Part 4 "Numbers"

"NUMBERS": Part 4

But first...Rockin' Girl Blogger:

Thanks to Linda, who nominated me for a Rockin’ Girl Blogger award.
What a lovely thing to do Linda, thanks I am most humbled by it.

All I know about this award is from someone else's site which saidthe following,

"A lady by the name of Roberta decided we rockin' girl bloggers needed a community so she developed the banner and tagged 5 other ladies who tagged 5 other ladies and so on and so forth.....and RGB was born."

Hmmm I find these things difficult as there are so many wonderful bloggers out there. So if I have not got you this time I will hit you another time, lol.

Now to those five who I have marked as Rockin’ Girl Blogger’s

Judy

Tricia

Rande

Sharon T

Kristen

I wonder if i can do five Aussies also? Will let you know.

"NUMBERS": Part 4

This will be the second last post in this the series on Numbers, panel one.
It’s quite a job writing all the detail, my apologies for not having posted this part sooner however one must attend to the mundane things in life.

The lady is a cousin of Esther’s however only the surname is remembered.

She and her brother both were killed in Auschwitz.

To the right of the woman you will see some Hebrew text which is resined paper.

I chose this particular piece as it is part of the Prayer for the Dead.

Jews pray three times a day and normally this prayer would be read by a male member of the family for a year after the death and on the annual date that marks the death of the person in question.

Since no-one knows the date of most of the Holocaust victims’ deaths, once a year, on Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement, the Holiest day of the year, this prayer called “Kaddish”, is read aloud in Synagogues throughout the world to commemorate the deaths of the Holocaust victims.

Hence I thought it fitting to place the text beside this lady and her brother.

I can't seem to find the photo of the brother but it's done in the same way as the sister and you will see part of it in an image to follow.

Additionally, I symbolically added some aged fabric behind the text which is very similar to the uniforms worn in the concentration camps.

Remember how I was telling you how I wanted certain pieces to look as though they had been ripped off the wall in a hurry. This is another example of that – hence the aged and ripped wallpaper with the hanging devise still attached.

The frame is backed with layers of burnt paper as a lot of the homes were burnt down in the Warsaw Ghetto where these cousins resided.

On the frames are some of those rusted elements I spoke of in the last post and I decided not to add all four as would be the case if purchased new. I figured it would be a more realistic look some parts were missing.


The whole piece is sitting on a piece of wood which has many layers of paint and an antiquing medium.

Below but to the right of this piece you will see a glass bottle. In the bottle you will find FRAGMENTS.

If Survivors had anything after all they went through, they had fragments.

Fragments not only in the physical sense.

But...

Fragments of a life they once knew.

Many survivors lost all their family, husbands lost wives and children and visa versa.

Can you imagine being married and with children, losing them all and having to start all over again. I have a number of friends whose parents did just that.

The mind boggles as to the emotional toll it would take, and does take, not only on the parents but the children born into this new generation.

Back to the bottle… in it there is the following…
Mica – to represent Kristallnacht – The night of the broken glass.

Fragments of both German and Hebrew text to represent Kristallnacht.

Bits of the fabric of which I just spoke – to represent the slaughter of 6 million Jews and Esther’s Auschwitz experience.

You will notice 2 pieces of Hebrew text that I placed ever so carefully in the bottle.
The biggest one, in the middle has 2 words… ‘Chochmat Adam” – which translates to “The wisdom of man”.

I inserted that piece, sort of 'tongue in cheek'. This was the last element attached and after going through all the emotions associated with the piece, I looked and thought…

What wisdom was there is all of this?

My answer was NONE.

The second text has the word for book within it so that simply related to the burning of the books on Kristallnacht.

The bottle has some aged fabric within the neck of the bottle to stop the fragments falling out.

I did this as it reminded me of a Molotov cocktail – a crude form of artillery that was used when Sam was in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

The bottle is placed on top of a piece of aged and burned hessian, a fabric used widely at that time. Burnt for reasons explained above.

The annealed, wire, was used to symbolise the wire and or barbed wire on the gates of the ghetto and concentration camps.

The Partisan Song:

Partisans were groups of people participating in the Jewish resistance movement during WW2.

The Partisans’, of which Sam was one, work included all manner of actions, from the simplest to the most drastic. Their courage and heroism filtered past the ghetto gates, called out to the dwellers to flee the ghetto and join their brigade. They secretly instructed ghetto dwellers in diversionist acts and generally generated a feeling of hope and determination.

Songs were one of their weapons.

Of all the songs of all the Ghettos, the one which spread like wildfire, almost from the moment that it left the poet's pen, was this marching song by Hirsh Glik (image below).

It’s called ``Zog nit keynmol az du geyst dem letstn vet'' ("Never Say that You Are Tredding the Final Path'').

