might consider that silence, though it suggests the absence of sound, contains the potential for all sounds to be perceived, if we choose to do so. With conscious use, silence can be the epitome of self-control. Silence also provides the side benefit of allowing us to listen carefully and ‘read between the lines’ of our interactions with others to understand more fully the intent of our communications

Once, during a visit with a friend who lived alone in a small apartment, I found it odd, if not disturbing, that her television was playing incessantly. After a while, at my request, she turned it off, admitting that she didn’t pay much attention to it but its background noise allowed her to feel less lonely. I suppose there’s some truth to that idea, yet personally, I find it quite difficult to think about anything within a constant noisy environment. This is especially true in my need for quiet while I am developing a concept for a new piece of art. Ironically, once the concept is established and the mechanics of completion have begun, music or a podcast playing in the background are soothing aids during that phase of production. I suspect this so because situation such background noise seems to neutralize other distractions in my environment thus freeing me to focus on my work instead of responding to it.

The quality of silence is also what we make of it. We can choose to believe we are bored, a state that is terrifying to some so that they require more distraction or stimulation from an outside source(s). Or we can mine it to arouse our patience and to gather our thoughts, consider personal interactions and accomplishments, past, present or future. Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT succinctly defined boredom when she said, “Boredom is {just} your imagination calling to you.” Perhaps your imagination hasn’t received any useful input from you lately? It can only work if you release it from your brain-box to help you discover the potential hidden in your mundane environment.

Possessions are a simple place to begin, such as recalling how a certain object came to be yours and why you’ve kept it. Maybe that object is a particular book, an article of clothing, a piece of jewelry or furniture. How about your ‘to-do list? When was the last time you added an entry to it? Maybe you can try to focus on how to complete an abandoned project or begin a new one?

In addition to maintaining this blog, periods of silence have aided my adjustment after I retired from a long freelance illustration career. In deciding to focus on developing forgotten projects noted over the years in numerous journals, I have kept surprisingly busy writing, illustrating and publishing my own books, creating images suggested in those journals and promoting the many original artworks sitting patiently in my studio.

From another perspective, perhaps your silence can become an internal map that guides you through your own body, examining and mentally cataloguing your physical sensations, which aside from serious distracting pain, can establish a mind-body connection to enhance awareness and evaluation of your surroundings and relationships.

The word ‘silence’ originated with the Latin ‘silens’ meaning to be still, quiet, at rest or without speech or noise, but it is much more. It describes inhabiting a space that allows and enhances concentration, encourages meditation and offers us the chance to think and/or act.

A great deal has been written online and in academic books that describes the nature of silence and its etymology so what I’ve said here may not be new to you. Still, a state of boredom need not be feared but embraced; it can be a doorway to rediscovering mental, physical and creative aspects of yourself that have been neglected to awaken their usefulness.

I like to think of my imagination as a virtual muscle which only becomes stronger with regular exercise.

Move it or lose it!

The images above are from my new postcard collection, Whispers On The Wind: A Collection Of Peculiar Perceptions. Available in packs of 36 or 12 at: http://www.magiceyegallery.com (bit.ly/3gt2gkM)

Looking Backwards To See Forward

The idea that history repeats itself is not a new one, except when its lessons come back to bite us. So I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at the rapid rise of the current coronavirus. Sure, we’ve all had our fill of constant media fear-mongering mixed with coping advice and though I don’t wish to downplay its seriousness, I have been particularly concerned because of late, a strong childhood memory has been haunting me…

As a child, I was made sharply aware that other children I knew had grandparents because my own maternal grandmother had been gone for a very long time. As a young, newly arrived Eastern European immigrant, she had been one of the millions of victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic or Spanish flu.

Although my grandfather had soon remarried, I was told that his new wife had treated my three-year old mother and her older brother cruelly. They were then brought up by my great aunt. Bitter at having no children of her own, she loved them in her own way but mostly tolerated them out of a sense of duty.

I remember being sad much of the time at having no close, extended family because although my paternal grandparents were still living, I had little physical contact with them due to other family dysfunctional relationships beyond my control at the time. Still, there  are times that I imagine hearing their voices arguing or cursing in Yiddish at each other and times when I can hear their softer tones expressing worry and affection.

Nevertheless, my brief experiences with those generations were surely part of the alchemy of who I’ve become whether through the mystery of memory or genetics.

Now that I am grandmother, those early memories have become more relevant since I am squarely within the demographics of those most vulnerable to Covid-19. With my own history of respiratory ailments and our grandson in pre-school, my husband and I have spent much of the past several months fighting off a repeating cycle of common colds courtesy of that pre-school environment.

Even as age brings a certain acceptance of so much that is beyond our control, particularly illnesses put in our path by global events, I find  that it is also important to search for spirituality, humor, positivity and beauty in our lives and allow it to mitigate these concerns. Accordingly, I’ve just published my new book, ‘A Visual Amidah: An Essence Of Prayers & Blessings‘. The Amidah is my visual interpretation of the set of 19 prayers and blessings that form the core of the Jewish worship liturgy.

