Large Images

GEDENKEN

One of the images that stuck in my memory was that of the trees overlooking Ponar, the killing site where most of the Jews of Vilnius were murdered. The trees bore silent testimony to the horrors that occurred there. Below I wanted something that suggested the bodies buried in the pits and decided to go with metaphor and use the letters of the Yiddish alphabet to represent bodies.

Lying on their side they provide a figural suggestion and unfortunately an accurate representation in that the future of Yiddish may well have been buried in the pits with its speakers. Bands of upright letters spell out "Gedenken" which means "remember" in Yiddish. As I neared the bottom of the pit, I increased the size of these bands until the letters became apparent. The vantage point of the viewer is from the pits looking up, perhaps the last view of many of its victims.

Since my return I've read the "Ponary Diary 1941-43" by Kazimierz Sakowicz. This book was written by a Polish journalist who lived in Ponar during the time of the murders. He observed them daily from his attic and wrote about what he witnessed, burying each page in a bottle. The pages surfaced in archives after the war until they were assembled in a book and published. I was especially struck by his dispassionate tone in which he would talk about the beautiful day in the same breath as the murders. I wanted the painting to reflect that juxtaposition as well.

Notice that the painting on the right is composed of two canvases of 36 X 24. I reproduced this painting with some slight variations in order to faciliate exhibiting a piece of this size. In the process I added some roots below and made the writing more distinct.

Return to prior page

THE NATION OF ISRAEL LIVES

In Vilnius there are only a few buildings that still have Yiddish writing. Below the storefront is a window on which visitors have written in Yiddish in the dust. The Yiddish was translated as “You were not killed, the nation of Israel lives”. The painting contains part of the script over the door as well as the handwritten Yiddish for “the nation of Israel lives”. In the corner is a pile of stones such as those left on tombstones to show one has visited the grave. There are images embossed into the painting that are drawn from the synagogue memorial in Riga.

Return to prior page

SHALOM ALEICHEM I

In Vilnius we visited a restaurant that stood in front of the area that once housed the old synagogue, now destroyed. One evening we spoke with the owner who told us that when renovating the space, they discovered a tunnel that ran from near the old synagogue under the restaurant to outside of what was once the ghetto gates. The proprietor of the restaurant showed us the gate to the tunnel. As we stood under the starry night sky we could almost imagine the synagogue that once stood there.

She also shared with us a story about an elderly man who came to the restaurant one day. He stood in front of the restaurant for a long time and then came in and asked if he could sit in a particular room, one where one wall is filled with a rack of wine bottles. He looked distressed as he sat there and she asked if she could get him some coffee. He turned to her and said, “This used to be my bedroom”. He had lived in that building when it was part of the ghetto with his mother and sisters. When he stood up to leave he said, “I won’t be back again”.

Yet another story she shared with us was about when they were renovating the space late at night. They often felt and saw a presence which she felt was benign, as if it were children. She had learned that the coal chute was often a hiding place for children during the ghetto when hiding successfully meant another day of life. As we left we had told her that if she felt the presence again she should say, “Shalom Aleichem” which means “Peace be with you”.

All of those stories are reflected in my painting titled “Shalom Aleichem”. In this painting an old man is the central figure. I based the painting on an elder Lithuanian man who was attending the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. Behind him are circles within circles signifying the wine rack which gradually melts into a starry night sky. Above him is the gate to the tunnel with the tunnel leading from its lower left corner in the direction of the ghetto gates. A chute with the suggestion of a child flows into it, perhaps a recollection of the old man, perhaps a ghost-like presence.

Return to prior page

SHALOM ALEICHEM II

This painting contains essentially the same story as Shalom Aleichem I with a few modifications. I thought it was sufficiently different to include it here. My original work was on panels and in an effort to increase portability and minimize the need for framing I painted a number of the same images on stretched canvas. In doing so I had the opportunity to modify the paintings and chose to use a different figure in this image. Shalom Aleichem I looks directly at the viewer and I thought a more contemplative mood might suit the story better which I think this image evokes.

Working on a different surface has both benefits and detriments. Colors blend together more on canvas while on board you can get more of a scumbled effect which I often prefer.

Return to prior page

THE JEWS LIKE BLUE

In the apartment where we stayed, our landlady and her husband had started to scrape down the walls. Soon they found traces of former tenants. They left squares of the underlying layers intact in their apartment, some of which we were certain contained Hebrew letters. Our landlady noted that Jews once lived in this home in the corner of the small ghetto. Commenting on the blue in the background, she noted that “the Jews liked blue”. The painting consists of that phrase obscured. I embossed letters and then scraped portions down until I ended up with something that has an almost waxy appearance which captures the suggestion of something hidden beneath layers, an apt metaphor for the Jewish heritage in Vilnius.