Composed in Vilna, it is most often related to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Set to a tune by the Soviet composers, the brothers Pokras, it became the official hymn of all the Eastern European partisan brigades and was subsequently translated into Hebrew, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Rumanian, Dutch, and English.

With almost magical speed it was caught up by all the concentration camps and by the time the war was over, it was being sung by Yiddish-speaking Jews the world over and by a score of other peoples as well.

These street songs, a sub genre of ghetto music, emphasized four dominant themes: hunger, corrupt administration, hope for freedom, and a call for revolt.

A majority of Ghetto street songs were sung to pre-existing melodies, a technique known as contra fact. Contra fact became necessary because composers couldn't generate new music fast enough for all of the lyrics being written.

At most Holocaust commemorations today, we all sing this song at the end.
Here is the translation…

Never say…

Never say there is only death for you.

Leaden skies may be concealing days of blue -

Because the hour we have hungered for is near;

beneath our tread the earth shall tremble:

We are here!

From land of palm-tree to the far-off land of snow, we shall be coming with our torment and our woe.

And everywhere our blood has sunk into the earth, shall our bravery, our vigor blossom forth!
We’ll have the morning sun to set our day aglow, and all our yesterdays shall vanish with the foe, and if the time is long before the sun appears, then let this song go like a signal through the years.

This song was written with our blood and not with lead;

it’s not a song that birds sing overhead,

it was a people, among toppling barricades,

that sang this song of ours with pistols and grenades.

So never say that there is only death for you.

Leaden skies may be concealing days of blue -

Because the hour we have hungered for is near;

Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble:

We are here!



A fact you may not know…


At each of the five extermination camps, the Nazis created orchestras of prisoner-musicians, forcing them to play while their fellow prisoners marched to the gas chambers.

The suicide rate among musicians was higher than that of most other camp workers except the death details. Many musicians had been forced to watch helplessly as their friends and families were destroyed. Auschwitz had six orchestras, one of which contained 100-120 musicians.



Fania Fenelon, describes her experience as a member of a women's orchestra in Auschwitz from January 1944 to liberation in her book 'Playing for Time'. Fenelon states that even though she had clean clothes and daily showers, she had to play "gay, light music and marching music for hours on end while our eyes witnessed the marching of thousands of people to the gas chambers and ovens."


Since Sam was a Partisan I wanted to honour his bravery by putting in the text of the song.







The locks:

Remember the sneak peak I gave you here…

Well this is what they look like now…

Sam





And Esther.





There are a number of subtle differences between the two locks.


Sam’s lock has a very old and worn out Russian coin on top. Pictured on the coin is Vladimir Illych Ulyanov.


Why did I choose Vladimir Illych Ulyanov?







Well quite apart from Sam’s Russian links, Vladimir Illych Ulyanov was the real name for Lenin. He changed his name to Lenin while on the run from the Russian secret police to avoid arrest.

If you will recall, Sam changed his name from Sam to Stanislav Ribistiki in order to enter the Russian army, whilst on the run from the Nazi’s.
I thought it was appropriate.
Also Lenin's beliefs were developed from those of Karl Marx, who is considered the father of communism.

Bet you are wondering how does this girl get all of this stuff – sometimes I wonder myself!






The script layer on the photo is Russian.

On Esther’s piece are the numbers 52875.






Those are the numbers tattooed on her arm when she arrived at Auschwitz.

By the way the Nazi’s did not tattoo the numbers on the prisoners – they ordered other Jews to tattoo the numbers on them. Later on in her life, Esther met up with the man that tattooed her number which is very very large and crude as far as these numbers go. The man was so nervous having to do this to Esther, remember she was only 12, that he fumbled it.







The Myrtle Leaf:

You may have noticed a gold leaf that I placed above Esther's head.

You may recall that the name Esther, which in Hebrew is Hadassah - translated it means, a myrtle leaf.

The myrtle leaf is a small oval in shape and in Judaic terms it represents the eye.

So...

I not only placed it above this photo of Esther to represent her name but also for the fact that the myrtle represents the eye. As you read on just below here you will understand why I placed it above this photo in particular - and not the very first one of Esther.


The Gold Rings:

Both Esther and Sam’s piece have a gold ring around their eyes.





Why?

Because they are witnesses.

Witnesses to what happened.

Witnesses to the numbers slaughtered.







Both their eyes are amazing.

So as you will see, in the next and final post of this panel, I placed the photos on opposing sides near the end of the piece.


I put them near the end (there is always a reason for my placement of things) as they were witnesses to all the images that went before this.


When you see the final pinal all together you will see that these lock images are facing each other - looking toward one another.


You will notice a rusted chain that I attached between Sam and Esther’s locks.







