Resilience

Current events compel me to make work that addresses the ancient hatred of antisemitism. Years ago, I read an essay that revealed the troubling antisemitic details of Roald Dahl's The Witches, a book I had happily bought and read to my kids. Now, with the play Giant, Dahl's hatred is presented in all its putrid glory.

My response is in the pages themselves, rendered unreadable. Using watercolor, oil pastels, and fluorescent markers, among other materials, I cross out, scribble, and paint over the words. These pages are cut and torn, then layered with other papers and collage materials into bundles bound with various types of string, cord, and thread — including a simulation of techelet, the ancient biblical blue-violet.

Techelet is a dye harvested from the chilazon, a marine creature, and woven as a single thread into the tzitzit, the tassels at the corners of a prayer shawl. For over 1,300 years, the dye's source was lost due to Roman persecution and conquest in 70 CE, leaving only plain white strings in its place — until its rediscovery in the modern era.

Techelet is itself a story of exile and return. To bind Dahl's words with this thread is to answer hatred with memory and continuity, weaving resilience and enduring strength into the oldest fight.