The book includes an artist’s preface, a brief history of The Amidah and artist’s notes on the intent of each prayer and blessing with explanations of the imagery chosen for each. Size: 8 x 10 inches Price: $36.00 To Order Your Signed Copy, visit: http://magiceyegallery.com/BookPage.aspx?id=1011

The book cover is shown below and the illustration shown above accompanies the ‘Elokai Netzor’, a  prayer offered at the conclusion of the three-times daily recitation of the Amidah. In it, an ethereal angelic messenger reveals the dual nature of our choices for speech and behavior with the Hebrew letter ‘peh’ (which translates as ‘mouth’) and a mirror image of itself. The ‘peh’ at the right represents ‘loshen ha-ra (evil speech that may lead to evil actions) while the ‘peh’ on the left represents ‘loshen ha-tov’ (good speech that may lead to good deeds). The presence of the messenger indicates that all words have consequence since G–d hears, feels and responds to the effects of both.  I wish you all good health and safe passage through these perilous times. Take care!

 

 

 

 

 

An Ephemeral Evolution

One afternoon late in 2015, as I was listening to a discussion of creativity by a group of experts in computer science and related fields on NPRs’ Science Friday program, the pencil and watercolor drawing shown above, Still Life With Computer, came to mind. Since I’d made the drawing back in 1984, I’d been periodically thinking about the current and future capabilities of artificial intelligence in the wake of organic human creativity, which they were examining in depth.

Just the tenor of all the tech-speak reminded me that creativity is much more than a theoretical, mathematical, virtual process. It is a construct of our physical senses, experiences, emotions, memories, decisions and choices. Working in synch, these elements spark one or more images in our minds that we can decide to manifest through a visual medium such as drawing and/or writing.

Metaphorically, the creative process is akin to threading our way through a mental labyrinth. There, we might ultimately find the object of our journey, even if we had no clear picture of it going in. It is not always evident whether that object will turn out to be a monster, a brilliant idea or whether we will be able to retrace our steps so as to consider the bigger picture of our efforts. Of course, we can accomplish this latter goal by choosing to retain our notes and/or sketches for use in future or to create an entirely new project. For these reasons, I’ve always believed that each of us has this creative potential, yet if and how we decide to express it is what makes each of us uniquely human.

Although this mode of thinking and its products have nourished and documented our cultural progress and history, it was only a matter of time until we had no choice but to acknowledge the perceptual changes that the growing presence and influence of virtual art-making are exercising on our society.

So I wondered: If we were to code a computer with artificial intelligence that allows it to interpret an image and/or text such as the Mona Lisa or a manuscript page of Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (c. 1412-1416 and 1485-1489 CE), could it create an entirely new image or text based on the information we’ve provided? More importantly, could that image be taken for one that the original artist would make were he or she living today? Finally, would this technology be able to determine when its ‘mission’ is ‘complete’?

A few years ago, these ideas were in the realm of science fiction for me; they were intriguing but did not seem to be a real threat to the high value society accords to creators of original, manual artworks. Even when early virtual/mechanical developments showed promise, I still suspected that a computer’s artificial ability to create art intended to engender profound human emotion might only produce a visual experience as flat as the reproduction of a masterpiece in a book or magazine.

I actually thought that we would need years, even decades to clarify and quantify our own understanding of human objectivity, free will and the ‘soul’ for artificial intelligence to decode it. I also imagined this knowledge would have to manifest as a mechanical surrogate like the science-fictional positronic brain of Star Trek’s android character Mr. Data in order to accomplish this goal. 

Ah, is ignorance bliss, or what? But fantasies do have their limit.

Ever since AI computers have been shown to perform well in strategic tasks like human-computer chess matches (where a series of traditional outcomes (moves leading to checkmate) has been predetermined, their high-speed, analytical abilities and performance have been increasing exponentially. 

Indeed, progress in this area has taken on a life of its own with finance professionals tweaking its light-speed fortune-making possibilities, medical researchers implementing and anticipating more sophisticated disease treatments, our world’s dependence on it to support our service and power infrastructure and of course, science fiction writers and filmmakers envisioning societies informed by this work.

Simultaneously, as scholars and scientists are employing artificial intelligence to explain creative people and the act of creativity itself, they are racing to democratize creativity and its decision-making component by reducing this process to dizzyingly complex algorithms.

Yet, wonderful as these developments are, instinct tells me that a complete accounting for a creative person’s true talent is missing a few numbers. Artistic talent is an ephemeral fusion of observations, memory and manual skills that include decision-making based on what he or she has seen, heard and experienced. So in my opinion, the inherent subtleties in human creativity have not yet been fully re-imagined.

That said, from my personal experience with digitally enhancing my traditional art, the perceived line between traditional art and art produced by artificial intelligence is becoming frighteningly thin.

Not only can we now make art with virtual tools on a virtual substrate, AI computers partnered with 3D printing technology can also digitally scan an Old Master painting and extrapolate techniques in order to create and produce a new physical image from it, as explained by this article from the online magazine, Marketing In Asia.

In addition, I was recently amazed and bit uneasy at Pittsburgh’s Wood Street Gallery‘s exhibit in which the entire Hebrew Torah and The St. James Bible were created on paper by a robotic arm. Not being a biblical scholar, I couldn’t attest to its accuracy, but somehow, the whole idea left me cold as I imagined medieval monks in a scriptorium laboring for years to produce their calligraphic and pictorial masterpieces.

So, this essay is meant to ask a few questions whose answers may already be obvious to some of you:

1. If current profit motives and economic prerogatives prevail, could or will AI developments in the arts eventually render human creatives obsolete?

2. Can we ever faithfully capture and mechanize the true essence of the human spirit, the driving force that makes us the wonderfully functioning creatures, receptive and responsive to physical and intellectual experience that we’ve become through biological evolution and the continuum of history?

3. Will we gradually lose our ability to identify and respond to the nuances of original, manual art as we normalize art produced by virtual means?