Why the chain and why the lock?

I will now bring it all together for you –

The locks
The chain
The eyes
The gold ring


They met after the war. Esther was being nursed back to health by her host family and they suggested that she go and hear a man speaking about going to Israel. She did not really want to go as she was very reserved after having gone through everything she had, but they coaxed her along to hear a very charismatic leader speaking.
She entered the room and listened to the man speaking, their eye’s met.

He then came and spoke to her.

They then went out and three months later, Sam and Esther were married.

It was in their eyes.

Their eyes spoke to each other.


The chain…





attached to the lock represents both their eyes being locked into each other.

As each chain has links -
So too Sam and Esther have links to the same past.

Even though Sam has passed on, Esther is obviously still linked to Sam.
But on a more spiritual level she is still to this day so besotted with him. You only have to see her chest push out with pride when she speaks him and all his achievements. They adore/d each other.


And the gold rings around the eyes symbolise their union in marriage.

By the way the ring in Judaism has to be completely round with no markings or engravings on it. There-by representing eternity.

Sam and Esther's love and respect for one another is eternal.

On that note, I bid you a good morning - as I have written this, the time has gone past midnight. Forgive me for not uploading the last images of this panel but I am sure you have had enough reading for one post plus I am bit drained from writing.


The next installment you will see not only the final elements but the entire piece in one photo.
Thanks so much for reading all of this and really truly I so appreciate all your comments - they are so uplifting and makes all the hours of writing this, very much worthwhile.


To be continued...

PART 3 “NUMBERS”

“Numbers”
The second half of panel 1.

Now this panel is the largest.

Both pieces are held together by chains.

This post will not be so much of the what happened but the why I used the materials, colours and textures to convey messages. Most of my clients have no idea why I choose what I do but when they view the piece I go through the finer details with them.

Malka Fizman.

Remember those sneak peak textures I posted, well this is what they were for.
Two frames one for Sam’s mother Malka and his father Abraham, both killed in the Warsaw Ghetto.

This rusted element was from the stash I received recently and posted… remember.

These were the ones.

But in order to make it relevant to the piece I rusted and aged it. Gosh it took ages to do – lots and lots of layers to get it to look like this.

The idea for ageing these frames as such was because I wanted the pieces to look not only era appropriate but because many people just grabbed what they could of their possessions, even ripping pictures off walls. This will come to light in a few more images to come. The elements would hardly be shiney and new after 65 years or so.

All the name plates were hand stamped by me with metal stamps on either cooper or brass sheets and plates. When stamping the minute names – it is quite difficult but I certainly didn’t want it to look perfect – it does not suit this piece to do so.

First I stamp and then age the metals in a solution. Then I get out the blowtorch and fire away. Each piece becomes unique as the ageing solution ages where it desires as does the firing with the blowtorch – which I think adds to the aged look and appeal.

4 Generations

This is 4 generations of the family. Sam’s mother is probably taking the photo.
Remember that it was 4 generations killed at the same time.

And for what???

I backed the photo onto a sheet of pure copper and used a brass nameplate for it.

Why did I use pure copper?

According to Jewish mysticism the materials one uses for, lets say, jewellery or art work have some influence for either obstructing or enhancing the power of that piece or the message being conveyed. There are pure and compound materials (alloys), perishable and non-perishable materials.

Iron, wood, stone and alloy of zinc (and others) are perishable materials which can obstruct the energy.

So it is important for me to consider the materials I use in my art. Sounds a bit crazy I know, but in the end I believe, if all the energies going into the piece are a match, then the final result ought to yield a strong and good energy.

Gold, silver, leather and copper are pure, non-perishable materials thus their energy supports the writing. Among the metals there are differences between copper and gold.

Gold is from the sphere of law (Din), and helps only to those who deserve help. Gold will either provide very strong assistance or none at all.

Copper, also brass and bronze, belongs to the sphere of essence (Yesod) which gives and takes equally so it is a sure platform for writing.

As you will see more in the next piece, I have used leather and a brass plate on top of the leather.

Why I backed the 4 generations photo in green fabric…

Kabballistically speaking, the colour green corresponds to the "Sefirah" (level) of Beauty.

Green represents the colour of the heart. With the heart we seek completion to mend our brokenness. Hence I thought it fitting for the colour to back this photo.

Also, the green fabric – which is hard for you to see has leaves on it. I am not referring to the very back fabric – that I am leaving the explanation of for the final post. So the leaves represent the tree of life – here 4 generations of a family tree and as we know now lost to this family.

BUT, the very fact that I am doing this art piece 60 years later is testament to survival. The tree of life for this family continues…


I just wanted you to know that I choose colours for symbolic reasons – which I have not pointed out in other pieces but when I remember I will.