Return to prior page

THAT WHICH IS PRACTICED IN YOUTH

This painting is of Marek, an older gentleman who was in our Yiddish class. Marek only spoke Russian so we didn’t have much opportunity to communicate with him, but I found his face very interesting and have already used him as a reference for my painting “Sholom Aleichem”. While I liked the painting of his face, it needed something more. I went to my list of Yiddish expressions and searched for something that would relate in some manner. The one quote I found was “Vi men iz gevoint oif der yugend, azoi tut men oif der elter”. This translates to “That which is practiced in youth will be pursued in old age.” When I thought about the meaning of this relative to Marek, I realized that he must have heard Yiddish as a youth, but grew up under Soviet rule where pursuing one's Jewish heritage openly was very difficult. Here he was in his 70s, now studying Yiddish, no doubt returning to something that had once been familiar. I wrote the expression in cursive Yiddish and did washes of yellow ochre and red oxide over portions of it.

Return to prior page

RUTA

This is a study of Ruta, a woman who we met at the Vilnius Synagogue. Ruta had a very old-style look that looked very at home in the synagogue. She graciously had shown us around the synagogue and was there to greet us when we attended services on our last evening in Vilnius. The image that I painted of her had the dome of the synagogue behind her as she stood on the women's balcony. The dome framed her face with blue creating an almost Madonna-like quality, not exactly the effect I was going for, but it felt strangely appropriate. Ruta will likely show up in a larger painting in another form and this study will surely inform that effort.

Return to prior page

AFIKOMEN

Off of the women's balcony in the Vilnius synagogue is a curtained room. Behind the curtains it houses equipment for making matzo. Once there was a matzo bakery and a kosher butcher housed secretly within the synagogue. Under Soviet rule they did not allow for the practice of one’s religion, so they had to do this surreptitiously. The painting “Afikomen” is semi-abstract, but you can pick out the forms of the equipment. The name comes of course from the hiding of the matzo (Afikomen) at Passover.

Return to prior page

GROW LIKE AN ONION

This painting is based on a colorful Yiddish curse, Vahksin zuls du vi a tsibeleh, mitten kup in drerd which translates to “may you grow like an onion with your head in the ground and your feet in the air”. I incorporated an image of myself at 10 years old with my skirt billowing out in the form of an onion plant. I frequently use language in the body of my paintings and this series definitely called for that. The writing becomes a part of the imagery mirroring the spiky onion leaves. As I did this painting prior to my Lithuanian travels it has the transliteration rather than the Yiddish letters.

Return to prior page

THE BEGGAR

Another expression that I found reflective of the culture was der betler iz shyn in dritn dorf which means “the beggar’s on his third village already”. Its meaning is “hurry up, get a move on”. I thought about what images that conjured for me. The first thought that came to mind was an outstretched hand. That hand morphed into a road with shtetls along it and the words written on the road.

Return to prior page

LAUGH WITH THE LIZARDS

The expression lakhn mit yashtsherkes literally means "laugh with the lizards" and refers to a bitter kind of laughter, the kind that keeps you from crying. I posed a lizard on a seed pod that I found visually interesting and then had to contemplate what a lizard looks like when it laughs.

Return to prior page

BURIED TRUTHS

This painting is based on an image derived from the book " Ponary Diary 1941-43" by the journalist Kazimierz Sakowicz. Sakowicz lived near the forest where he witnessed and documented the murders of the Jews of Vilnius. Each day he buried what he wrote in a jar in the forest. In his book he writes of how local Lithuanians performed the murders. After the war these pages began to surface in archives until Dr. Rachel Margolis got access to them and was able to piece them together for the first publishing in Polish. The book proved quite controversial as it named many of the Lithuanians who participated in the murders. The title of the painting is "Buried Truths". I found the image of bottles buried in the forest to be an interesting one and wanted to build a sense of layering that conveyed something hidden. I wanted a few bottles near the top to be sprouting pages as if they were plants. Somehow truths have a way of eventually surfacing.

Return to prior page

I WAS HERE

This painting is based on the Ninth Fort located outside of Kaunas, Lithuania. The Ninth Fort was a place of mass murder used by the Nazis to kill 50,000 Jews. In addition to Lithuanian Jews, this site was used for the murder of Jews from France, Germany and Austria. The building was used as a temporary holding point prior to executions in adjacent killing fields. If the Nazis didn't complete all their murders during the work day, they held the Jews overnight until the next day. It was in the holding cells that I saw the imagery which inspired this painting. Carved into the bluish rose walls were names and dates. A last attempt to say, "I was here", to assert one's existence in the face of death. The painting is actually recycled from another painting that I wanted to rework. When I painted over it the face just became more subtle, but still remained. I liked the effect and decided this subject required a partially hidden face to remind the viewer that a person stood facing this wall as they carved their last words.

Return to prior page

WHAT IS LEFT

This painting is of the doors to the ark which held the Torah. It is one of the few pieces that remain from the Old Synagogue which no longer exists. The synagogue was celebrating its 500 year anniversary in 1938 so had a very ancient history. It was damaged badly in the war and the Soviets took it down after the war. It stood on Zydu Street (Jew Street) in Vilnius. The doors to the ark struck me as very contemporary in appearance although clearly handcrafted. I especially liked the little Star of David around the keyhole. They now reside at the Tolerance Center in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Return to prior page