Kindergarten

Kindergarteners are such magical creatures. They are still young enough to believe in fairies and magic and yet old enough to be developing a real understanding of the world around them. Today I was the “Mystery Reader” for my granddaughter’s kindergarten class. So much fun. When I signed up you filled out a form saying “3 interesting facts about you.” So I figured I would go for things Kindergartners might like. 1: I danced with a live python on stage when I was in High School 2: I used to work among dinosaurs (at the Yale Peabody Museum) and 3: I was an artist. Well I should have guessed that all the kids were immediately obsessed with my dancing with a live snake. And I shared the picture of me my father had taken. It was quite cute.

But what was really cute was the way the children reacted to two story books that were loved by my children and now loved by ALL the grandchildren. These are books given to us by the librarian at the Independent School my daughter and middle son attended when we lived in Bellevue WA. We won a book of a month club from her at a school auction and she hand picked books specifically for our family. These two stories “Baby Rattlesnake” and “Rhinos for Lunch and Elephants for Supper” are just so perfect for this age and the kids were simply enchanted by both. Roen, who knows both books was thrilled to have me read them to her class.

After reading “Baby Rattlesnake” a story about how a baby rattlesnake insists on being given a rattle but then is too young and misuses it and it get’s broken, I asked the children if any of them wanted something only to be told they were too young. The answers were quite telling: Video Games, A Watch (I assume an apple watch), A Phone, A Computer, An iPad…..SCREENS SCREENS SCREENS. OH boy what a world we have created for these kids.

On a separate note this is the second time I have visited my granddaughter’s elementary school. The previous time it was for the spring concert. The town has all the preK-3 kids in one building and then 5-7 in another building and then Middle and High School. Parents talk about how it is nice because by the time kids enter middle school they pretty much know all the kids in their grade. But what really amazed me is how calm and safe the elementary school feels. I have been in many elementary schools over the years with my own kids and also before I had kids and was doing outreach for Yale’s Peabody Museum and later as a parent advocate. I have visited private schools and public schools. And one thing about my granddaughter’s school that amazes me is the respect and kindness I hear in the voices of the adults interacting with the kids. When they did the spring performance not once did I hear a voice raised or a child be scolded. And the school supported those who were neurodivergent in some really clever ways. I do think this is why the school feels so safe. Years ago when I was doing special education advocacy I had a client in the town my daughter lives in. The client was in middle school and I remember being very impressed with the team and how respectful they were of the child’s needs. In fact it was one of the rare cases where I felt the problem was not the school but rather the parent’s who had unrealistic expectations and simply wanted the district to fund an out of district private school for their child.

Nurturing Artists

One of my proudest accomplishments was not only initiating the Zoom Critique Group with Joel at the start of the pandemic but also continuing the online support among us with the Peer Art Group. Yesterday I pulled off a long standing goal of mine to visit the MFA Print Room. When I was in the Diploma Program at the SMFA I went with Peter Scott and it was a profound experience. Partly because we had the opportunity to see this amazing artist book that Anselm Keifer made of German Notables. For years now I have wanted to see that book again. It took a lot of work to coordinate but yesterday we went. I was disappointed that three artists could not make it due to illness but we still were quite a group and everyone was grateful and thrilled with the experience. Although there were many highlights for me as an artist, I was also thrilled to see the impact of this visit on my peers. Elizabeth Zeldin is an amazing Watercolorist and to see the awe at which she studied the Sargeants that were out was amazing. I can’t wait to see how her careful study of these works influences her own work.

Every one wants to go again I certainly hope we can pull a second visit in the fall.

The Quagmire of Juried Shows

I have always had a funny relationship with Juried Shows. They are a great way for an artist at my level to get work hung and seen. But they are also not always the best way to get one’s work out in the world and sometimes I feel like it is a risk because how something is hung can either make it shine or diminish it.

There was a period many years ago when I was creating work that was consistently getting accepted into shows and then one day I attended a show I was in and said to myself “This is NOT the art I want to be making.” Around that same time, I had one of the best paintings I ever created, an angry self portrait of myself, rejected from a show. I gave the painting to my father because he was why I was angry. My parents loved the painting. They did not see the anger but they definitely saw me in the painting. It has hung prominently in their living room for years. My mother used to always relay to me how visitors would praise it. In a highly unusual moment it was relayed to me by somebody who helped coordinate the show that the juror loved the painting but just could not fit it in to the show she was creating. This is highly unusual as most times one never hears why a piece is rejected.

It is hard because the work I want to make or the work I get excited about is not always the work that makes the cut for a Juried show. I have had almost no luck getting the drawings I have made about Gaza hung and it makes me sad because those drawings are in my opinion some of my most personal and emotional pieces of art. I do not feel that the drawings are specifically political because they represent the heartbreak which everyone is experiencing as a result of the conflict.

