Salvage archaeology 2

The time after an exhibition – is fragile, so I am wondering around my studio trying to find a question, a path. I am thinking about the title Salvage Archaeology, I named one of my Readymades at Jerusalem. I pick my smart phone and use it as a shovel to excavate structures within my own […]

Be my guest: Billy Collins: “Instructions to the Portrait Artist”

BE MY GUEST is a venue for others to share their art; I assemble between creators in my sitting room. Linear time and locality are not relevant. Instructions to the Portrait Artist by Billy Collins from: Questions About Angels I wish my head to appear perfectly round and since the canvas should be of epic […]

Enso-Mandala-Womb

Last weekend I was one of 25 participants in a calligraphy intensive day with Tirza Paytan-Sela. I was practicing the Enso; When you paint-draw an Enso, you do it from left up-words and then down. Usually the heavy part of ink is at the start. Somehow, this whole day the weight was at the end of each Enso. The […]

Taming the Ox and Avraham Ofek

The year of the ox, 2010, was celebrated by a a weekend seminar with my calligraphy group near Caesarea beach. We learned the ancient Chinese story Taming the Ox. As we practiced the ancient sign, I surprisingly recalled the ox as part of the first Hebrew letter – Alef – א It is derived from the word Alef, meaning the first, […]

Lists as Backbone of early writing

“……..in the very first phase of writing’s development, were lexical texts, word lists containing terms … names of metal objects, ceramic vessels, textiles, cities, trees, plants, cattle, swine, birds, fish, etc. Along with mathematical reckoning, these lexical lists were undoubtedly the backbone of early scribal education.” The Library of Alexandria, Roy Macleod, I.B. Tauris, 2004, […]

Enso

  It was late at night when I arrived at Sensei’s home at the Yamma artist village deep in the mountains. Climbing up the hills, Kyoto tower looked tinier at every curve of the narrow road. I went to sleep immediately in the very damp air, summer 2011. When I woke up with the sound […]

Artist book – My heart is in the East

ליבי במזרח ואנוכי בסוף מערב My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west.   Yehuda Halevy [1075-1141] wrote these lines in Spain about his longing to Jerusalem. My longing to Japan is round around planet earth, from 32’ to 35’ where Kyoto is. Pilgrims gather stamps from temples they arrive at- […]

Reading Writing

I was eager to learn to read and write. I prepared myself an office; I collected into a show box, notes and papers I found around our home, and wrote on them small signs and pictures. I would read it to myself out loud, sailing in a different legend each time. Bending down above my […]