4. What consequences of such normalization can we expect in terms of intellectual property protection? Fasken, an international law firm has offered its own questions and answers to this concern.

5. Finally, will this new ‘normal’ become the tool of our own cultural immortality or the weapon of its destruction?

What say you?

State Of The Art-s-s-s: When Is ‘Perfect’ The Enemy Of Good Enough’?

 

This week, I attended a Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators business meeting on the techniques of digital illustration.The presenters were several of my fellow illustrators, each specializing in a different area of our industry; editorial, technical, and medical illustration. I couldn’t help but be impressed with their talent, tech savvy and sense of adventure as they demonstrated many of the new digital devices and techniques available to us illustrators. Still, the evening had awakened the old beast of doubt in me, turning up the volume on many issues, even considering my long freelance illustration career. 

I’ve been working ‘tra-digitally’ (a blend of traditional drawing/painting with digital enhancement) for a number of years but came to this approach slowly as I grew more familiar with design software and accepted its promise of production efficiency. What I couldn’t anticipate was the seductiveness of a process that, like coffee, has since become a daily necessity for me as I produce assignment work for clients and publish my own books.

In fact, my use of digital techniques seems to be overriding my love for the unpredictable results and sensual feel of pen, pencil and/or watercolor on paper. Moreover, for better or worse, it has changed the way I think about and ultimately set down an image before declaring it finished.

Though I’ve become accustomed to exercising the endless options of digital ‘tweak-ability’, I now understand that these very options have caused a breach in my self-confidence when I must revert to drawing an image on paper for purposes other than print reproduction such as commissioned portrait.

Where once I was easily satisfied by the look and feel of my early creative efforts, I now automatically examine my work for ‘irregularities or imperfections’ that can be ‘fixed’ with Photoshop instead of appreciating those expressions for what they are; manifestations of my imperfect human creativity. With that thought, the question in the title of this essay, (‘when is ‘perfect’ the enemy of good enough’?) comes into play. Because it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide when an image is finished, the simple answer is ‘always’.  

I’ve often wondered whether working this way causes me to overthink my work, questioning its ‘rightness’ even as I embellish it with seemingly relevant images and stylistic details to the point where its core story or idea is obscured.

At such times, when I become obsessed with locating just the ‘right’ reference image or am impatient with the complexity of creating or digitally editing an illustration for print, those who have known me and my work for many years often remind me that I actually seemed more efficient when I produced my art traditionally from my imagination without the aid of digital software. They are probably right.  

With assignment work, I must consider my client’s requests concerning an illustration’s political and/or social ramifications. This often leads to extensive editing or discarding the image altogether. If I choose to retain the image, it sometimes has to be stripped down to its simplest form to satisfy the requirements of the assignment. This always precludes it from revealing the marks of my thinking/working process. Additionally, I am required to design and size my images so they may be set within a pre-determined space.

Certainly I’ve had to adapt to the tenets of graphic design which embraces the elegant expression of visual splash or memes as powerful as a Twitter ‘tweet’ for instant consumption as opposed to the detailed storytelling subtleties expected of traditional illustration. Is this a good thing? I’m not entirely sure. Yes, it forces the eye and mind to focus on the ‘message’ but perhaps something of its original concept’s character and intent has been lost in translation. 

I have to admit that I do enjoy a major benefit of digitally preparing my illustrations; it grants me more control over my finished printed product as opposed to the old mechanical methods where I had to depend on others for my desired outcome.

Although the new products are now able to simulate every known drawing and painting technique and have enabled me to become a ‘one-stop design shop, I still have questions. If I go totally digital with my art, will I be able to shed my prejudice against creating images on a glass surface that is less sensually direct than paper or canvas? And, should it matter anymore whether I no longer have a frame-able, completely ‘original’ work of art as ‘evidence’ of my efforts? 

One presenter at the meeting proudly proclaimed that he’d fully embraced digital illustration and had ‘gotten over’ his need for original tangible art products. Having appreciated the beauty and intense craftsmanship of his original works, I could, from a pragmatic standpoint, understand why he might have felt that way.

Corporate art collections have diminished over the last few decades while museums and most galleries rarely offer highly promoted exhibits to lesser known artists, preferring to host more profitable exhibits by either box office name artists or long-dead old masters.

In addition, many galleries have upped sales commissions to sometimes more than 50%. The internet has also become a formidable rival to brick and mortar exhibit spaces. It offers an enormous marketplace with affordable entry fees that is overwhelmingly democratic for all creators. So we don’t really depend on exposure through museums and galleries anymore for our livelihood. For this reason, I don’t even carry around a weighty portfolio when I can post my work to potential clients and collectors on social media.

Historically, the disciplines of illustration and graphic design have worked together for both print and digital media. Now, I suspect that the internet (beneficial to our business as it is) is also a great disrupter. With its endless cacophony of sensational news, information, music and images it has of necessity rendered graphic design the dominant force over illustration in order to accommodate our tragically dwindling attention span and capacity for remembering things. 

From this perspective, I suppose I should be discouraged from pursuing my craft in the manner I’ve been trained to do; creating illustrations that intrigue the eye and mind on multiple levels with traditional materials. Of course I can still make intricate images with digital assist but they will appear obscure beside the flashy visual memes that are our current brain candy.

It’s been said that great art reflects the era in which it was made, yet the artist in me refuses to cave. My illustrations and drawings will inevitably emerge as they must because of the question that nips at my conscience; will today’s visual flash preserve and continue to tell future generations the myriad complex stories of who and what we once were or will they require an entire field of scholarship to create a new Rosetta Stone? 