Last summer I went and did some Gelli Prints with my artist friend at her house. Towards the end of our time working I used already squeezed out paint and using the motifs I had been exploring in my drawings of the Keffiyah’s and Tallit’s I whipped off some mono prints to capture the essence of my drawings. And those prints are not only well liked by those who see them, and seem less “uncomfortable” but they also both just got “accepted”. One was shortlisted for London’s Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and the other was accepted into Marblehead’s “Variations Show”. I like these prints but they do not feel like my “babies” the way the other work does.

Another Gelli Plate Print which I created with the large Gelli Plate my son and daughter-in-law gave me for my birthday was also shortlisted. But I love that print and it will be hard to send it off to London.

This time around I learned my lesson. I am sending unframed work to our friend’s in Surrey. Killian will frame it for me and Joanne will deliver it. Now if I can only manage to figure out the INSANE VAT registration. They seem to have updated the web site so it is a bit easier to use this year. So fingers crossed it doesn’t take forever. Last time even with Joanna visiting and helping us we spent a long time just trying to get documents uploaded. At least we laughed a lot about it.

And separately I took a photograph while visiting our son in NH of the remaining ice on the river. I love the photograph and had an idea about making a Gelli Plate print influenced by it. I created it on Wednesday and was very pleased with how it came out. What do you think?

Nature's Revenge

My daughter had her baby last Saturday. Midday her daughter’s other grandparents brought the girls to our house after picking them up from ballet, taking them out to lunch and shopping. Meanwhile their mom and dad headed to the hospital. There was a big storm expected Saturday night and as the girl’s were going to sleep and the snowflakes were starting to fall Baby Blythe was born. But instead of waking up to a winter wonderland we woke up to several inches of thick heavy snow and rain. The girl’s didn’t mind. They were perfectly happy to spend the morning playing inside. But I went out to try to shovel the heavy wet snow knowing that not only was it only going to get harder to shovel as more rain fell, but also a freeze was going to happen on Sunday night. Using all my upper body strength I was able to clear my car. Anyone who did not clear the snow from their car or sidewalk on Sunday would wake up on Monday to find thick solid ICE!!!!!

When we went to the hospital so the girl’s could meet their new little sister we drove because even getting to the car involved navigating 6” deep icy puddles of water. It was a mess. 2” of rain fell Sunday afternoon. And it all froze that night. Monday when I tried to walk the dog it was so bad even the dog gave up and pooped in the middle of the street. Those who were fortunate to have spikes for their shoes were using them. We ordered some and got the the following day.

Meanwhile I called a dear friend from college in LA who also recently lost her mom. Her description of the fires and mudslides and the challenges that area is facing right now is heartbreaking. So much pain. This friend and I are very politically aligned and we both can do our share of screaming “CLIMATE CLIMATE CLIMATE”. Although she went to college here in Cambridge, MA she asked if we had the same climate worries. And I brought up how the ice that was causing ER’s to have triple the number of visitors this past week and a dramatic increase in people who broke bones…was at the end of the day just another example of how the climate systems we were so used to have gone awry.

At the end of the day Mother Nature will win…..despite us.

Animation, Anger, Anticipation and Art

My daughter is due with her third girl any day now so we are full of anticipation. It is crazy because next week both her brothers will be passing through and staying with us and there are also snow storms coming so there is this eagerness to get this baby out when the weather is good and so we don’t have the girl’s staying with us when my son and his family arrive or when my other son and his girlfriend and band arrive. Our apartment is not that big and at times like this I definitely miss my big old house in Lexington, although I know in the windy cold we have been having, I would be cursing up a storm if we were still in that house. The stone walls made it a very chilly castle in the winter despite a state of the art heating system.

Onward. My husband and I have become obsessed with an animated series on Netflix called “Arcane”. The animation is brilliant and probably will be thought of as animation history for it’s use of hand painting with computer rigging. The studio in Paris, “Fortiche” has a really unique approach to animation. Before they started working with the writers and creators of this show they primarily used their quirky animation style for music videos and advertising. I could write paragraphs about how they mix painting and drawing styles …going from French Landscape painting to graphic Basquiet style montages to charcoal drawings to detailed renderings. But there is more than enough on the web about it if one is interested.

But there is another thing about Arcane that resonates with me. One of the main characters is a younger sister who just can’t quite live up to her older sister’s status but who is very creative and imaginative. I totally related to her especially when she was teased by her peers for not being able to keep up and for her tendency to make impulsive mistakes. Her character has a dark story arc. Trauma and abuse turn her into a dark creative who makes inventive toys that are also weapons. And there is a scene where she is welding and listening to music and totally in her creative zone after doing an impulsive revengeful act. I LOVE THAT SCENE. It so captures how it feels to be in the “Zone” when creating. Especially when one is creating in response to an intense emotional experience.

