Looking at the East - Jerusalem Design Week 2019

A cup of Beduin tea at the tea ceremony. “Le Haiim” - to life!!!

"What is it we see when we look to the East? In western eyes, the East always represented the other, as mystery or as threat, and more often than not - both. But what we refer to as East, be it near, middle or far, doesn’t naturally exist.

It is in fact many things. It is the direction of the earth’s rotation and where the sun rises. It is the direction the wind takes in many cities in the world. It is a absolute direction on the compass. It is an unmarked borderline of cultural meeting points. It is alternative philosophies, ideologies, cultural habits. It is sometimes simply what is east of what we stand, and sometimes what we feel is ‘east’ of our point of view.

From a city which is in itself a junction between who oppositions, Jerusalem Design Week 2019 tackles the sensitive question of the East. it does so not by rotating the view eastward from a western vantage point, nor by looking at its past of cultural exchange and political conflict. In fact, it will not look TO the East, but AT the East - as a term, a direction, an absolute point of reference , and the set of relative relationships it generates. as future not folklore.” - excerpt from the Jerusalem Design Week 2019 publication

A day VERY well spent!!

Palestinian embroidery embedded in a designer lamp

Young Palestinian designer standing by her work

Calligraphy based on old manuscripts originating from Iraq, Yemen, Iran and Morocco

…when Siri is leading us in meditation …. :)

Kazuma - traditional Japanese Dying technique

“The common thread” - portraits of the Arab workers of Hansen House drawn with thread by a CNC machine!

CNC machine in action

Origami meets Ikebana meets the Jerusalem summer light

The spirit of Avraham (Ofek)

Painting by Avraham Ofek

Saturday morning. Tel Aviv Museum of Art. "Body, Work" an exhibition of Avraham Ofek's work. His last body of work - left me speechless. Despite the impossibility to capture its feel through the reflections in the glass, I still photographed them. Raw feelings in pencil, watercolor and gouache. Here is how the curator introduced this body of work:

"Do you see what I see"

The key to your very own Modigliani!

"Good artists copy, great artists steal". The first time I read this quote in Will Gompertz book "What are you looking at?" I was stunned. Really? Steal?? After reading a bit more, a light bulb went off. "Stealing" as a first step towards making something your own, is very different from copying someone else's work. Learned something new.

Fast forward almost a year. My better half and I visit the LACMA museum in LA, one of our favorites. One of our personal jokes when visiting museums is deciding which piece of art we would like to take home. Hubby can't decide between two: a Picasso's blue period painting and "Young woman of the people" by Modigliani. As lately I've been playing with collage, without thinking much, I blurted "I will make you a Modigliani" and snapped a picture of the painting. 

Well, here it is. "The key to your very own Modigliani". Perhaps this does not make me a great artist, but I am definitely evolving as a wife :)

"The key to your very own Modigliani", the full collage.

Inspired by ....

This time, a different kind of post. In the last few weeks, I spent time thinking about my sources of inspiration, and for the first time in 3 years, created a power point.

Articulating my thoughts, provided me with a new point of view on my own work, helped identify connections I never thought about  before. Learning to know me :)