On The Shoulders of Giants…

Imagination, though we all possess it, is usually perceived as the defining quality and exclusive territory of creative individuals, particularly when we marvel at the art, music, literature, science and philosophy it inspires. But the analyst Carl Jung may have been onto something with his theories of our ‘collective unconscious’ which he claimed is the vast, virtual repository of all human thought, endeavor and possibility. In that light, imagination may be the ‘tool’ within all of us for unlocking virtual doors into this realm; enabling us to discover more about who we are and what we are capable of but also to teach us humility as we begin to comprehend all that came before us.

This engraving by the French writer and astronomer Nicholas Flammarion for his 1888 book, L’Atmosphère : Météorologie Populaire seems an apt illustration of the above comments:

A recent TED talk* on the theme of originality validated my instinctive understanding that originality is less about magic than it is about the speed and extent to which we are able to access and use our imaginations productively. With dedicated observation, listening and the use of our senses, aided by technology, we discover that the majority of human accomplishments are the results of ‘sampling’. They are based in sum or in part on the works of others.

Both the 12th century philosopher Bernard of Chartres and 17th century polymath Isaac Newton understood the concept of building on previous discoveries or ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ in order to uncover their own truths. Accordingly, relatively little of what we have produced can be called ‘original’ by the strictest definition of the word.

So even though I always feel slightly uncomfortable creating a piece of art knowing that other versions of it already exist in different forms elsewhere, I usually persist in finishing the piece simply because I wish to contribute to that body of work in my own way. The theme might not be unique, but perhaps my rendering of it might be.

These thoughts are now driving my current drawing project, an alphabetical bestiary. Yes, bestiaries have been around for hundreds of years as have alphabet books; so this idea is far from original. Examples below are from the Aberdeen Bestiary(1200AD), the Tudor Bestiary (1520AD), ‘Adam Naming The Animals‘ from the Northumberland Bestiary(1250-1260AD), Jungle-Jangle by Peter Newell(1909)and from the 1968 Bestiario Moderno by Domenico Gnoli.

Yet the myriad artistic and imaginative combinations of letterforms and animals (both real and imagined)** continue to fascinate us. Could the mystery of our own animal natures combined with our gifts of speech, writing and comprehension be the reason? Maybe it’s a mystery best left unsolved giving us all the more reason to enjoy new additions to the rich body of works that ask the same question but answer it in their own ways.

Here are two pages from my own imaginary menagerie that I hope you will enjoy. To date, I have completed 11 of 26 letters so your comments, questions and suggestions for other letters are welcome!

*http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/321797073/what-is-original

 

Creativity: A Burden Of Choices

When we feel the need to embark on a new creative project, we don’t always have a firm idea for it in mind. Even as we consider possibilities, these can overwhelm us to the point of inertia. At such times, surrendering to indecision is tempting but not necessarily the endgame. Then, when we least expect it, life makes decisions for us. The following is a reflection on balancing the burden of choices from a personal and creative perspective.

As a freelance illustrator, indecision regarding the subject of an artwork was rarely an issue because I’d grown accustomed to working on assignment where the parameters of a project were usually stated upfront by my client. Instinctively, I felt that I might not always be doing assignment work, but couldn’t know why. Perhaps health issues or other unforeseen events would determine that. It wasn’t until after the US economy tanked in 2008 that I was compelled to begin the next phase of my career.

At that time, I’d been working on a long-term dream; a unique personal book project called Between Heaven & Earth: An Illuminated Torah Commentary. Following its well-received publication by Pomegranate in 2009, I was invited to offer many presentations and book signings. At these events, I was surprised to find enthusiastic demand for more of such projects (Books of Psalms, Prophets or a Passover haggadah, etc.), but I was also haunted by the frequent question: “So what will you do next?”  

For me, this query provoked some anxiety because after devoting five + years to Between Heaven & Earth, I was too physically and mentally exhausted to consider my next endeavor. Yet I had the feeling that my work in this genre wasn’t finished. I had casually entertained the idea of building a personal and professional legacy around books that would explore several Biblical tropes, but doing so seemed a daunting and distant goal since it wasn’t yet clear what that legacy should comprise or how it should be framed. I only knew that whatever I did would have to reconcile my own spirituality with my secular worldview. As I wondered whether an idea for a book, a series of drawings or a synthesis of both could teach me how to do this, I remembered an aphorism attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius that might yield a clue: “Study the past if you would define the future.”

So I decided to re-visit the notes and sketches in my collection of journals. These little books span decades, but for a strange reason, have gathered no dust. While regularly writing and drawing in new journals, I occasionally re-read old entries and add new insights to them, flattening time as I maintain a ‘dialogue’ with my younger self. This virtual orchard of back-burner ideas has often been amusing, thought provoking and full of choices for potential projects.

However, the process of choosing one among them was far from simple. It would be impossible to predict whether the idea I chose would become viable or have any market value without investing serious time, funds and effort. So at this stage, all I could rely on was my intuition.

On one of these forays, I came across a note that was made during my research for Between Heaven & Earth. I had been looking into incunabula (early printed books and came upon a reference to a 17th century miniature prayerbook. This was a Me’ah Brakhot (100 Blessings) and contained Hebrew blessings that originated in the time of the Biblical King David. According to my journal, I had searched for and found a copy of this beautifully illustrated little jewel and noted that I would like to try my hand at a modern version of it.