So it made sense that after I had a horrible day on Wednesday because family members who I thought I could trust did something unconscionable and very hurtful, I thought of this character Jynxx and had this desire to channel my inner Jynxx. Don’t worry I didn’t go make any weapons. The one thing holding me together was talking with other family members and friends who all agreed that what the other family members did was by all accounts VERY VERY WRONG. Even somebody who has known my family for many years and has a role as a religious leader was gob-smacked when I relayed what happened. I am just relaying that to capture the magnitude and awfulness of what was done. Thursday using the marvelous gift from the wonderful incredible angel Sally Casper extradonaire I took the key and went to Turtle Studio in Watertown. I put my ear buds in and blasted the sound track to ARCANE and I got to work mixing colors and rolling ink and printing with the Gelli plate. The crazy thing is I was really unsure what I was going to do or make, but right before leaving the house I grabbed a plastic bag I had from some spinach I had used up and thought…”hmmm…maybe I can use this somehow to capture the emptiness I feel in my heart right now. But what initially emerged was not my anger or feelings of empty darkness, but prints that totally resonated with waiting to give birth (at least that is how I see them). How appropriate that shortly after creating the first two my daughter texted me. When my daughter texted me I sent a photo of them to her and joked that I promised I was not thinking at all about her pregnancy when I started to make these. She laughed.

As the day progressed I returned to my hands and started to paint and draw on the Gelli plates with the left over ink I had from the previous successful prints and BOY that is when the Anger came out. ANGER about AMERICA. ANGER about CLIMATE. ANGER towards my one sibling. ANGER toward my father. And listening to the same music Jynxx was listening to while crafting her bomb in ARCANE just filled me with well……do I dare say it…JOY…LOL.

Don’t worry if I make any bombs they will probably be confetti bombs…made with compostable material of course.

This is the character Jynxx from the TV show “Arcane” that I mentioned.

A Fun Project

Those who know me know that I am passionate about local farming and have been involved with CSAs in Lincoln MA for the 20+ years since we moved back here from Seattle. I was first introduced to CSAs and local farming in Seattle and was thrilled to find an Organic CSA with a tight community feel in the town of Lincoln, MA. During Covid that farm wound down. The head farmer was getting up there in years and farming is physically demanding. So I moved down the street to Mass Audobon’s Drumlin Farm and gradually became more involved. This winter they asked me if I would be interested in painting their new Donation Box. I said yes but I wanted to use eco-friendly paints and avoid acrylics which are plastic. I asked if they would be OK with me using Milk Paint and gave them a budget (I underestimated the cost…lesson learned…but they bought most of the paint I needed.

When I saw the box which was about the size of a honeybee hive box, I suggested that I paint the inside with honeycomb and bees and the outside I would paint pollinator plants. I originally thought I would paint a landscape with pollinator plants but as the project evolved the outside morphed as I thought about how much I love The Little Golden Book Field Guides. And so I researched and put pollinator flowers all around the outside of the box. I had never worked with milk paint before and the company “The Real Milk Paint Company” was very helpful answering all my questions about mixing colors and preparing the surface and what to use to seal it. The paint itself is magical. It doesn’t smell and cleans up easily. There was a bit of a learning curve getting the paint to mix properly and the need to sand between coats so I didn’t end up with streaks or cracks. But overall I was quite happy with how the box turned out. I delivered it today and I can’t wait to see how it looks all assembled and installed in the barn. They wanted it for GroundHog Day because they have a big even this Sunday and they even managed to get a GroundHog (LOL).

Want to buy some Jill's Art?

Want to own some Jill’s Art? Consider buying one of the Geli prints for $100 to help me fund more print-making and experimentation. All prints are $100 plus shipping. I can choose one for you or you can let me know if there is one you are specifically interested in. All prints are on BFK Rives paper that is 13.5” by 19.5”. Just send me me a message through the contact on this site.

Grief and processing

Funny how when you loose someone close to you everyone around you shows their true colors. Two people who are on my list of “difficult” people were true to form. And those I love and find special really showed up and continue to show up and have made me feel supported and loved during this challenging time.

OK so many in my peer Art Group posted self portraits last week. I gather they were doing self portraits in class with Joel. I have not done a self portrait in a while and since I had to clean up my still life because my daughter and family and my father were over for dinner on Sunday I decided it was time to look in the mirror. What I was not prepared for was the picture I created. When I stopped I looked at it and thought, “Wow that looks like my mom.” I showed it to Roy who said, “Yeah that kind of looks like your mom. I showed it to my daughter who said “Yeah it sort of looks like Grandma but it also looks like somebody with liver disease” (LOL…she is a nurse practitioner). I showed it to my dad who agreed it looked like mom. Then Roen (age 6) showed up at our apartment, walked in saw it on the table and said, “Grandma this is AMAZING. It looks just like you!!!”

I suppose something in me was processing my own face, my mother’s face, existence when I was painting this.

Naughty or Nice?

Mean people suck. Selfish people suck. People who seem “blind to the suffering of others” suck. And if we have learned anything from events in the world there is no shortage of moral confusion. One person can cause harm to millions of people by his actions running a company, but is called a good man by the media. A man can berate a murderer for writing words on bullets while signing bombs that will be sent to kill and mame innocent children under the pretext that we are “saving the world from “bad guys”.

Thankfully there are also people with just unbelievably big generous hearts and souls as well in the world. I marvel at those who work tirelessly as advocates and activists to make the world a better place.

Right now I am so grateful for small acts of kindness and in this case a fellow artist who has given me time at Turtle Studio to work so I can experiment with Akua Inks and print making. What fun. Thankyou Sally Casper.

