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JOY's FANTASY ROOM & SUKKAH
photos and montage © Joy Krauthammer
"There's no place like home."
Welcome to my
ROOM and SUKKAH
Garden of Gila
- Joy Krauthammer
10-26-2011
I know that artists
don’t necessarily explain their work, but I need to do this for me, because
this six-week graphic process was new for me, and I need to figure out what my
subconscious was up to in this montage.
Enjoy Photoshop creation as is, or
you might enjoy creation with explanation.
The "Room and
Sukkah", inside and outside, is about knowing who I am, and my soul being
Joy. Room is a place / makom where in my medium, I meet myself in my universe; real or imagined. What is reality? I began by creating an empty space (a gift) and decided how to fill my
space. The blank page was raw, like unmolded clay or a blank piece of writing
paper. Photography is my passion, a Zen practice. Spiritual books and Torah on my shelves, percussion I play, objects
d’art I’ve created in clay, and my garden are also the “garments (and colors)-- the outer
expression of my soul”, but “not the essence of my soul”, as my beloved Reb
Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen, zt’l, would say.
Soul is seen looking into
the Sukkah, as we look into our inner selves. The Sephirah
of Chesed / loving-kindness is expressed between friends on a
journey of life along the Etz Chaim / The Tree of Life; fragile and
vulnerable as a Sukkah.
The yellow centered mum's
floral floor path serves as the "Yellow Brick Road" with Dorothy the
drummer, in red magical shoes, as she leads us all to the temporary open hut,
the sukkah-- along the yellow flowered road to discover our own "heart,
brains and courage", which, mamash / truly, we already have.
As metaphors, Wizard of
Oz's Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion are ushpizin /
guests, looking in through the window, and ready to 'occupy' the sukkah.
* (As in "Occupy LA" or Wall Street-- what is ‘real’? (Who
would you invite as guest? How would you treat your guests?) When you
feel you "want a brain", a "heart" or "courage",
enter your sukkah-- your inner space of faith, and speak to the Compassionate
One.
"There's no place like Home." - Dorothy
The Wizard of Oz's 'hot
air balloon' is seen through the window's foreign landscape (a separate Photoshop
invention.)
Web ‘Images’ in the
concocted scenes include separate elements I isolated, cleaned ("layer
masked") and combined: African land, individual lions, giraffes, hot air
balloon; and partial garden path, path walkers, cartoon characters;
French doors, sukkah, frames and window treatments. These images add to
the "Room and Sukkah" elements created from my personal
photographs. Tree of Life painting I transformed into the (vector) bench. The bench, table and legs are created from lines of wood. I'm sitting on it with frame drum from my Moroccan trip. When almost finished filling my Room, I realized that I, too, could be visibly present and inserted a photo of myself.
Photoshop altered graphics
and photos encompass my New Year's card of international peaceful people on the
path, the Tree of Life, the framed ART on the left wall, and the Photoshop
window African landscape on right wall, and then the whole integrated collage,
Room and Sukkah.
Room and Sukkah was a
giant challenge to create. Contains six weeks worth of creations and meditative
patience to be the best that it could be.
(Thanks to graphics
teacher, Gustavo, for the guidance.)
If you really want to
know what the meaningful, joyous spiritual scene (where art and life merge)
means to me as 'Gates and Keys of Joy', read on:
VESSEL
The lavender flowers left
wall is a garden shot I took at LA’s Getty Museum.
The Italian marble PS Stone ceiling version #2 below, is
a few inches of wall at the Getty Museum.
(As a
child, I loved visiting east coast caverns filled with stalactites and
stalagmites.
Do I live
partially underground, although my window view is to wild life?)
(See BLUE ceiling
version #1 above and anecdote, with ceiling of Blue Ripples. I made
those ripples and photograhed them when I moved my body in pool of
friend and life-guard, 89 years young Edith.)
The amethyst right
wall is a bit of gorgeous huge purple amethyst geode I shot at
Washington DC's Natural History Museum.