Back in the present, I decided that such a project would not only employ all of my skills as an artist, writer, editor, designer, it would also fit the requirements of my legacy; and so I began to envision the book that would become An Illumination Of Blessings.* At this point, I was faced with making two other choices. One would determine the book’s fate upon completion; the other would be germane to its essence. 

First: should I submit this book to mainstream publishers or self-publish? Both were risky in their own ways. The former, with its often-lengthy approval or rejection times, traditionally offers a financial advance but it also entails editorial and marketing caveats that could entirely change the nature of this project. The latter would require fundraising skills (which I hadn’t yet developed) but it would also allow more creative freedom. Ever the sucker for a new venture, I chose the latter; a choice that would let it become a successfully funded Kickstarter project. 

Second: since I initially planned to self-publish this book and wanted it to include all 100 blessings, I did not set a timeline for its fulfillment. However, when I looked into the requirements for a crowdsourcing project, I learned that for a fundraising campaign to maintain momentum, the optimum timeframe would have to be no more than a year. So in a sense that choice was made for me. Of the 100 blessings (which were both mundane and obscure), I decided to select 36 that were more universal in nature. Guiding this decision was the notion that if this book were successful, it could generate two more volumes that would complete all of the blessings.

During the learning curve of my Kickstarter campaign, many other choices presented themselves and I was often intimidated to the point of discouragement. Still, I chose to forge ahead for the reason that will conclude this reflection.

As I became immersed in creating the illustrations and text for this project, the blessing for wisdom offered a subtle insight. It was originally called ‘the wisdom of the rooster’ because we are not thanking God for our own wisdom per se; we are acknowledging His wisdom in creating the rooster with the ability to recognize the difference between night and day. This told me that blessings are more than ritualistic behavior. They are a call to mindfulness of both body and spirit beyond the environs of a place of worship.

Because I had always recited blessings nearly by rote in synagogue services, this idea was an eye-opener; it helped me to understand that we are truly blessed by our ability to choose. By paying close attention to each choice before us while considering its multi-layered consequences we can learn to counter indecision. In this way, our choices become less of a burden and more of a way to achieve a nuanced balance in our lives as we decide how to frame our own personal and professional legacies.

*Images and detailed essays from it were posted here at Imaginarius throughout 2014. 

Can Art Be Lost In Translation?

My previous post, The Magic Of Ideas, addressed the frequently asked question,‘Where do you get your ideas?’ This week, I offer my response to another one: ‘What did you mean to say with this image?’. This question is less direct because its silent subtext is asking, ‘can you please translate this picture for me?’ as though it were a foreign language. And in a sense, it is.

Art and spoken languages are similar in that both are composed of symbols with which we express ourselves. But there is one major difference. Spoken languages have been standardized for global communication while the language and vocabulary of art remain fluid and singular to each artist as in the distinctive works of Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch or Belgian surrealist René Magritte. Upon close scrutiny, we might notice that certain elements appear and reappear throughout their larger body of works. Yet, beyond reams of third party analyses of these artists’ technical skills and cultural influences, who knows what they were really trying to say?

Some great artists such as Johannes Vermeer and Sandro Botticelli may have embedded obscure symbols and codes within their images, signaling their true intent to the cognoscenti of their times but leaving no written clues for future generations. An interesting article by Mark Hudson in the January 7th edition of The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/11449077/10-paintings-with-hidden-meanings.html) sheds some light on this idea.

Occasionally, someone comments that my work is always recognizable, yet they rarely give a specific reason for why that is so. In truth, I’m equally mystified.

I do know that a sort of visual language made of certain symbols and images runs through my work. These can be seen as ‘words’ in a dynamic visual dictionary with which I can construct ‘sentences that tell a story’. When I develop new ‘words’, this resource ‘grows’ as needed. To effectively use it, however, there is a two-part question I must answer upon beginning each new project: ‘what do I want to say here and how can I best do so’? The answer to this inner question is not a goal in itself; it is the opening gambit of an inner dialogue that guides my creative process and the narrative that will accompany the completed work.

Writing narratives to accompany my work was provoked early in my career by a mid-20th century anomaly, particularly among Abstract Expressionists. Their use of the word, ‘Untitled’  to name a work of art both intrigued and offended me, raising several questions. Were they simply inarticulate, unable to come up with a statement or title? Or were they convinced that their brand of creativity defied title or definition? If so, would they answer that ‘art just is and we create it because we can? Would they offer the hackneyed argument that writing is unnecessary because true art should speak for itself ?

Occasionally, when verbiage from gallerists and art critics includes only vague comments by the artists, these artists risk being misunderstood. Maybe they simply don’t care. Maybe they prefer to maintain their own mystique by foisting responsibility for interpreting their work upon others. Still, I am dismayed that relatively few bother to write about their work or what inspires them to create it.

That said, Lee Krasner, who made the ‘Untitled’ work above, did leave us some quotes but these were mostly comments about the time in which she worked and not specific to any one work. As viewers, we may truly enjoy a work’s ambiguity. But if we accept responsibility for interpreting it and the artist provides no language that allows his or her work to ‘speak’, we are denied a starting point, thwarting our natural curiosity and rendering that work easily dismissed.

I am reminded of our fascination with both the art and  writing of such luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh or Salvador Dali. In their journals and personal letters, we like to look for backstories behind their works but I think we mostly want to know what made these geniuses tick. So at the very least, I think that viewers deserve more information than just ‘untitled’; even if the intent of a work is only expressed with a relevant moniker or encapsulated in a couple of sentences.