Sam and Bereg:

These 2 photo’s are of Sam and his friend Bereg.

Backed on a vintage book, the ageing, sanding firing took ages.

I added a piece of hand made marbled paper that look firey to the inside and backside covers.

The fabric choice represents Holocaust Era.

These are photo’s captured when cooking, baking and work related - the family assumes in the ghetto. Food was scarce and all the Jews were fenced into the ghetto – hence the use of the rusted grate and wire.

For the second photo I use chains to frame the photo as, at that time, they were chained – not free to live as they pleased. Chained to the Nazi’s every whim.

To be continued...

Part 2 – “Numbers”

"Numbers"

Our journey continues...

Thankyou.

At the outset I would like to thank all of you who have commented and emailed me about “Numbers”.

I am so overwhelmed, humbled and grateful by the responses and the amazing comments you have left. It certainly is good for the soul. From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank you all so much!!! I do hope you continue to enjoy the journey.

Secondly I have got to thank Ingrid for photographing the piece. No matter what time I phone her and say, I need you to photograph some art for me, she puts everything on hold and does it for me. Most of the photo’s here are by her and the photo-shopping is by me.

Here we go:

I will now take you through the bottom section of the first half of this panel – that is the upper part.

You will recall I told you that Robert came over at my behest to ensure the progress of the piece met with his expectations. At that time I asked him if he still had the medals that Sam had from his time in the Russian Army. The response was no. But on seeing the piece Robert had wished he had them.

So what happened to them?

Allow me to go back into a bit of history to explain.

In the mid to late 1970’s a worldwide campaign to allow Jews and other political dissidents to leave the former Soviet Union occurred. Those Jews who wanted to leave were called “Refuseniks.”

Refusenik: was an unofficial term for individuals, typically but not exclusively Soviet Jews, who were denied permission to emigrate abroad by the authorities of the former Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc. The term refusenik derived from the "refusal", handed down to a prospective emigrant from the Soviet authorities.

Post WW2, many Jews still encountered institutional anti-semitism which blocked their opportunities for advancement in all areas of life. Some government sectors were almost entirely off-limits to Jews. In addition, Soviet restrictions on religious education and expression prevented Jews from engaging in Jewish cultural and religious life.

While these restrictions led many Jews to seek to emigrate, requesting an exit visa was itself seen as an act of betrayal by Soviet authorities. Prospective emigrants requested permission to emigrate at a huge risk, knowing that an official refusal would often be accompanied by dismissal from work and other forms of social ostracism and economic pressure.

Anyway, at the time in Australia there were many protests outside of Russian Consulates and Embassy’s to free those Jews who requested to leave. This went on for years and years.

The coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s and his policies of glasnost and perestroika, as well as a desire for better relations with the West led to major changes. Most Refuseniks were then allowed to emigrate.

During one of these demonstrations, Sam threw back his medals to Consular Officials. It was his personal protest. Hence a friend of Sam’s many years later gave him a commemorative medal.

It is this medal that Robert asked me to somehow put in. He said, ‘I have no idea how you are going to do this”. Ahh but I had a general idea.

I ummed and ahhhed about its placement and eventually turned it on its side in order that I could add something to the right hand side.

Ahh but what to put on the other side? I was not sure for a day or two – so I decided to carry it around whilst in my studio. I held it for the longest time.

It was the final element to place in the piece. So I examined my work, pondered some more and decided to join Sam in his protest and make a statement as he would have done.

Hence I took an old draw pull which had no handle affixed. I wanted to attach the "Zachor" badge - meaning “Remember” to it somehow - the hebrew writing you see in the photo above.

I chose this particular draw pull as the background arch reminded me of how we symbolise the Torah, the Jewish Bible. I backed the pin on a brass plate and tied it to the drawer pull using the always useful “Nina knots”.
I placed the piece to the right of the medal.

Why?

In Jewish mysticism the right hand or right side is considered the strongest.

I felt putting it there was true to all that Sam fought and stood for in his life –
The ability for a people to overcome trajedy.
Sam symbolised strength.
Strength to fight back in times of war.
Strength to protest on others’ behalf who were not allowed their freedom.

I used a vintage book for these 2 photo’s.
The phot on the left is of Sam as a baby again. In the backround I placed a page of Hebrew text. The text is from the first page of The Book of Samuel.

I chose this not only because of the name. But because Samuel, in the Bible was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras.

It seemed true that the Holocaust era and the life he led after having emigrated to Australia was like 2 different era’s.

Secondly as will come to light later in the piece… Samuel the prophet, after 20 years of Phillistine oppression, summoned the people and organised them into an army, and led them against the Philistines. As I said you will understand this more near the last couple of photo’s.

