TEFILAT NASHIM
(SIT! SIT! MY EXALTED GUESTS, USHPIZATA* ILA’ATA)
Group show, Graduate Degree Exhibition, opened on April, 23, 2022 at The Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
My mother's plate, Claire Venze Gebler
My former partner's grandmother's plate, MaMa
My great grandmother's plate, Grandma Bertie
A tablecloth, a veil of memory.
A dinner table, an altar.
A gathering, an invocation of prayer.
Twisting, stretching, wrapping, pulling,
gathering, tying, knotting, unknotting,
stitching, singing, crying, communing, listening, holding.
Tefilat Nashim, the prayers of women.
Ushpizata Ila’ata, the Exalted Guests.
*Ushpizata, the feminine, singular of Ushpizin, (“guests” Aramaic, masculine) is a reference to the seven supernal guests, the “patriarchs” of the Jewish people, who visit us each night in the sukkah during the holiday of Sukkot, but here, at this table, I welcome the mothers.
Claire Venze Gebler, my mother’s plate