The need to incorporate writing into my creative process helps me understand what I have made, who I was when I made it and how it fits into my larger body of work. Also, by ‘translating’ my ‘image story’ with notes that later become a more detailed statement, I recognize that as we all learn differently, so do we see differently and can sometimes appreciate art more through its descriptive text.  This practice actually grew from requests for more information about my images from those who attended my exhibits. Consequently, I began posting narratives beside each work and in an exhibition’s catalog.

But I really write about my work because it feels incomplete otherwise. I believe that words and images should not be mutually exclusive and that metaphorically, art and writing are like two faces of the same coin. This idea was inspired by the multi-talented French artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau in 1962 when he wrote : “I relax from writing by working with my hands, by painting or drawing; I relax from painting by writing…as if drawing were anything other than handwriting {untied and} re-tied differently.” Each face of that coin brings different parts of my brain into play and I, like Cocteau, enjoy the challenge of engaging them both for mutual benefit.

Accordingly, I’ve chosen my 1985 drawing  ‘The Marriage of Art and Letters’ with its allegorical figures of Art and Writing to illustrate this post.

I can’t know whether my work and texts will survive me but I hope that my small contribution to the social and cultural history of future generations will be available in some form. Perhaps only this blog, preserved through some new technology, will allow my art to be ‘found’ in translation.

And that’s good enough for now.

A Thanksgiving Side Dish…

The aroma of fresh poultry wafted towards me as I entered the butcher shop on my annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to secure a choice turkey. Holding my nose against this odiferous chore, As I navigated through the crowd towards the service counter, I heard a shrill squawk as I slipped on something squishy buried beneath the sawdust-covered floor, colliding with a strange, dark figure.

Recovering her composure, the elderly patron scowled and pointed a bejeweled, wrinkled finger at me. I shrugged and apologized but barely suppressed a grin. With her beakish nose and trembling, wattled chins, she looked like a tough old turkey in human disguise. Outlandishly clad in a turban-wrapped fez, an iridescent feathered cape over an embroidered vest and paisley knickers, her dignified bearing was mysteriously intimidating. I expected she would berate me for my rude, if accidental move, but instead, looked me up and down with contempt and turned dramatically back towards the counter, muttering to herself with a vaguely Middle Eastern accent.

“How weird was that?” I mumbled sub-vocally, reaching for a double-digit service number. My wait would be longer than I thought since several ‘pilgrims’ were ahead of me, including the ‘turkey lady’. When I took my place in line, I found my artist’s eye drawn to her burgundy velvet fez with it’s gently swinging silk tassel. Idly, wondering whether turkeys might really be from Turkey, I remembered a fanciful notion described by some sixteenth century English naturalists. It seems they imagined a resemblance between the turkey’s red head adornments and the fez, a tasseled cap worn at the time by Turkish men as a national headdress! Stirring the sawdust around with my shoe, I began to recall other bits of turkey trivia.

Actually, turkeys pre-date humanity by about 10 million years, having roamed throughout Africa and most of the Americas. However, history records that an exotic bird with a featherless head and white-speckled feathers on its rounded body was imported from the Guinea coast of Africa into Europe during the Turkish invasion early in the sixteenth century. This creature was later classified as a guinea fowl. Along with other strange products, such as coffee, a chewy confection called ‘loukoum’ and beautifully patterned textiles and carpets, the English dubbed anything that had never before been seen in the west as ‘Turkish’, including the ‘Turkie-bird’.

The line to the service counter finally started to move and the ‘turkey-lady’ waddled up to claim her order. Before depositing her payment on the counter, she opened her package to inspect its contents and immediately began to haggle with the butcher’s assistant. Flustered, he stared at her, then ran off to fetch his boss. The portly, ruddy-faced butcher emerged from the back room, wiping his bloody hands on his apron and glowered at his bizarre customer. “What do you mean, haggling with my prices?!” he roared. “My turkeys are the finest in town and worth every penny I ask! Furthermore,” he continued craftily, “my turkeys are so delicious, your guests will praise you to the heavens, swearing that you got twice the bird you bargained for!” Appearing to consider this, the ‘turkey lady’ suddenly assumed a mask of complete charm and proceeded to defend her point of view. “My dear Mr. Hogg,” she murmured, “I can see that you are very busy today, but if you would be so kind as to hear my little Turkish tale, then perhaps you will understand.” Intrigued, I joined the other customers as they moved closer to listen.

“Once, long ago in Turkey,” she intoned, “a ‘hodja’, or learned man went to the bazaar in his village. Strolling the aisles, he chanced upon a handsome curved scimitar that bore a price tag of three thousand ‘kurush’ . The hodja carefully inspected the scimitar but could not see why it should be so expensive. So he approached a table of patrons at a nearby coffee stand to see if they might offer an opinion. “That is a very special scimitar!” they exclaimed. “ We have heard that if you use it to attack your enemy, why, it grows five times its original length!”

Considering this, the hodja returned to his home, fetched the tongs from his fireplace and carried them back to the bazaar. Gathering a crowd, which included the coffee drinkers, he sang out, “Who will give me three thousand kurush for these fine fire tongs?” Curious, the coffee drinkers approached the hodja and asked to inspect the tongs. “These are rather ordinary tongs,” they frowned collectively. “Whatever has possessed you to ask three thousand kurush for them?”

“Well,” answered the hodja with an ingenuous smile, “when my wife is angry with me and she threatens me with these tongs, why, they seem to stretch to ten times their present length!”

