Adath Jeshurun entryway commission complete!

I'm so pleased to share photos of the new entryway at Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Louisville, Kentucky. Last year the congregation completed work on their new ark doors, which are an adaptation of my "Burning Bush: Flame On" papercut (see here for details and pix), and now five of my "paper tefillah" papercut series have been produced in metal for the entryway to their synagogue.

From left to right are V'ahavta, Shalom, Yotzeir, Avot, and Mi Chamocha; you can see the whole set of 16 paper tefillah papercuts in this PDF.

They are EXTRA LARGE and very well-executed; I'm so pleased to have my work included in the redesign of the synagogue.The ark doors and the entryway are both featured on the front page of Adath Jeshurun's redesigned website.

New ark doors at Adath Jeshrun feature "Burning Bush: Flame On"

As you can see in the image above, the design of the new ark doors at Congregation Adath Jeshrun in Louisville, Kentucky, is based on my recently completed papercut, "Burning Bush: Flame On."

The doors were made by Todd Deetsch of Interior FX, Inc.; he adapted the design into a three-color application in cooler colors, having been directed by the congregation to avoid warmer colors.

Inspired by the first chapter of the book of Shemot (aka Exodus) in the Torah, in the papercut I tried to convey the sense of wonder and awe that Moses felt upon encountering the Burning Bush in the desert and hearing God's voice speak to him from its midst. The background is made up of cut-up comics (including quite a few variations on the Human Torch, from the Fantastic Four), but also a bit of a Chumash that was destined for the genizah. And of course, just to the right above center the eponymous words, "Flame on!"

Todd tells me that the gold colored lead is Dutch metal, and that he used both standard gilding and a "broken gilding" technique to create the different values of gold. The blue-colored leaf is actually real silver leaf that is hand-dipped into an acrylic resin, and the silver-colored leaf is actually aluminum, also done in a "broken gilding" technique. You can see the colors nicely in this detail of one of the doors:

The papercut will be on display (and available for purchase) at my upcoming show this fall in Northern California; I'll have details here on my blog later this summer.