The next photo is one of Sam and his sister Broncha.

You may recall that Sam’s mother and Broncha were shot in front of him in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Look at how innocent and happy they are here.

They are in their backyard.

Notice how Sam the big brothers arms are resting on Broncha’s shoulders, he seemed very protective of her.

When I look at Broncha, she could be my child or your child -an innocent photo in the garden.

I adore her smile.

Who could have ever imagined that Sam would have to face the horror of seeing his beloved little sister shot right in front of him.

This is simply a larger photo of Sam which you will see next. I enlarged some of the photo’s in the piece so the family could, for the first time see him clearly.

Most of these photo’s, as vintage photo’s tend to be, are really small. I simply placed it in a era appropriate door plate.

But needless to say the middle was cut out to frame the photo.

Pictured here, that Roberts family knew of, is (from left to right) Sam’s Mother with Broncha on her lap. Then in the middle is Sam’s grandmother, with him in front of her. The lady to the right, with the baby, was unknown but assumed to be a relative.

I left the shape of the photo as was presented and backed it on a few layers of fabric. I chose the colour gold as Sam’s family was like gold to him, his treasures. However, I did paint and alter the fabric for ageing purposes, but not enough to detract from the colour.

So that’s the smaller part of panel 1. Here is what it looks like…

Wonders of Wonders:

A friend of mine and his wife came over on Sunday to see the piece. She is distantly related to Robert. I knew this as I attended a function recently and he had told me that they were family. At the function Annika asked me how they were related to each other! I seemed to have become the communal archivist and geneologist. So I got Robert to explain.

For panel 2, I needed a photo of the lady who sponsored Sam and Esther to emigrate to Australia. The lady ended up being Annika’s grandmother. Can you believe it? So she is getting me that photo. There’s more to this story but you will have to wait for panel 2. Amazingly though, Annika recognized the photo of the little girl in my last post who is unnamed. She is sure it is her aunt. She has taken the photo to her father to confirm who it is. Isn’t it a small world.

Well folks, next post I will upload the next part of panel 1 which is the larger one - double the size of this one with some more amazing stories to tell you. Sooooooo...

To be continued...

Revealing…Panel 1 of "NUMBERS"

Part 1, “Numbers”

If you have not read some of my recent posts related to this particular piece then you may wish to go back here and here for these posts will enlighten you about some of the subject matter in “Numbers”.

This particular piece, which has taken me four weeks, has had some real challenges to it for the following reasons…

I was presented with about 125 photos.
The brief was from a long time friend of mine, Robert.
I wanted to make a book.
He was emphatic that it had to be a collage.
He wanted it to be on his wall, every photo was important to him and he wanted to walk out of his bedroom every morning and into his home every evening and see his family and friends on the wall.

Dilemma 1: How was I going to present this?
Dilemma 2: 125 photo spanning 70 years – a mix of colour and black and white and photo’s so worn with age that some of the faces were almost unrecognizable.
I overcame the dilemmas by separating the photos into subject matter. There became 3 distinct sections.

The piece had to be done in 3 panels.

Panel 1 is what I am presenting to you now.

Panel 1 was critical to get right as it was to set the standard for the next two.

Panel 1 had to broken into 2 parts as I could not find a canvas board large enough to accomodate the size of the piece. Needless to say, I was not happy!

How does one do justice to such subject matter as the Holocaust? This requires the utmost sensitivity and quite a wealth of knowledge and experience in its presentation. As I have stated before, it’s what you don’t put in that is crucial.

No matter how many times I tackle the subject, I still felt a weight of enormous responsibility putting this together.

It did not seem to matter that I have known Esther and Sam pretty much all my life.

Their son, Robert and I have known each other since kindergarten.

As first generation children of “Survivors” we were brought up with the “Never Forget” legacy. It has been inculcated into every facet of our lives. There are those Survivors who never speak of their experiences, but we had parents who spoke of them. The message is ingrained in us; it is in our blood, as it were. There are constant reminders, whether it is small snippets of information told around a Friday night dinner, or knowing that it was a bad night as your parent had nightmares, or you look, as is Roberts case at his mothers arm and see her number tattooed on her arm. There are many examples, too many to mention.

This is not a piece of art about found images.

It is a piece of art about real people, with real stories.

Horrific stories.

Stories that remind us, in this century, to be tolerant of all peoples and cultures.

With every Visual Anthology I do, I go on a journey. This one happened to be exceptional in a spiritual sense for reasons that may sound bizarre and totally unbelievable but as I take you through each part of the panels individually you will see what I mean (I hope). I call it fate.