The butcher stood there, a reluctant grin spreading across his broad chin. Shifting his weight from foot to foot in embarrassment, he agreed to accept her modest payment, but on one condition. “And what would that be?” she simpered. The butcher looked at his customers who were obviously fascinated by the ‘turkey lady’. “The condition is that you will return next year with another story.” “OK, she nodded. Then, with a triumphant smirk on her heavily lipsticked mouth. “I will, but only if you will give everyone here a fair price, too!”

Watching the other customers whispering among themselves, I thought, “Wow, that was impressive; could that hodja have been her ancestor?” Without waiting for an answer from Mr. Hogg, the old bird winked at me and secured her feather cape. Then, she gathered up her parcel and swept out of the shop, yellow sawdust rising in her trail.

The Turkey’s Tale was first published in 1993 as the Thanksgiving folktale feature in the Focus Magazine of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It is one of my Visual Fiction stories published in the T-R between 1993-97.

Sailing The Soul Of Creation: A Blessing For The Seas And Oceans

Although orbiting satellites send us spectacular images of the clouded Earth amidst its swirling seas, these views pale in comparison to our physical comprehension of their vastness and power from our perspective of dry land or from the decks of our ships that carry us over them. As we marvel at the unknown depths from where some pre-conscious form of us emerged, the magnitude of the sea speaks to the essence of what we are. The sea, if you will, is the soul of Creation.

Observing that the Earth’s waters dance on its tectonic armature in time to the moon’s allure and the mercurial winds has provoked the fear and wonder inspiring the religions and myths of many cultures whose livelihoods depend on the seas. Prayers for the safety of their fishermen, travelers and for the lands on which they live are central to these systems. Where these prayers were once directed at individual deities deemed to control our planet’s natural forces, in Judaism, such prayers are enhanced by the Birkat Ha-Yam, a special two-part blessing for the seas and oceans.

Since I have lived mostly in Mid-Atlantic cities and experienced the oceans rarely except through my travels, it is very special to me. One part acknowledges Creation as it addresses the large-scale wonders of nature while the other is directed at a specific large body of water that must have existed since the six days of Creation and must not be land-locked. It seems that no one has ever agreed upon which ocean fits this description, but according to certain rabbis* the Birkat Ha-Yam blessing was intended for the Mediterranean Sea, most likely the largest one in their own experience.

Unlike those prayers that are entreaties for divine mercy and protection from the elements, the verses of the Birkat Ha-Yam are statements that acknowledge our humility in the face of our Creator and our wonder at the constancy of Creation.

When I began to work on this blessing, I thought that a prosaic rendering of a seascape would suffice. But I soon learned that I wouldn’t get away that easily. Given our ancient and complex relationship with our aquatic ecosystem, the Birkat Ha-Yam begged for a more nuanced visual narrative.

The image that immediately came to mind was a detail from one that I’d created for Parashat Eikev (Book of Numbers/Devarim) in my previous book, Between Heaven & Earth: An Illuminated Torah Commentary (Pomegranate, 2009). It showed a grandfather and granddaughter listening to the still, small voices in their hearts through the  metaphor of a conch seashell.

I chose this metaphor to express the subtlety of such an experience because I have a similar shell in my collection of oddities and have always imagined the sound of the seas echoing from its inner spirals. So a large conch shell became the centerpiece of my illustration, open to reveal the ‘heart of the sea’.   Within the conch is a tiny 15th century Spanish caravel sailing perhaps on a trade mission for its merchant owner. With a nod to the Biblical Leviathan, the piscine creature swims lazily in wait for the time of Messiah.
Below, the conch’s compatriots nestle among a watery scape of seaweeds. In the morning sky above, a faint moon observes the four winds competing to guide the ship to its destination as the seagulls survey their boundless territory.

At last, even when I thought the illustration was nearly done, I still couldn’t resist playing with one last image; do you see the fanciful little beast** hiding among the sea wrack?

Dear Backers: The Birkat Ha-Yam is the 31st of 36 blessings to be completed for An Illumination Of Blessings! We’re almost there! 
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Please Note: Even if you are not a backer on this Kickstarter-funded project, you may still pre-order your copy (ies) of An Illumination Of Blessings and/or prints from its illustrations here: http://winnlederer.com/blessings/index.htm   Also, if you visit my Kickstarter page at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1330347473/an-illumination-of-blessings you will see that the top reward level of your $500 contribution towards this project entitles you to have your name included on my Dedication page! This offer will stand until July 15, 2014 when I hope to have the book ready to go to press! You may contact me with your offer at: ilene@winnlederer.com. *******************************************************  
* In the Shulchan Aruch 228:1(The Code Of Jewish Law) compiled in 15th century Safed by Rabbi Yosef Karo.
** Hippokampus (from the Greek for horse (hippo) and sea monster (kampus), named for its resemblance to a seahorse.

A Rainbow Of Blessings

When the shadow of a rainstorm has passed and we are able to witness a rainbow illuminating our corner of the world, the most common association of this phenomenon in the Judeo-Christian tradition is with the legend of Noah’s Ark. Schoolchildren are routinely taught that a rainbow symbolizes divine forgiveness for human global corruption and the divine promise to never allow another cataclysmic flood to wipe out nearly all of the life on this planet.

Since that anti-diluvian era, every culture has created their own idea of the rainbow, endowing it with backstories and attributes that range from magical to mundane. Scholars, musicians, artists and poets have made much of those characteristics as have social activists, employing rainbow colors to promote their agendas of social change through racial, gender and sexual equality.

