Description
Artist’s Statement
This three volume folio edition for me is the definitive artistic presentation of my 35 year’s work on the revival of the hand illuminated Ketubah.
My concept for Love Letters was to create a beautiful book on the subject of Jewish love and marriage using texts and images from ketubot I had done. For me, this folio edition is more personal and is about my work reviving the hand-illuminated Ketubah. My goal was to bring together a broad selection that presented these pieces as perfectly as possible. In a sense, I think of it as a kind of retrospective show in book form. I consider it to be the very finest reproductions of this body of work that is possible to produce. This was done by combining the painstaking, human craft of detailed hand imaging with the most sophisticated modern technology and the finest materials.
It consists of three large (about 21″ x 14″) hard bound volumes in a linen covered folder. The work is entitled Tradition Transition Transformation. Each of the three volumes bears the name of one of these.
Tradition—whose cover has a bold, deep blue, abstract arrow pointing backwards—is a selection of ten ketubot in which I drew inspiration from the ancient tradition of illuminated manuscripts.
Transition—whose cover has an abstracted, violet, gate-form—is a selection of ten ketubot drawing on the portal or arch image.
Transformation—whose cover has a deep, red, arrow pointing forward—is a selection of ten of the more innovative ketubot that I have created.
The large format permits the ketubot to be reproduced in a size close to the originals and many people who have seen them cannot believe that they are not the original works themselves. The color images are all giclee prints on heavy 225 gram fine art paper. Their quality, color and detail are stunning. The facing pages contain accompanying quotes from Jewish literature. At the end I’ve gathered the information about each work—size, owner, date, materials etc—as well as the letters I wrote to the couple to explain each work when it was originally created.
The edition is strictly limited to 200 exemplars, signed and numbered in each volume.
180 regular sets are numbered 1/180 to 180/180
18 Artist’s Proofs bear the marking AP
2 sets designated for the craftspeople who made the edition are marked HC.