Back to Drawing

It was a long summer as my mother took a fast turn for the worse with her health. Dementia is a beast. And the type of dementia my mother had progressed quickly. She went from being able to walk and communicate to being in a wheel chair and unable to get even the simplest of words out. She died mid-October right before the Jewish Holiday of Sukkoth. We had a graveside funeral during the middle of Sukkoth. It was beautiful. All six grandchildren and their partners were present. We all miss her but it is also a relief to know she is no longer suffering.

October and November were a whirlwind of family, friends and the usual time invested in the CSA in Lincoln. And then there was the Election and the grief around the Middle East and the grief associated with the climate emergency. I feel like my emotional jar is overflowing with Joy (from the grand babies), Stress (from everyone’s work situation), Anger (over the state of the world and politics and genocide) and sadness (when I think about nature and climate and all the suffering).

On the day after the election I was doing CSA distribution. One by one members arrived to pick up their produce with shock, despair and sadness on their faces. Some wanted to talk about it, others did not. When I got relieved from my post I went down to the fields. I had an ulterior motive when I headed down as I was hoping to find the head farmer to see about getting some sweet potatoes as I had forgotten them the previous week. But I also needed the walk. And imagine my joy and surprise to show up and see an Anselm Keifer painting come to life. The sunflowers captured the mood that day perfectly, but they also provided me with material to take home to use in my own work. I collected a bunch of dried flowers thinking they would be just what I need artistically moving forward.

One benefit of not celebrating Christmas is that now I have time and space to focus on “me time”. I am only babysitting my daughter’s youngest one day a week. I have started up the Peer Support Group again and I am happy it is still going strong. It excites me each week to see what everyone is posting and how they are evolving as artists. It is also motivation for me to produce my own work and because I trust everyone in the group so well and they know me I am comfortable knowing that I might not be making masterpieces but what is important is that I AM MAKING!!!

I have had to give myself grace and allow myself to just create and play. I started by making these square watercolors with some handmade watercolors I had from India. Just having fun putting color and water on paper and pushing it around.

When I am stressed (which I am these days for a variety of reasons) I tend to fold Origami. I took some of the my failed Origami and started to draw it.

And finally I felt ready to handle something bigger. And I cut a large sheet of Canson Drawing paper and placed my still life on the floor and forced myself to work big despite the arrival of our son’s dog for the next six weeks. And I am so glad I did. I don’t know yet where this idea will take me but I am engaged and pleased with the outcome. Hopefully more to come. It is big for me 36” wide and 20” tall!!!

Protesting youth

Plenty has been written about the college protests. I really feel for these kids. They lived through Covid and saw how the adults blundered and fumbled resulting in many deaths. They saw how nothing really got fixed afterwards and watched in shock as everyone talked about returning to normal. They face a massive climate catastrophe in their lifetime and they see that the adults are doing nothing to deal with it. They watched a a helpless man be murdered by police on their screens. They then heard stories of others being murdered by police and protested only to see nothing really change. They have lived with the fear of school shootings their entire lives and seen nothing change. They are told their water and food has chemicals in it that will put them at increased risk of cancer and other diseases.

These are not kids who see a future with a 2 car garage and 2.5 kids and a green lawn. They know that something has to change and if anything the earth IS CHANGING.

So when they see the destruction of Gaza on their screens and they see the many child amputees and the death and blood and famine all caused by a country whose power is funded by the military industrial complex, they are understandably outraged willing to stand up and say ENOUGH.

Should they also be saying Hamas is bad? Well yeah maybe. But they are not protesting about the existence of a terrorist organization. They are protesting that there are weapons being used that have a label on them saying they should not be used in urban settings because of the collateral damage they will inflict being used in urban settings. They are protesting the use of AI and Drones to KILL out of fear of where that is going to lead. They are protesting rationing health care and food and clean water as a tool to try to control people. Do they misspeak? YES. Do they all fully understand why they are so passionate about this? NO. Do they understand the complex history that got us to this part? NO, but no more than they understand how the industrial revolution and capitalism has landed us in this mess right now.

I wish Universities would use this as an opportunity to teach these students. Maybe if they learned about all the forces at play they would morph into adults better able to change things.

This is what education looks like

Kudos to MIT and the MIT Police for allowing protests and counter protests and creating an environment where real dialogue was happening around the encampment. Israeli, American Flags, Palestinian Flags and Keffiyahs all mingled. Super inspiring to hear one young Jewish person talk to a variety of people so eloquently and with knowledge they said they learned from teach-ins that occurred within the encampment. Also Kudos to the MIT faculty who stood around identified by pink arm bands to just be a support for the students. Their neutral presence created an environment which for the most part meant that people regardless of who they were, were respectful. I only saw one guy act disrespectful....He was wearing a Kippa and seemed more interested in impressing his girlfriend by trying to create a scene. He was surrounded by MIT police and the faculty and the situation quickly de-escalated. This is what EDUCATION looks like!!!!