After Robert came to see where I was heading with this piece, even though it was by no means finished, I became ill. I get quite nervous and have so much pent up emotion that until the client see's the piece - don't forget, I get no direction - and verifies that it is favourable - it seems to take a toll on me. I am sure most of you can empathise. This particular piece was just so emotional for me. Robert had commented, just after, that he knew why I got sick. We sooooo understand each other - part of that heavy legacy, I was referring to.

Meet Esther.

Isn't she stunning.

This is the photo I was presented of her. As with all the photo's this one needed fixing.

Some people take the meaning of the name Esther as Star but this is the Persian translation, in Hebrew it means myrtle leaf. More on that later.

In Jewish tradition Esther was a beautiful Jewish woman, the wife of the Persian king Achashverosh. Esther was a heroine and the entral figure in the Book of Esther. She and her cousin Mordechai persuaded the king to cancel an order for the extermination of Jews in his realm, plotted by the king's chief minister, Haman. Instead, Haman was hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and the Jews were given permission to destroy their enemies. The Jewish festival of Purim commemorates this event. The Book of Esther was probably written in the 2nd century BC.

In our tradition, when you are named at birth one usually sees a correlation to a namesake eventually during ones’ life.

Well how true is that for this Esther?

She is certainly a heroine for me.

She is so beautiful now and from all accounts she was an absolute stunner in her younger days.

She was set to be exterminated in Auschwitz but like The Esther in the Biblical times, she used her brains to convince the Nazi standing in front of her that she was 15 and not 12 – she was sent to the left, meaning survival for the time being. Can you imagine being 12 years old and terrified for your very survival but having the presence of mind to lie about your age?

This is the only photo of Esther from that time. Not many people who survived the Camps had photos – all your possessions were taken off you when you arrived. Somehow, the couple who looked after Esther and nursed her back to health after she was liberated from Aushwitz, got this one photo.

Just so you understand I am not at liberty to go into her survival story for the reasons I stated in the previous post on her. As there is only this one photo, Robert and I decided to make the main focus here on Sam’s life. The next panel will be more focused on her as will the book I do for her and her story.


Esther was born in Poland and as you can see by the name plate attached to her photo. Within this piece I have tried to name places and people as much as possible. If there are no names it means their names have been forgotton or they are a repitition of names elsewhere recorded.

Whilst this was commissioned as an art piece I still felt the importance of adding the names dates and places of the photo’s. It was not asked of me. But this piece will be a family heirloom and whenever I do my books or art pieces, I name everyone I can, in order that future generations will know who was who in their respective families.

Meet Sam.

Sam is no longer alive but what a wonderful and honourable man he was.

So determined - just look at his eyes.

Anyone who survived the Holocaust had to be determined, had to have had an iron will. That's not to suggest that other's didn't.

This is Sam pictured in his Russian Army uniform. He won the highest of all medals, the Medal of Honour.

Born in Poland, Sam, as you may have read in the previous post, was part of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I won't repeat it all here. He was one of 22 or so to escape through the sewers into the forest where alot of people lived in hiding from the Nazi's. In order to survive he enlisted in the Russian Army, hence the AKA Stanislav Ribistiki, the name he took on. He was blonde haired, blue eyed and having been educated in a Jesuit School his spoken Polish was not like that of an Eastern European Jew. He also spoke Latin fluently. Consequently, he was able to convince the Russians that he was not Jewish.

That was until he had to relieve himself in the forest.

Another soldier saw that he was circumsized. Well, were it not for one of his neighbours Krystyne who got a message to him that he had better escape he would have been killed.

The image above is two fold but I cannot show you what is written in the second part.

These two parts are examples of the bizarre I was referring to before.

Why?

The first part is written in Russian. I called a Russian friend of mine and asked her if she had any book in Russian. She only had this one. I told her I needed to find something in there pertinent to Sam and went on to describe him. She came around the next day.

What were the chances of finding something???

But I would rather have put nothing in, than to have some meaningless text just because it's the same languague as the image evokes in the piece - I just can't do it. For me, it has to be symbolic or mean something.

I just have to explain that when I am doing a piece like this I go into a meditative state. The music I listened to was from the Holocaust. As you will see shortly and further down the track, I truly believe that Sam was with me - assisting me to get this right. Sounds weird but that's my story and I am sticking to it!

So my friend opens this 740 page book which was related to the 3 Musketeers, sort of, and after flipping a couple of pages, nothing. So I called on Sam's assistance and BINGO!!!!!!! The section I took out speaks about "this unbelievable man who has left this world". It says... "You can't imagine a death more simple, more relaxing and more honourable. He was an example for people who are weak"... and so it goes on. Sam became a leader not only during the war but after the war and then once again in Australia.

Interesting Huh???

I had done this next section before the one just spoken of.

