Speech bubbles on the cutting table

At work on a new papercut.

Paper Tefillah series: detail from "Mi Chamocha"

This is on my cutting board right now -- still working on it, but wanted to share a little detail with you.

UPDATED

Here's another one.

Happy Sukkot from Nice Jewish Artist!

An early Sukkot present for my loyal readers: I made these posters a few years back as silly instructional guides on "how to hold and wave the four species" and "how to pick an etrog." Feel free to download, print, distribute, and share (as long as you cite NiceJewishArtist.com). I'm providing links to both 11" x 17" posters in JPEG and PDF format. Happy Sukkot!

Sukkot Poster

Sukkot Poster JPEG

Sukkot Poster PDF

Etrog Poster

Etrog Poster JPEG

Etrog Poster PDF

Paper Tefillah series: "MaAriv Aravim"

As promised, here's a small photo of the completed "MaAriv Aravim" papercut that I created as part of my "paper tefillah" series for a show coming up this January. Here's an excerpt of the text of this evening prayer:

...Whose word brings on the evening. Whose wisdom opens heaven’s gates, and Whose understanding changes the times and seasons, and orders the stars in their heavenly constellations... God creates day and night, rolling away light in the face of darkness, and darkness in the face of light, causing the day to pass and bringing on the night, separating day and night.

There's quite a bit of the comic characters Cloak and Dagger in this papercut, and even a bit of the prayer itself in the eye in the palm of the hamsa.

Shanah Tovah!

The new year begins tonight at sundown; I hope yours is a sweet one. (You have to come up with your own snarky comments on this clip art I found online.)

On the cutting table: lots of rectangles

I haven't gotten around to photographing my recently completed "MaAriv Aravim" cut -- but I'm already working on my next piece. Here's a pic of it in progress on my table...

Lexie's naming certificate

Here's the naming certificate I made as a gift for a new cousin we formally welcomed to the tribe today (my wife, Shawna, performed the ceremony). Her name is Lexie, and she's so very sweet!

"Pillar of Fire" featured in Jack Kirby Collector #55

Just a little mention, but it's always nice to be included. Issue 55 of Jack Kirby Collector, a zine that celebrates the life and career of the "King" of comics, included a detail from my "Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire" papercut in an Adam McGovern-penned article on Kirby-inspired work: "Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik's minimal mosaics of biblical wonders and pulp fable special effects." Here's what the original cut looks like in its entirety (click to see it bigger):

Click here to see the article -- which also mentions one of my fave comic-inspired rock bands, Kirby Krackle.

(And yes -- I noticed that it's incorrectly titled "Burning Bush" in the article -- but it's the pillar, all right.)

Toronto Flora Ketubah

The Toronto Flora Ketubah is complete and in the hands of the happy couple that commissioned it; here's how it came together.

The design of the ketubah is based on conversations with the couple, with abstracted imagery drawn from the time they spend together “by the lake up north” in Toronto.

At the top of the ketubah is the constellation of Orion, visible in the night sky at this time of year. On the left, golden stalks of Bebb’s Sedge mingle and rise. At the bottom is a patch of Wild Ginger, its heart-shaped leaves emphasizing the love between bride and groom.

On the right side a twining Woodbine, shown with its autumn burgundy-red coloring, wraps around a traditional romantic verse from Shir haShirim (The Song of Songs): “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li — I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” The verse is particularly appropriate, as its initial letters spell out “Elul,” the month of the wedding. Within the Woodbine, at each end of the verse, can be seen the “R” and “T” from the wedding invitation, while the sinuous winding lines evoke the invitation’s script.

Above the ketubah text is an initial cap of the Hebrew letter bet, contained within vines of River Bank Grape; it stands for the first word of the ketubah, and for the couple's last name — and of course, grapes are a traditional Jewish symbol of joy and celebration.

Toronto Flora Ketubah sneak peek

Couldn't resist sharing a little detail from the ketubah I finished cutting yesterday -- now I've got to add some color and get this to the happy couple in time for the wedding! I'll post some pix once it's delivered.

Wild Ginger

Here's a little abstraction of a patch of Wild Ginger -- part of the ketubah I'm working on right now. Very excited about this one, as I'm basing the papercut elements on flora from northern Toronto, to which the couple has a special attachment. Once it's delivered I'll post a photo and explanation of the whole thing.

The summer is ending, and art is happening.

Haven't updated the blog in a few weeks -- been busy getting out of summer mode and back into the saddle of art... with a few commissions to keep me busy, including a ketubah that I'll be sharing here once it's delivered to the happy couple. And I've got a few big shows in the works for 2012 -- stay tuned for details!

Teaching Papercutting at URJ Camp Newman: The Big Shin

The final project my papercutting campers worked on this summer at Camp Newman was a group project -- a giant letter "shin" in which they each cut out various designs and pictures (taking turns, of course -- it's bad luck to have too many people cutting the same piece of paper at the same time). Many of the students incorporated elements from their mizrach and paper midrash projects -- and I"m very proud of how it turned out.

We started with a big sheet of poster paper colored with a red/yellow gradient, and cut through it -- the black you see in the image is what we cut out. (Click it to see it bigger.)

Teaching Papercutting at URJ Camp Newman: Final Mizrach Projects, 2011

This summer the campers' final mizrach projects came out great, and I'm pleased to post them here for you to enjoy.