Back to the young man wearing a Kippa and a pro Israeli t-shirt. I first noticed him when he was leaving the encampment and shouted angrily at those standing at the entrance to the encampment “F—-k YOU”. A few minutes later I overheard him literally bragging to a young woman about what he had just done telling her that somebody accidentally touched him and so he shouted back at them. It was clear he was quite roused by having done that in front of so many spectators. 20 minutes passed and then I heard him sound all pumped up again and told the girl he was going back in. He walked toward the entrance of the encampment with the female following him. He sounded like he was heading back into a boxing ring. As an outside supporter he seemed more like a young animal trying to impress a potential mating female than a thoughtful college student. It was almost comical except it wasn’t because he clearly was eager to engage with others physically if allowed. I have to say watching the way the police and faculty create a circle around him and make it clear his testosterone and desire for physical conflict had no place was inspiring and a wonderful example of how policing should be done. I didn’t see where this young man went after that but for the next 40 minutes that we stood around he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps embarrassed he went back to his dorm. I wonder what the girl he was trying to impress thought?

Meanwhile there was a woman, probably about my age, who spoke about her grandchildren and her grandmother and great-grandparents who had suffered horribly during the Holocaust. It was clear she was still carrying generational trauma related to those years because when the impressive young person, who I had mentioned at the start of this post, started talking about how MIT receives US and Israeli money to do research for military drones used to kill in Gaza, the older woman accused the young person of lying and making up facts. The AI and Drone technology that is resulting in the killing of so many innocent people (including aid workers) comes from institutions like MIT and these young people are right to protest. The young person was calm and collected and pointed out that the IDF funds MIT receives for research into drone technology is all on the books and available for anyone to see.

Tony Kushner and "Munich"

We watched Munich after hearing an interview with Tony Kushner (author of “Angels in America” which I have written about before) on a Haaeretz podcast. Interestingly there is a production of Angels in Tel Aviv right now that is supposedly amazing. Munich is a movie from 2005 directed by Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner about Mossaud’s attempt to assinate those involved with the deaths of Israeli Athletes on black September 1972 Olympics. The lines could be lines directed toward all of us today. Like all good art it reaches across space and time to speak to us about our own condition.

Ali: Eventually the Arab states will rise against Israel. They don't like Palestinians, but they hate the Jews more. It won't be like 1967. The rest of the world will see by then what the Israelis do to us. They won't help when Egypt and Syria attack. Even Jordan. Israel will cease to exist. What?

Avner: This is a dream. You can't take back a country you never had.

Ali: You sound like a Jew.

Avner: Fuck you. I'm the voice inside your head telling you what you already know. You people have nothing to bargain with. You'll never get the land back. You'll die old men in refugee camps waiting for Palestine.

Ali: We have a lot of children. They'll have children. So we can wait forever. And if we need to, we can make the whole planet unsafe for Jews.

Avner: You kill Jews and the world feels bad for them... and thinks you animals.

Ali: Yes. But then the world will see how they've made us into animals. They'll start to ask questions about the conditions in our cages.

Avner: You are Arabs. There are lots of places for Arabs.

Ali: You're a Jew sympathizer. All you Germans, you're too soft on Israel. Well, you give us money, but you feel guilty about Hitler. And the Jews exploit that guilt. My father didn't gas any Jews.

Avner: Tell me something, Ali.

Ali: What?

Avner: Do you really miss your father's olive trees? Do you honestly think you have to get back all that... that nothing? that chalky soil and stone huts? Is that what you really want for your children?

Ali: It absolutely is. It will take a hundred years, but we'll win. How long did it take the Jews to get their own country? How long did it take the Germans to make Germany?

Avner: And look how well that worked out.

Ali: You don't know what it is not to have a home. That's why you European Reds don't get it. you say, "It's nothing," but you have a home to come back to. ETA, ANC, IRA... we all pretend we care about your international revolution... but we don't care. We want to be nations. Home is everything.

And then this scene

Avner: If these people committed crimes we should have arrested them. Like Eichmann.

Ephraim: If these guys live, Israelis die. Whatever doubts you have Avner, you know this is true.

[Avner walks away]

Ephraim: You did well but you're unhappy.

Avner: I killed seven men.

Ephraim: Not Salameh. We'll get him of course.

[Avner continues to walk away]

Ephraim: You think you were the only team? It's a big operation, you were only a part. Does that assuage your guilt?

Avner: Did we accomplish anything at all? Every man we killed has been replaced by worse.

Ephraim: Why cut my finger nails? They'll grow back.

Avner: Did we kill to replace the terrorist leadership or the Palestinian leadership? You tell me what we've done!

Ephraim: You killed them for the sake of a country you now choose to abandon. The country your mother and father built, that you were born into. You killed them for Munich, for the future, for peace.

Avner: There's no peace at the end of this no matter what you believe. You know this is true.