The story is far too personal for me to divulge. All I can say is that I needed to find someone's name. I looked in a couple of my books quickly but thought... what was the use. I kept hearing Sam's voice talking to me throughout the piece. That particular day, I felt his energies very very strongly. I was so frustrated thinking about how was I going to find something, anything from all my vintage books.

But I could not seem to move on until I had something, the right thing.

I called out, in my mind, to Sam - please help me, take me to the right book or whatever!

Rather frustrated, I went out of my studio and into the next room. Looking at about 50 something books, I said please help!

You must all think I am crazy by now.

But...

I went over to the pile of book and put my hand on a RED book and took it out. It was right near the bottom of a stack of about 20 books. All those on the top of the pile fell over but I was drawn to this one.

The colour of the book is significant later. I opened the book and there it was... the name I was looking for. Not only that - the book was a war story and spoke of Germans, escape, hiding in forests etc.

Now do you believe me???

But more incredible was that...

the chapters corresponded to the story that I was trying to impart. So I ripped the chapter headers and kept the pertinent bits of text below or within the pages and that's how I was able to keep the story alive.

I ripped, stuck and then resined the papers (thanks for the instructions Ruth)!

But because of it's sensitive nature, the text had to be hidden somewhere. I have put it behind the photo and Robert knows its there. Even if it is framed, being there is all that mattered to him. By the way Robert was loving all of this stuff as he had told me that he knew Sam would come through, it has happened before.

To the RED book - well, Sam's family were aligned to the Communist's. We all know that Red is a communist colour so how pertinent was that book again. I chose the red fabric behind the text, spoken of before, for this very reason.

I chose the old material tape measure because of the numbers.

Throughout his life numbers were important to Sam as they were to Esther. All this will become

apparent soon enough. But I purposefully cut the tape measure in order that the number 18 was directly above Sam's photo. As I have explained before the number 18 is very significant in Judaism. 18 means/numerically adds up to the word LIFE. Had Sam not enlisted into the Russian army at that stage he may have been killed in the forest, as so many were.

Gosh are you still reading this because I am exhausted writing this and trying to keep it interesting.

Sam, the baby.

Here is Sam as a baby. This photo was completely covered in cracks and marks but I photoshopped most of them out, just leaving some because Robert and I both like the aged look.

The two other kids are unnamed but they were friends of Sam's family. The little girl (who looks like a dolly to me) did eventually come to Australia as an immigrant too.

As soon as Robert saw how I had done this particular photo he said "I get this".

What that comment meant was that this is how many Jews carried their precious photo's and papers during the war - all bundled up with some string to ensure that the priceless items within would stay together. That's when he cried.

Whilst I was putting this together I noticed I had an old piece of paper with a stamped image already on it - the stripes reminded me of the uniforms worn in concentration camps - I wanted it to be subtlely symbollic.

Secondly the tape measure down the side reminded of being a child, being measured for height and weight so it all fitted quite well.

The word DREAM was unknowngly to me at the time, highlighted, by the image's pants - left white. I was happy it was like that because in many people minds the whole experience that they went through seems almost like a dream - a very bad dream.

Get ready for more;

As I bundled the papers together and stuck them down I then noticed that the word SAVED appeared. This was my first rather bizarre moment.

Why?

Because this baby was SAVED.

Read on... read the words under SAVED... AMAZING I TELL YOU!!!

" The paths which led through the forest".

As I told you the paths that led to Sam's escaping the final moments of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, were the sewer paths... which led him out to the forest.

"But to avoid these villains we had to plunge... over hills and walk for many a weary mile"

To avoid the Nazi's, they had to plunge everything they had and run.

They did walk for many a weary mile to the forests to hopefully hide from the villains.

I have to tell you when I read this - only after sticking it down - I was shocked.

Aren't you too.

That was the first moment that I knew Sam was directing this piece in some way.

Why I chose the shape of Esther and Sam's pieces here.

I chose the arch as it reminded me that these two beautiful souls were the heads of Robert's family. As there was only this one photo of Esther I needed to use a photo of Sam from a similar age group, no younger, no older. The arches being the very top, the pinnacle.

Despite the fact that I had very limited photo's to work with I hoped that I could achieve the top of the family tree, using placement and symbolism. Baby Sam had to then go in the middle to balance out the arches and as you will see soon I tried to do the rest somewhat chronologically - which was impossible in this top row as I needed Esther to at the top.

WEll I am thoroughly exhausted now.

Thanks for reading this if you actually made it this far. I really appreciate it.

To be continued...

Almost there - I hope

SNEAK PEAK:


I have been very busy with textures, as you know, so here's one more.

I needed to back a lock with something so I took a piece of balsa wood, the thinest I could find in order to snap the ends.

I then painted it with some brown washes of paint.