The pink mums floor is
a curbside street garden that I photographed.
My loving sister Faye
waited for me after I made a U turn for pink photo, and was with me for all the
shots when I knew I would use them as textures in my upcoming explorations.
College friend from sixties, Suzanne, was also at Getty with us celebrating
Faye's birthday.
JOYOUS CONTENTS
The blue ripple partial
view table top was shot at my life guard, Edith's, swimming pool. (I
swam in the unheated pool until last wee moment-- the middle of October!)
The matzeivah /
gravestone is husband Marcel's, z'l, and I placed it on top of the table and
the water because it was the correct ‘Illustrator vector’ table shape! Marcel
also loved water sports and here I surround him in water.
That UCLA medical visor
on the matzeivah, is from the 1988 brain surgery when I stood vigil for
three months for the first of all his two dozen cancer surgeries.
After Marcel died from 18
years of cancer, and after deeply mourning, I was able to return to my soul,
active in my arts world.
"There is no place
like home" and home is where the soul resides, one filled with
joy. (I'm grateful I could create this art collage.)
The double Torah bookshelves (with
Reb Shlomo's, z'l, photo I shot), are from one of my bookcases. I encased
filled shelves in a wall case.
Today is 16 Cheshvan 5772,
the 17th secular yahrzeit of Reb Shlomo Carlebach.
The little blue velvet Torah
on shelf, daughter Aviva and I made, in her A.J. Heschel Day School
kindergarten class.
The red pomegranates
in New Year's card (painting on left wall) and on sukkah ceiling as skhach/greens
decoration, I photographed in my spiritual friend Gilla's garden.
The vessels of sounds,
Sounds of Joy, are some of the percussion instruments I play; some
purchased around the world or had created for me. You see my three favorite
Remo timbrels-- frame drums that I perform on all the time; and solo
African djembe that I play for two decades, and some of my other drums.
(Paulo Mattioli, obm,
my wonderful drum teacher, made that beautiful “cadillac” djembe for me. He
died this week, Oct. 22, 2011.)
The Tibetan singing
bowls I brought home from Tibet, and I play them and the Woman gong in
sound spa healing journey meditations that I offer.
I love my WOMAN gong.
It used to only say "WUHAN" until I painted it. This Sunday I play
gong at Women’s Drum Day.
All these instruments
(garments of my soul) pave the way from my soul, along the path of my joy.
The pottery from my
ceramics era few decades ago (those that survived the Northridge E Quake) sit
in front of my fireplace and coffee table and here, under the table.
Photo of me with
large hand-made timbrel I brought home from Morocco, is shot by Sarah
Barash at the Lev Eisha women’s pre-Pesach Seder.
Who/what did I neglect to
mention? Why? (Gee, should I have implanted also in the room, an Apple
computer with Adobe's CS5 program?)
WINDOW TO THE WORLD
AFRICAN landscape is
composed of individual animals I either photographed—i.e. garden lizard, or
were images I found, 'layer-masked' cleaned and placed separately. I added the
happy hot air balloon ride for Oz Wizard.
Do we need to soar above for a better view of self and beyond, or only go ‘inside’?
Do we need to soar above for a better view of self and beyond, or only go ‘inside’?
(I rode a fun balloon
in Sedona with Marcel, z'l, and could happily see my soaring reflection on
distant mountains.)
Africa is my view, my
vision, and has a relationship to my music. (See my djembe.) I always
thought that some of my prior lives had been in Africa. (My kids just returned
from their volunteer work in Uganda.)
I added red curtains
because I thought that was a good color idea for the window.
Curtains at a window
seem to be realistic for the outdoors' world.
GREETING WALL ART
The framed PATH collage on
left wall: the double rainbow in yellow sky, I shot in my garden, in pure joy
on the New Year 5772.
I created pomegranate
trees on both sides of the 'path' which I had cloned in Photoshop.
May our mitzvot be as
numerous as the 613 seeds in a pomegranate.