Great Art and "Zone of Interest"

I think “Zone of Interest” by Jonathan Glazer is a brilliant and important piece of art. We watched it a second time because I knew I had missed important details. The second time I was able to focus on details. The way the Grandmother puts her hands to her ears, the clearly problematic smell that causes people to cover their nose, the father hearing a rare bird song over the sounds of the “machine”, the dancing dead bodies in the laundry of the polish woman, the looks on the faces of those at the party and more. I would watch it again. What it says about today and our ability to block out the suffering of others while we remain comfortable, is beyond profound and since watching it I will have moments where the movie reminds me of my own complicity in the suffering of others. Most of us our guilty of this to some extent whether it be the inexpensive clothes we buy or ordering from Amazon or our turning a blind eye to the plastic we use.

With Passover just a few weeks away I often think about my attempts at family seders to connect the story to our current world system. It never went over well with my more religious family members. There is a lack of imagination that many have that I fear is why people do not want to make connections from the past to today. Those who watch Zone of Interest and just see it as a movie about the luxurious life of a Nazi family are missing the point. Or those who feel it is not really a Holocaust movie because there are no Jews physically present on the screen are failing to see why this movie matters as much as all the movies made before that are explicit about the abuse and suffering inside the camps.

The vitriol that was thrown at Glazer after his Oscar acceptance speech upset me. That people who I thought were kind and thoughtful and progressive joined in the chorus of those criticizing him was even worse. And it is crazy because the movie premiered in September before the events of October 7th.

Meanwhile I read an essay and listened to a podcast with Israeli and Tel Aviv resident Mushon Zer Aviv. The title of the opinion piece was “Israel Commits Suicide of Biblical Proportions and America is there to assist” So when another Jewish friend who has strong ties with Israel and Judaism posted a NYTimes article by the conservative Bret Stephens, which was at it’s core the simple Israel=Good and Hamas=Bad so Israel needs to keep bombing Gaza, I felt compelled to just post the alternative opinion piece by Mushon Zer Aviv in the comments and made a point of pointing out that it was written by somebody living in Tel Aviv. The friend immediately blocked me on social media. I sent an email asking to meet her for coffee so we could talk in person about this. I promised to listen to her. I know her views are partly shaped by her Israeli connections relating to her daughter. This woman is a devoted mother. But I have not heard back from her.

I sent an email to my relative asking her read Naomi Klein’s Guardian piece about the movie and the Oscars. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/14/the-zone-of-interest-auschwitz-gaza-genocide?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Perhaps I am foolish in thinking I can change anyone’s mind or help them see what is happening. Naomi Klein and Muson make a strong case for why Israel is engaged in a fool’s errand. I keep thinking how for every Hamas militant IDF kills how many more boys and girls will grow into adults filled with rage and hate due to the trauma they have suffered . And this is already happening. Israel claims to eliminate Hamas from Al Shifa Hospital and a few weeks later the place is filled with young men willing to fight the Israelis. When you have nothing to loose or have lost everything than it is easy to go to battle.

The New Yorker had an article about the child amputee’s from this war. This war has created more child amputees than any previous war. Trauma is not something that just goes away. It persists and poisons generations that come after. And yes Israelis suffered a horrible trauma as well. But if as a country they had only paused and allowed the world to grieve and support them. Maybe then those who envision a better world could have gathered and come up with a solution to the endless cycle of violence and hate that encompasses both sides.

On the positive side we watched a SKY news segment about a young Israeli woman who was choosing to spend time in Jail rather than fight. I admire her strength and the strength of her supportive parents as they stand up for LIFE. It gave me hope.

Silence

It seems when it comes to war those in the privilaged west who are comfortable, well fed and busy consuming have a remarkable ability to move on from crises. It’s not that people have forgotten or are not troubled by what is happening but the ability to sustain a heightened state of indignation seems to wain and people move on. The phrase “Silence is Complicity” has been used a lot in the past few years and then over time almost all of us go silent because what else is there for us to do. In the wonderful book “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder he talks about how those in authoritarian regimes eventually just give in and go silent. And although the US is not quite an authoritarian regime, at least not yet, it is well on the path to becoming one.

I am not one to be a community organizer. I am not particularly good at politics and participating in group activities to protest. I am only mediocre at going to marches or events.

As an artist I don’t think of myself as being particularly political. But given how my emotions and ideas find a way into my art, my art becomes my voice. And right now I am particularly proud of where that voice has taken me. I have as mentioned earlier found great comfort and pain in drawing the folds of the Tallis. I ordered a Keffiyah from Amazon. I was hoping to get one made in Palestine but sadly they are all sold out so I got one made in India that many reviewers said was a good alternative. Given India’s relationship with Islam and Muslims it is a bit odd. But it works.

Then my son and his wife, who were visiting with us for a week left and they forgot their daughter’s (age 3) puffy coat. It is adorable with rainbow Unicorns and mushrooms and stars all over it. I decided to draw it with the Tallit and the Keffiyah and as I drew the drawing became about the grief for all the children who are suffering from this conflict. I am happy with the drawing. I am not sure how others will perceive it or if somebody might find it offensive. The Tallit is less obvious as a Tallit. The Keffiyah is also less clear. The one identifiable object is the puffy jacket . But I like the way the stripes and embroidery make an abstract pattern. I love that the Keffiyah and Tallit both have fringes but they are different.