In Judaism, mizrach (מזרח means "east") is the direction that most Jews outside of Israel face during prayer -- Jewish law prescribes that Jews face the site of the Temple in Jerusalem during prayer, and most Jews in the diaspora live west of Jerusalem, so they face eastward during prayer. Mizrach also refers to an ornamental wall plaque used to indicate the direction of prayer in Jewish homes -- and that's what the students made, after some group brainstorming about what imagery might work in such an artwork.

Many of the students made additional projects as well -- I'll be sharing those soon on this blog as well.

Teaching Papercutting at URJ Camp Newman

Every summer I spend two weeks at URJ Camp Newman as an artisti-in-residence, teaching papercutting to high school-age campers. Their program is called Hagigah, and it's focused on expressing Judaism through the arts -- so they paint, they sculpt, they dance and sing and write... in addition to everything else you'd expect at Jewish sleepaway camp.

This year I have two groups of cutters, and they're already doing great work.

"King David": Commission for a Magician

I'm very pleased to share with you a photo of my latest completed commission, titled "King David."

[CLICK TO SEE IT LARGER]

Commissioned for award-winning magician Paul Green by his wife to mark his birthday, "King David" is a representation in paper of the King of Spades playing card, an oft-used tool of the close-up magician. The King of Spades is traditionally known as King David -- an acclaimed warrior, musician, and poet, and credited with writing most of the Book of Psalms.

The "King David" papercut brings together magic and Judaism in this birthday commission, backed in shades of green to represent Paul's name and his predilection for that color.

The background of the papercut features cut-up comics, featuring snippets of Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and others. The papercut also includes a section from Psalm 145 (from a book taken from the genizah before ritual burial), written by King David, which contains reference to "thy wondrous works" -- used by the artist as an allusion to Paul's magic. The English words of the psalm are found in the "top" face, and the corresponding Hebrew is found in the reverse.

Below are details of the two faces -- click the images to see them larger.

New papercut: "Higher and Higher"

As I teased in an earlier post, I've been working on a new papercut inspired by the seventh chapter of Bereshit... here's a photo of it on my table (click it to see it larger).


Tentatively titled "Higher and Higher" -- named for one of the snippets of text in the background -- this papercut shows Noah's ark being raised by the uprushing "fountains of the deep" described in the Torah, while flooding rains fall from the sky.

The background is made up of a selection of grayscale and limited-palette comics, pages from a 1946 book of biblical commentary titled Pathways Through the Bible (which I rescued from the genizah box at our synagogue), and a photograph from an old National Geographic magazine.

Here are some close-up shots.

Completed commission: "Greenberg"

This morning I finished my latest commission -- it all came together in exactly the right way, and I'm very pleased with the result. Handed it over to the gentleman who commissioned it, and now I'm free to share it here.
Nicknamed “Hammerin’ Hank” or “The Hebrew Hammer,” Hank Greenberg played primarily for the Detroit Tigers as a first baseman, and was one of the premier power hitters of his generation. My "Greenberg" is modeled on his 1934 Goudey baseball card (see below).


More than a great baseball player, he was also a great man. One of the few ballplayers to give a warm welcome to the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson, the majors’ first black player in many years, Greenberg is known for a story involving a collision at first base with Robinson. After colliding with him, Greenberg whispered a few words into Robinson’s ear, which Robinson later characterized as “words of encouragement.” Greenberg had advised him that the best way to combat the slurs from the opposing players was to beat them on the field. Robinson later said: “Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg.”

Greenberg was acting in accordance with the words of our tradition: to pursue justice and promote freedom, for we were slaves in the land of Egypt. We read these words every year in the Passover haggadah, which is why the papercut is backed with elements from two traditional haggadot: the 1949 Shulsinger Brothers’ Haggadah of Passover and the 1958 H. Levitt Publishing’s Haggadah for the American Family.

Greenberg’s jersey is composed of key selections from the seder, while his face and hands are made up of scenes showing Jewish life in Egyptian slavery. The Jewish people are made of our stories — we are our history — and so too is Hank Greenberg in this papercut.

UPDATE

I'm making prints of this papercut available for sale, with the kind permission of the gentleman who commissioned the original. The prints are 16x20 giclee prints on archival watercolor stock -- and they are spectacular. Please email me if you're interested in acquiring one.

Teaser: detail from current commission

Let it never be said that I don't provide special little surprises for regular readers of the blog -- here's a detail from the papercut commission on my cutting table right now. I'll be doing a full reveal in a few days when it's complete... in the meantime, anyone have any guesses?

Rainbow Over Ararat

I just completed this Noah's Ark papercut titled "Rainbow Over Ararat" as a donation for the Temple Ahavat Shalom ECEC (Early Childhood Education Center) Brunch & Boutique this Sunday, April 10. They're having an auction to raise money for the school, and this papercut is one of the available items.

The ark has landed on Mount Ararat and, as the flood waters recede, a rainbow appears in the sky -- signifying God's promise to never flood the earth again. (No comment here on the potential effects of global warming.)

As with all of my current work, the piece is backed by cut-up comics. In this case, comics from all over the spectrum, with lots of characters and artist styles throughout.

Very colorful, very bright and cheerful... if you're interested in acquiring the papercut (not a print -- the original cut), click here.