In the framed Path collage
on left wall, is my spiritual friend, Rinala, sitting on ground with her shofar
for the High Holidays. I have created for her, a basket of red ripe
pomegranates.
The Chareidi Chassid at
the other far end of the ‘trail’, leads us to Torah.
Truth of the Chassid and
Rinala, the shofar sitter, represents the real life topical
tension between the Orthodox man and (at times, Orthodox woman) the
Renewal Jewish woman (representing me) with ritual object. I have them at
either end of the same trail, a path towards Torah. Feminism and Orthodoxy
don't blend well, yet both are filled with mitzvot, as many as a
pomegranate.
Can we all sit together in
shalom, in the Sukkah? And in the Room?
Do our religious styles
have to separate us?
The simple Chinese water boy is
hydrating the international ‘path walkers’.
'Water is Torah', and nourishing me.
My singing bowls I bought
in Tibet, China.
I have a message, a
greeting for you: Shana Tova.
More of greeting (not
visible) had wished us Shalom, world peace, and “May Peace
Prevail.”
(They are important to me because I met the original
importer of The Peace Poles.)
FRENCH DOORS
I add open French doors to
invite and lead us into the sukkah.
(I wanted the
technological artistic challenge of adding another 'room' to the Room.)
A small amethyst mezuzah with
a Hebrew letter "Shin" is on the open French door lintel.
Guess how I made the
mezuzah! OK, hint: Mezuzah is
out of amethyst wall.
SUKKAH
* What do the Wizard of Oz
friends teach us? So much...
Do we need to travel to
Oz, to clearly see truth and self?
I framed the OZ ushpizin looking
through the Sukkah window that I created for them.
(Miriyahm HaNeviah,
timbrel player, is always invited to my sukkah.)
In the past, I invited
Miriyahm as guest into the sukkah of an Orthodox rabbi, and he never again
invited me for Sukkot.
As one of the ushpizin, I
invite my beloved Jerusalem chareidi Reb Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen, zt'l. He
transitioned, 27 Elul 5771. His shloshim is this week as we
end Sukkot.
Marcel, Aviva and I
used to build a sukkah each year. I invite Marcel’s neshamah to visit with us.
I always invite Marcel to
be where he had not been, where he would not go, now that the 'veils' and
boundaries are not present for him.
The sukkah is set for a
traditional holiday kiddush.
I add more pomegranates to
the roof as skhach decoration.
Are we more vulnerable
to truth (without our possessions) in the fragile Sukkah?
The biggest tech
challenge of this Joyous ROOM and SUKKAH, was getting the whole project into
spatially correct “one point” perspective-- fantasy and all.
Process: I used
Adobe Illustrator to set up my empty room line “vectors”... oy, and then transferred the barren room to
Photoshop.
Thank you for visiting my
Room.
If you have any thoughts,
do please share them.
I love hearing from you.
BlesSings to you for a
sweet new year, Shana Tova, filled
with health and joy, and all you desire-- just like the Tin Man, Lion and
Scarecrow. Remember to look within, and talk to the Compassionate One, and stay
true to your soul.
Love,
JOY
click on
art to enlarge.
PS
Stone Version #2
Oops, my 'life guard' Edith thought that the Room's
ceiling would be better off, not as Getty Italian marble in Version #2, but as
the swimming pool water ripples that are created when I swim in her pool, so...
take a look at version #1, and you decide, and let me know.
Edith loved the ripply wet
look of the Summer 2010 Chinese Olympic swimming pool ceiling, and I agree. Did
I succeed with my ceiling? I kept my camera dry!
Marcel's matzeivah
reflects the swimming pool blues.
JOY's Fantasy Pool or Stone ROOM & SUKKAH
photos and collage © Joy Krauthammer
"There's no place like home."
+Joy+Krauthammer+10-22-11-1.jpg)
~ ~ ~
PS
That's
me with my giant Moroccan timbrel sitting on the bench I created out of lines.
Here's
a tiny peek into my process: my first Illustrator vector drawing:
Oh,
well, when I learn how to copy an A1 image I will share it.
.