It is my voice and my voice will always always side with the children. They are the innocent and sadly too many are dead, or maimed or starving or ill or left without parents or relatives. Too many are traumatized. This war will have reverberations for generations to come and that makes me profoundly sad.

GHOSTS

I was visiting my mom in the long-term memory care facility. She has two friends who she sits with when she has her meals. They are lovely ladies. Every time I visit I am a new person to them and my mother introduces me as her daughter. Sometimes I can get the chatty one to talk about Boston in the 70s. She raised her kids in Hyde Park. She told me how it was hard when all the neighbors were fighting over the busing issue. But when I ask her about her four children and what they are doing now she struggles and can not remember. It is quite sad. The other day after leaving from a short visit as I drove back on the highway, it struck me that my mom and the other’s in her unit are ghosts. There are echos of who they were before dementia set in. They live in a space between life and death. In some ways many of them in my mom’s unit seem like they are just waiting to die. They are stuck in this bizarre space forced to wander in their minds with what memories are hardwired in their brain and unable to make new memories or learn new skills. For some the body is also no longer working and they need help eating and moving around. The sounds they make can be haunting at times.

Every time I visit with my mother she mentions my hair. This past visit I had a hat on covering my hair and my mother ran the program she has in her brain and said, “I like your hair”. It is not my mother commenting on my hair but rather the ghost of my mom who is saying she likes my hair. And that is the pain of dementia.

Because she is still very much alive there is no gathering or Shiva right now. But at the same time there is grief. And to be around her is to be haunted by the echos of who she was as a person.

2024

What a year so far!!! The war in Gaza continues. The war in Ukraine continues. Equador is taken over by drug lords. And it seems every time I turn on the radio I hear about Trump, and not that he is going to jail but about his campaign. Meanwhile icebergs are melting. Extreme climate events are happening. And it seems EVERYONE is continuing to shop. Imagine my amazement the other day when I learned that with a push of a button I could get a plastic Ariel-Little Mermaid Doll complete with accessories delivered by the end of the day for $12.00. But meanwhile people are having to set up go-fund me pages to get necessary medical care.

Roy and I have been playing a cooperative climate game called Daybreak. The cards for Daybreak all have special abilities and require certain resources to be activated. They represent real things that can be done to help with the climate emergency, such as planting trees, investing in solar, public transportation etc… One also must build resilience because there are crises cards and if you do not have infrastructure, social or ecological resilience you can get social unrest which limits your ability to draw project cards. All the project cards have QR codes so you can go and learn about the various projects and how they help with the climate crises. Interestingly one of the most powerful cards when it is in play is “Tax the Rich”

As for art…I did something I have wanted to do for years, which is to somehow address my complicated relationship with Judaism. Many artists have used their Jewish Heritage in their art. And there is a certain aesthetic that Jewish art tends to have, which is not my aesthetic. And It was not clear to me what would happen as I tried to make a drawing that not only engaged me as an artist but also captured the nuance about what it means to be a Jewish American post October 8th. As always I started with a still life. And after many failed attempts I finally found my voice when I took the Tallit out and started drawing the folds. I have an obsession with folds. They show up in my drawings of knitting, my drawings of Bernini’s clay angels and my drawings of origami. I can get lost in them. And somehow it is always through drawing tangles and folds that these emotions emerge unexpectedly in my drawing.

I honestly did not know how my Tallit drawings would be seen by those who are Jewish and by those unfamiliar with Judaism. Could one tell the Fabric and tassels belonged to a Tallit? What do non-Jews see in the image of the folded fabric. When I showed the initial idea to my critique group where there are many who are not familiar with the imagery of the Tallit, they were enthralled by the abstraction and told me they could sense it was about grief. So with that encouragement Itook out a larger sheet of paper and went to work. You can see the first sketch and the final drawing below.

The second drawing started off as a sketch as well. In fact I almost gave up on it. But something in me kept on working and then at one point I realized I had created a drawing that scared me. The hooded Tallit is stabbing a body or itself. Bodies are underneath. It is looking at both. Too many are using religion as a cloak to hide their nefarious behavior. A perfect example of this is Hebrew Senior Life where my mother is in Long Term Care. The whole facility as luxurious as it is, was donated by Sheldon Adelson, a Trump supporter and a person whose politics are very questionable and damaging. And yet he and his offspring hide behind a religious cloak that makes them seem charitable and moral. What happens when rich people do bad things that harm people and then donate money and so they can look charitable? Were the Rockefellers as bad as the Sacklers and Adelson? What about Gates? Too many questions.

