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This was one of the
last paintings that I did in
this series. It is a
self-portrait with all of my
family names behind me.
After painting all of my
ancestors it seemed only
fitting to do a similar
painting of myself.
First I wrote the names, then
covered them in gold as I had
for other paintings. But
then I decided to uncover
them, just as I do in my
research. The gold paint
had represented the way in
which we get glimmers of
information, but seldom the
complete information. My
role as genealogist is to
pierce the veil, find the
secrets in the documents that
no one expected to be
unearthed, thus it is titled
"Piercing the Veil".
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ZEHAVA
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Zehava
is a second cousin who lives
in Haifa, Israel. I located
her through the Yad Vashem
database which collects
testimony on victims of the
Holocaust. Her father had
submitted testimony on the
death of his grandfather, my
grandfather’s older brother.
Her father, a Holocaust
survivor, believed he had only
one relative who survived. He
was touched to learn that he
has twelve cousins in the
United States, related through
both of his grandparents.
Zehava means “golden” in
Hebrew so it seemed fitting
that she was my first gold
painting. In the background
are the names of her
ancestors. In these paintings
gold represents the present,
black the past, so the past is
hidden by the veil of the
present.
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SHLOIME
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Schloime is
my
great-grandfather.
Long before I found
an image of him, my
aunt had described
him to me in an oral
history as always
wearing a fedora and
a Van Dyke. When I
found a picture, I
knew immediately who
he was. In this
painting I was
trying to focus on
his face and hands
and let the rest
recede into the
background. In the
background, I’ve
reversed the
convention that I
used in the second
cousin paintings.
Here the names are
in gold and are the
names of his
descendants rather
than his ancestors.
The names are
covered over in
black, hidden in the
past from view just
a gleam in my
great-grandfather’s
eye
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WAITING
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In this
painting I imagined my
grandmother as she waited at
Ellis Island for her husband
to pick her up. She had a
rather arduous journey.
According to my grandfather’s
report she was shot at in
leaving the country. She ended
up in a hospital in
France. Supposedly she
came to America with her
younger brother. In fact she
came on a boat that originated
in France, went to Rotterdam
and then NY. Her brother came
from Rotterdam the following
week.. Were they supposed to
meet up and didn’t? She was
held at Ellis Island as most
single women were until a male
family member picked them up.
They frequently had LPC
written on the manifest for
“likely public charge”.
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THE
ENIGMA
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This
painting is of my maternal
grandfather. It was a history
that he wrote, just a few
pages that got me started in
genealogy. He began with his
birth in 1888 in Kamenetz
Podolsk and then went on to
describe the miserable boat
ride to the United States and
his brother-in-law’s apartment
that he went to when he
arrived. With this detail I
began a search of Ellis
Island. Ironically he was the
last family member that I
found as it was not until far
into the process that I
learned that he had changed
his name. My mother gave me
the letter in which he made
this disclosure, a precious
historical record. In his
immigration record he reported
that he had no family in
Europe and was single despite
the fact that he had a wife
and child in the Ukraine. In
his written history he wrote
only of my grandmother’s
family, nothing of his own.
Ten years after he arrived in
the United States, my
grandmother’s brothers brought
her over after pogroms in her
village. My grandparents had
five children, but lived apart
for most of their lives. My
grandfather, a talented
tailor, would come over on
weekends to sew for his
children. In this painting the
sewing machine bears his
original name. The cloth
contains the names of his
children for whom he sewed.
Behind him is one of the
buildings in which he lived
and the writing is based on
the writing on a shop selling
Judaica in the building in
which he lived.
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MEMORY OF
BLESSING
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When I
was young, my maternal
grandmother lived with our
family for several years.
She was losing her memory
and spoke only Yiddish so I
never really knew her. She
was used to working with her
hands so my mother used to
give her spoons to polish.
The other memory that I have
is of her blessing the
Sabbath candles. That was
the one moment when I could
imagine her as she used to
be. At the bottom of the
painting you will see a
frieze of spoons. Behind her
is the beginning of the
Sabbath blessing.
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THE TWINKLE
IN HIS EYE
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My
paternal grandfather died in
his 60s so I never really
knew him. My mother always
talked of him as having a
twinkle in his eye. When she
described him she said there
was always one corner of his
mouth that was turned up in
amusement. I looked at
pictures of him, searching
for that quality. How to
catch a twinkle in one’s
eye? All the images seemed
severe until I stumbled
across one image from my
parents’ wedding which
clearly captured that
quality. On the side is a
portion of his Russian birth
record. If you look closely
you can see his father’s
name, Mayer Wajnberg in
Polish, immediately before
it is his name in Russian.