Following that I added some Golden pumice gel medium - yuk - then painted over it with grey miceous oxide paint. Thankd G-d for the heat gun - what a gift that is to dry things quickly.

Then I took my lock and placed it on top - yep it looked ok to me.

Then I took my image, covered in oxidized copper foil, placed it on top and viola!!!

You'll have to wait for the other 10 steps as I don't want to give too much away. Sorry.

TREASURE GALORE :

I went over to a shop the other day that had a big sale on. They sell stunning hardware for houses, cabinets, furniture restoration etc.

Carl, the guy who owns it was sooooo generous with me and started telling me to empty out cabinets of goodies that he does not want to take with him to the next premises.

Just look at that rust - drool!

This is the type of stuff that was in the cabinet...

If I told you I walked away with more than a boot full, I would not be exaggerating.

Looks like pirate treasure, don't you think?

Ok, I will stop but there is soooo much more - I could definately open a shop myself and i have to go back at the end of the week so he can give me more.

Hmmmm, must have done something right along the way to get all this!

MESS:

My studio is a mess and I have even managed to spread out into the rumpus room - Michael's studio area.

There is fabric everywhere - which people are so kindly dumping on me. There's no time to sort it out yet - too busy trying to finish panel one.

Ok, the liquid nails is dry which means I have to go and continue working otherwise I will have nothing to show you all and that would not be good.

And my middle son has just walked in with 5 boys who are sleeping here tonight - just what I need when I am trying to finish this piece off.

I am feeling better now, thanks for all the good wishes.

So bye for now.

TEXTURES

The Arts of Islam:

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend a private viewing of an ehibit currently on at the Art Gallery of NSW called the Arts of Islam.

The "Khalili collection" is on loan from Dr Nasser David Khalili, an Iranian-born private collector.
Khalili’s passion is not the collection of art for the sake of its material value, but for the purpose of promoting understanding between cultures across the world, particularly areas whose cultures may be less familiar to the rest of the world.

I am passionate about illuminated manuscripts and the exhibition last night was the best I have seen to date. The Koran's on ehibit were just breathtakingly beautiful, the detail was phenominal.

The use of gold was everywhere. The box in the image above was a favourite of Ari's and mine, we could not stop looking at it. It's impossible to see here but the gold between the filigrees looked like it was spun gold.

There are no words to really describe the collection. fascinating for us was that Khalili is himself a Jew and has approximately 20,000 pieces of Islamic art from everywhere.

His message is the promotion of tolerance through the beauty of Islamic Art - how wonderful is that?

Dabbling with texture:

I called Robert to come and check the artwork I have been doing on Sam and Esther - at least panel one. I just had to make sure that "we were on the same page".

I needed to see his reaction in order to determine just how deeply I could go with my use of symbolism in this piece.

Thankfully, whilst he never imagined it would be what it has become, he was enamored.

Phew!!!

He agreed with my choice for the backing of the individual elements - sorry but I must be cryptic here - and gave me free reign to do what I liked. I just have to be very sensitive to the subject matter as I knew Esther would be viewing it regularly and needed to check with him.

Actually when he saw it and when he left, he was in tears.

He immediately understood why I have done what I have done which will be explained to you all soon. Robert has agreed to allow me to walk you through the piece as I did my last Visual Anthology - Yaah!

Here though, are a couple of images of the textural bits I have been working on within the piece.

So so so many layers of paint, fabric, text and crackle medium.

Here's a bit of a close-up.

All those hours of layering for just one element. But the fine detailing of each element to make the whole is very critical to me and my work. It gives a silent message or expression to what the piece is trying to pervay.

I must say I really loved how this one turned out all rusted and vertgres looking.

I have been very under the weather with the flu for about three days now so I am off to bed.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

LOOK WHAT I GOT

Betty:

A little while ago I was blog surfing and found Trisha Scott's site.

I immediately fell in love with her art work.

One day I saw this gorgeous piece of art...

I had just finished the "Of Elephants and Dreams" book and had used a transparency in a similar fashion. I remembered commenting on this and at some point Trisha commented on my book.

The funny thing was that this piece was called Betty which is my mums name and I thought it reminded me of a photo of my mum when she was a small child.

Since then we have the "mutual admiration society" thing happening. After seeing her gorgeous painting of the Red Shoes,

I left another comment explaining the significance of "The Red Shoes" to me and my family.

Anyway, today I recieved an incredibly generous package from Trisha and in it was the Betty art work, amongst lots of other goodies.

Thanks Trisha. Your piece of art is in my studio awaiting a frame and will be put up on my wall poste-haste - I love it.

Working hard:

Just finishing panel one of the Sam and Esther wall art piece. There will be three panels in total.
Will have some sneak peaks in a couple of days hopefully. Better get back to it.