Some say that art comes through an artist not from an artist.   They could be speaking of the Holocaust Sculpture.

Claudia Tuft, the former 8^th grade Judaica teacher at Jacques C. Shure Religious School of Congregation Jewish Community North, came to me and suggested that the children make paper as an art project for the Yom Ha Shoah celebration.  I designed this sculpture to be the structure for that paper.   Students in the 8^th and 6^th grades made the paper, a village of volunteers assisted.   The paper is reference to the delicacy of the young lives lost in the Holocaust. You will see the names of those children imbedded in the paper that we will say Kaddish for in the Holocaust Service presented by the 8^th grade. It celebrates them floating almost in air, suspended by the thin lines of eternal time.    The delicate handmade paper is contrasted by the structure.  The structure is massive and black, made of standing 2x4s arranged in a zigzag fence-like construction. There are six panels with 18 (chai) areas for the student handmade paper.    The boards have been deeply charred in fire to create the surface.   It is directly visceral and symbolic of what Judaism was put through in the time of the Shoah.

Though this sculpture was mine in conception and design, I must immediately add that it would not exist had it not been for the technical support of Bob Blair, the husband of my exercise partner and gal pal, Tana Blair. Here are some reasons why:

Bob’s truck and van hauled raw lumber and finished piece from the store to my house; from my house to his house, where it was drilled, and cut and burned; from his house to my house where it was varnished and assembled; from my house to the temple—secured.

The wood was found in a local business’s throw out pile and without Bob’s knowledge of how their system worked, I would have had to buy that lumber.

Bob’s tools and screws and know-how:  Bob opened his workshop to this sculpture and made it grow from raw lumber to cut and drilled, and measured and plumed and fired and finished.  Using his expertise of structure and his vocabulary of information he worked with me to make this work: “you can seal fired wood with varnish” is something that comes to him from working with houses that have fire damage-- And he donated the sample varnish to prove it.

When I realized that 15 was not as meaningful a number in Judaism as is 18, Bob found more dowels in his shed, brought them over to my house.  I sanded and painted them.  Bob came by and constructed one more panel that I could weave wire into and he hauled it to the temple.  He then attached it to the rest.   We realized then that the dowel did not come from the same batch as the rest.  He, coincidentally, had a perfectly measured and cut dowel in his woodpile.  We both felt that we were into something bigger than we had thought.