The Kaddish is the Jewish mourners' prayer for the dead. I attended a textile residency in Latvia in 2016, at the Mark Rothko Center in Daugavpils (his birthplace), and after reading about the near total destruction of the Jewish community there during WWll, felt compelled to create a quilted version of the prayer. Public recitation had been strictly prohibited in Latvia even during the Soviet Regime.
The hand-cut linen (from a tablecloth my grandmother brought when she fled Russian pogroms in 1913) lets light project the letters of the prayer onto the wall behind, in a ghostly and ethereal way.
The hand-cut linen (from a tablecloth my grandmother brought when she fled Russian pogroms in 1913) lets light project the letters of the prayer onto the wall behind, in a ghostly and ethereal way.
Materials
Linen tablecloth
Techniques
Hebrew letters drawn freehand on linen, fused, sewn