Trying something new

I don’t know why I had not done this before. I have been thinking about my struggles to work bigger and post-Thanksgiving I set up one of my chaotic still lifes yesterday to try to capture all that I am feeling about the constant stream of crumbled buildings and lost lives. For some reason I picked up a small-isn pad measuring 14x17”. I was also focused on trying to draw the crumbled oak leaves accurately and was using a red film to help me see the dark and light areas better. And then it hit me!!!! Joel once had us do an exercise where we just drew 1/4 of a still life on a sheet of paper and then put them all together. In some cases the order of the 1/4’s was mixed up and resulted in better more interesting compositions. We made our drawings in Ink so nothing could be moved or erased. And I loved the result of this exercise. Everyone’s drawings were more interesting than if they had just tried to draw the still life as it was on one sheet of paper. And it dawned on me that this could be a great way to start working bigger and make my work more immersive. And so I have started. Below you can see the process. It still requires a lot of work and I am very unsure of the overall composition of all four sheets. But I am also learning and getting experience in doing this and the outcome is less important right now.

On a separate note I wanted to give a shout out to a TV series that has had an impact on me as an artist. Scavenger’s Reign on HBO max is an unusual animated series for adults. Although not quite as beautiful artistically as a Miyazaki the imagination that went into creating an alien ecosystem blew me away. And made me think about the role of imaginary landscapes in my own art.

Collage and Children

The grand-girls now expect to do an art project as soon as I arrive. Sometimes it is just drawing with the “woodies” that I have. After the Stabilio Woody set I had bought for Roen got dispersed and many were lost or thrown away, I decided if I bought a set I would keep it for myself and bring it for the girls to use when I am there. Woodies are thick wood pencils with high pigment water soluble crayons in them. They are better than regular crayons because you can get very deep colors if you wet the pencil. You can also spread the color around with a paint brush if you use the right paper. And they are indestructible and they are for the most part washable.

I showed up to babysit my granddaughters and a pile of catalogs and junk mail was on the kitchen table. My daughter knows me and knows I would do something with it. And sure enough before she could even get her coffee and go upstairs to her office we were setting up to make collages. I got out the scissors. I put the some Elmer’s glue in a top of a yogurt container and cut up some rectangles of cardboard and showed the girls how to spread a thin film of glue on the back of what ever piece they wanted to stick on to their collage. Much to my surprise they both mastered the technique and best of all we did not end up with a massive glue mess. The 2.5 year old needed some help especially when her pieces were tiny. But the 5 year old quickly became very good at using just the right amount of glue. Now between negotiating the bickering about who got to cut out the gingerbread house and helping the two year old find a star or doggy of her own to cut out I worked on my own collage. And when I left on Tuesday it was not particularly interesting. In fact I used the top half of the paper and woodies to explain “complimentary colors” to Roen. We worked on the collages some more on Thursday when Mae went down for her nap. And as Roen worked so did I. And much to my surprise something started to emerge. Roen must have thought I was pretty silly because once I realized I had a successful art piece I became increasingly excited and focused on it. And then, because our peer-art group was meeting that evening I found a spot that worked and took a photo of it to post to Padlet. Roen of course wanted me to take a picture of her collage as well. At first she asked me if I could take a talking picture with her not moving in it. We played around and finally she ended up with a video she was proud of.

Back in my so-called studio

I don’t currently have a studio. Since the pandemic all my work has been created at my dining room table in our apartment. It is not ideal. But plenty of artists have created wonderful work in cramped settings.

For the past two weeks I have been trying to re-start my life. I have been grieving. Grieving for the children of the world, grieving for the planet, grieving for my mother and grieving for the future. The overwhelming grief and despair I have been feeling has resulted in me being very “present” with my granddaughters. I am more able to just shelve my thoughts and enter into the fairy or mermaid world. Me and my daughter’s girls have been doing science experiments and craft projects and we even made “Witches Stew” the week of Halloween.

For the past few months every time I tried to pick up a piece of charcoal or a brush or a colored pencil the depression and grief would result in me quickly giving up. And instead I would choose to do something mindless. I started folding origami again. This in turn resulted in us taking my oldest granddaughter, Roen to MIT where we had an amazing time learning to make a bat with Michael Lafosse. Michael is one of the best origami teachers around and he did not disappoint. Roen had a great time and it is amazing to see how her understanding of Origami has improved after that class. She can now almost follow origami instructions from a simple origami book entirely on her own.

Even making loose marks or playing with paint resulted in me feeling empty and devoid of joy. I had no patience for mark making. I went to the Natural History Museum and tried to see if drawing in the whale room would give me inspiration but I only left feeling frustrated and discouraged.

I restarted the Peer Art Group after having to cancel for much of the fall due to the crises with my parents and it feels good to see my peers work, even if I did not have anything to share. And it is always fun and helpful for me to find artists for us to discuss that relate to our work.

It is day 36 of the war in Gaza. I have seen too many tears and funerals and death on the TV. My heart breaks every time I see a mother cry for their baby. I have often thought about how unbearable that pain would be.

And so with that thought in mind I return to the dolls. The dolls that my kids loved and the dolls that my granddaughters adore. The dolls that embody children and play and life and diversity. And I throw them at the chaos of my dried flowers on the table and draw and today I finally was able to move beyond the shutdown that I have been in for the past few months and for the first time found I could sustain a dialogue with the page. The work is not done. Maybe I will stop working on this and start another. But it feels good to have charcoal smudged on my face and to look at something I created. It feels good to know that I can still speak through my mark making.