When All of Our Homelands are One
In progress book project, 2024. Linocut, letterpress, hand binding.
The book reads like a children’s picture book, and is both extremely personal and speaks to a collective grappling. Written as a letter from an elder to a grandchild, it asks:
“can I give you a culture to be proud of?”
Through this project, I explore book-making as a sacred Jewish ritual art and core tool for cultural survival, past, present and future. The process of book-making is as important and central as the finished pieces, and is, itself, a doorway to new and needed next iterations of Jewish life.
Finished book blocks, ready to be bound. Closing page reads: “the rosemary is in bloom.”
Finished pages prior to being folded into book blocks. Once bound, each piece of paper will be four pages of the finished book.
The images in the book represent lands and cultures that have shaped me. All of the women in my family collect hamsas around their doorways. They are complex and powerful symbols, and I don’t know their full lineage. On a personal level, they are one of the strongest symbols of Jewish cultures tied to family.
Prints drying between layers.
This print is an illustration of the farm at Linke Fligl, where I lived and tended chickens for 5 years. Linke Fligl was inspired by the 1920s Socialist Jewish chicken farmers of Petaluma. I wrote and printed the book at a residency in Petaluma, which is also close to where I grew up. The book reflects that lineage, my relationship to these spaces, and their relationship to each other through time.
Carved blocks prior to printing. Images show hands harvesting olives and dates, surrounded by trees.
Print of a messy seder table in a rainbow fade from pink to green. Messy holiday tables are a theme in my art, representing queer family, lineage and tradition. The tone of the writing is both hopeful and solemn, paired with playful whimsical colors that inspire imagination. The design of the book invites a reader into an experience of both play and grief, both of which are needed in cultural reimagining and world building.