As I considered how to illustrate the idea of a rainbow for this blessing, I recalled a wonderful tertiary (triple) rainbow that I had seen over the east end of Pittsburgh in the late 1990’s. Its three overlapping arches stretched from Squirrel Hill to perhaps somewhere beyond the North Hills, but of course that endpoint remains a mystery. Regretfully, that was before the convenience of iPhone cameras that could easily record it. Nevertheless, I still remember that it appeared in a sky of an unusual grey-green color which made it seem so much brighter.

Suspended in the majesty of that moment, I didn’t care that science views the colors of the rainbow as wavelengths of light traveling at particular frequencies or that their visibility depends on our vantage point relative to the sun’s position and the presence of sufficient raindrops to refract and reflect its light. Even Sir Isaac Newton’s decision in 1672 to divide the spectrum into seven colors seemed frivolous, especially since it was based on the ancient Greek philosophy positing a connection between the colors, the musical notes, the days of the week and the seven planets in our solar system that were known at the time. From my perspective, that rainbow just seemed too magical for such mundane explanations. And so I began to look into the more subtle interpretations that have found their way into our collective understanding; which made thinking about rainbows in terms of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism more appealing.

Sifting through my reference collection, I listened to the voices of sages and scholars through the centuries absorbing their complex commentaries on Bereshit/Genesis. Among these were citations in the Talmud (Hagigah 16a) and in the Zohar (1:71b) which state that one who gazes too intently at the rainbow will compromise his eyesight. Though several opinions are given for this consequence, I found the rainbow’s connection with Ezekiel’s vision of the Divine Chariot (merkabah) most intriguing: ‘Like the appearance of the bow which shines in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the surrounding radiance. That was the appearance of the semblance of the Presence of the Lord. When I beheld it, I flung myself down on my face…”*

I understood these comments as warnings to remain humble in the presence of holiness which further readings alluded to the presence of Shekhinah or the feminine aspect of the Divine. She is the accessible intermediary for Its sefirot** whose many symbolic attributes include their colors which correspond to our perception of the rainbow.

Then there were often fanciful folktales stemming from commentaries on the Book of Genesis whose narratives were both cautionary and poetic. Louis Ginsberg, in his Legends of the Bible, lists the rainbow as one of the ten extraordinary things*** that came into being in the twilight of Creation, although it was not meant to be seen until the time of Noah when the dual concepts of justice and mercy were introduced as the Divine remedy for transgression and repentance.

Such stories suggested to me that the Torah is in itself a rainbow whose colors reflect our spiritual character and mandate, and second, that we, as imaginative creatures, ever curious about who and why we are, can assign whatever significance we wish to any of the natural phenomena that occur on this planet.

On the tail of these thoughts, the image of a tallit flashed in my mind’s eye. I recalled from my studies that the tallit, worn during prayer is often compared to Divine wings which protect us via G-d’s love and commandments. Also, in Jewish tradition a bird is the metaphor of the Shekhinah who comforts and protects Israel during the centuries of exile. Though I do not yet wear one, I liked the idea of being wrapped in a tallit to evoke Shekhinah since it lends credence to the recognition of the sacred feminine.

I then began to wonder about the stripes of a tallit, or prayer shawl and whether they might serve as a rainbow metaphor, even though they are traditionally black in color. As an artist, I knew that theoretically, the color black contains all the colors, so it wasn’t much of a stretch. But then, I came upon a story that Rabbi Zalman Schacter- Shalomi tells in his book, My Life In Jewish Renewal (Rowman & Littlefield, September, 2012) when he explains the significance of his specially made rainbow tallit. His intention was to wear a physical meme as a reminder of Creation and complexity of our world in the light of G -d’s unity.

Eventually, these concepts and my memory of that tertiary rainbow crystallized in my imagination and led to the imagery which accompanies this blessing for the rainbow.

And so, I decided the Shekhinah would be the focus of my illustration. Although I have often interpreted her in my works, the potential iterations for doing so are limited only by imagination. Here she is wearing a crown of feathers (to mirror the bird metaphor) and is embraced by her rainbow tallit. Its colors symbolize the days of Creation. My Shekhinah also balances a crystal revealing the four elements (air, earth, fire and water) to represent the constant physical manifestations of Creation under divine auspices. Her cloven-hoofed ‘feet’ are a fanciful interpretation that is also drawn from Ezekiel’s vision.

If what we imagine gives us comfort, fosters doubt or amuses us, we can also learn how important it is to keep wondering and embellishing these ideas for generations to come.

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Please Note: Even if you are not a backer on this Kickstarter-funded project, you may still pre-order your copy (ies) of An Illumination Of Blessings and/or prints from its illustrations here: http://winnlederer.com/blessings/index.htm  

Also, if you visit my Kickstarter page at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1330347473/an-illumination-of-blessings you will see that the top reward level of your $500 contribution towards this project entitles you to have your name included on my Dedication page! This offer will stand until July 15, 2014 when I hope to have the book ready to go to press! You may contact me with your offer at: ilene@winnlederer.com.

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*Ezekiel 1:29

** divine energies that form and influence our fundamental reality and the spiritual state of our souls

***In the twilight, between the sixth day and the Sabbath, ten creations were, brought forth: the rainbow, invisible until Noah’s time; the manna; water springs, whence Israel drew water for his thirst in the desert; the writing upon the two tables of stone given at Sinai; the pen with which the writing was written; the two tables themselves; the mouth of Balaam’s she-ass; the grave of Moses; the cave in which Moses and Elijah dwelt; and the rod of Aaron, with its blossoms and its ripe almonds.” -Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Bible p.44