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BLUE
FEATHERS
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This
painting was my attempt to
capture my paternal
grandfather from the stories
I had heard from others who
knew him. My
grandfather owned a surplus
store and had a wide variety
of goods. My father
remembers blue feathers,
hats with blue feathers. I
loved that image and decided
to incorporate it. Twenty
years ago I did an oral
history with an aunt who
related how during the
Depression they lived behind
the store. When they
couldn’t afford the rent,
all of their belongings
would be moved onto the
sidewalk. My grandfather
would arrange for a truck
and pay the movers a few
dollars to load their
belongings onto the truck
rather than the sidewalk.
Then he’d move to his new
location. After the war, my
father had a cousin who was
the family’s sole survivor.
He came to stay with my
grandfather and related how
he located him through a
friend who knew
someone who played cards
with my grandfather who had
been a bit of a gambler in
his youth. When I
interviewed this cousin 20
years ago he recalled that
my grandfather used to send
a ten dollar bill back to
his family in Poland. You’ll
find images of a mover and
truck, a ten dollar bill, an
ace and hats with blue
feathers.
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STARZAKONNY
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When
doing genealogy I spend much
time pouring over records in
Polish and Russian. This is a
reproduction of a portion of
the marriage record between my
great-great grandparents in
1851. I built the letters up
to capture the light, then I
tipped key words with gold.
When reading records in a
foreign language your eye
learns to focus on key words
and ignore the rest. In this
work, I attempted to highlight
the words that I focus on. The
word Starzakonny means Jew.
The document reads “the Jew
Herszek Sima Wajnberg, groom
from Treczemchy”. It goes on
to mention the “Jewess Malka
Rozenberg, bride.
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TRANSMUTATION
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This
triptych is meant to be read
right to left, the
directionality echoing the
movement from East to West of
the immigrant. Set against the
sea representing their ocean
voyage are the names of
ancestors. On the right you will
find the names in Russian and
Polish. In the middle panel you
will see the old names in mirror
image submerging into the sea as
the Americanized and frequently
changed names emerge. Shiman and
Schloime became Samuel, Ben-Zion
became Benjamin. The final panel
consists only of the American
names.
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THEY
STAYED BEHIND
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.This
grouping represents images
of family members who didn’t
immigrate. I had read that
when people boarded the
boats for the United States,
they often took a ball of
yarn. A family member
standing on shore would hold
one end of it and as the
boat pulled away the yarn
would unravel and fly into
the air. I loved the
metaphor in this as
immigration frequently meant
the unraveling of family
ties. In reality family
members had to swim a river
and were shot at upon
leaving the country. They
probably didn’t bring the
family to send them off.
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FROM
THERE TO HERE
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This
diptych represents the world
where family lived in Europe
and the Lower East Side
where they began their new
life. On the right is a
combined image of Radom,
Poland and Kamenetz Podolsk
in the Ukraine. Kamenetz had
a fortress with turrets
which echoed the water tower
of the Lower East Side. If
you look closely you’ll see
that the streets in Europe
are paved with the names of
those who stayed behind. The
Lower East Side carries the
names of those who
immigrated.
In private collection
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IT IS GOOD
TO DONATE THE KNOWLEDGE
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“It is
Good to Donate the
Knowledge” is based on a
letter my grandfather wrote
to my mother when she
graduated from college as an
adult. I was struck by the
family messages embodied in
his note where he says, “It
is good to donate the
knowledge to somebody else.
I am glad you could be your
boss.” The other images in
the collage are of my sister
and I as children with my
grandfather against a
building he lived in on the
Lower East Side and a map of
the Ukraine from where he
came.
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KAMENETZ,
NOT COMMUNIST
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“Kamenetz
not Communist” is based on
images from the town from which
my maternal grandparents came.
For years my mother thought my
grandmother was saying
“communist” when she spoke of
the town she was from. It was
long after my grandmother had
died that my mother read a book
that referenced Kamenetz Podolsk
and she realized that was what
her mother had been saying. The
dominant picture is of my
grandmother’s family in the
1890s in the Ukraine. It is
layered against an image of the
town and Russian metrical
records for the family. The
writing is the Russian spelling
of Kamenetz Podolsk.
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THE
KEY TO THE CITY
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“The
Key to the City” gets its name
from a cousin who stands in
the middle holding a pipe
wrench which looked a bit like
a key. I’ve always loved fire
escapes as images so I decided
to pose family members on the
fire escape. At the top is an
aunt and my mother while below
them are two of their
siblings. In front of the
store bearing my paternal
grandfather’s business name
sit my paternal grandmother
and great-grandmother. Below
them is my great-grandfather
while my maternal grandfather
looks down over a sign that
hung over a building in which
he lived.
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