Inscribe - a mezuzah artwork by Kingsley

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit the Peninsula Jewish Community Center in Foster City (Northern California) to lead a gallery tour of my current show, "You did WHAT to my comics?!?" – and I was pleased to discover, just inside the entrance, this exciting piece of Judaica: a mezuzah by a woodworker who goes by the name Kingsley.

The mezuzah is called "Inscribe"and stands over 5 feet tall, and is made of wood and paper. It displays the Hebrew letter shin prominently at the top, traditionally inscribed on the exterior of a mezuzah (it's the first letter of the text on the scroll inside, and also the first letter of one of our names for God). There are 613 small circular openings in the front of the piece into which are inserted small scrolls with "hopes, prayers, and dreams"; occasionally the PJCC asks special guests to add a scroll to the piece.

On the side is the mezuzah scroll itself (the klaf), wedged into an opening carved into the wood made specifically to fit it.

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.)