My office/studio was moved around many times and my husband’s desk and printer, filing cabinets and the contents of various closets moved to make space for beds and dressers, more filing cabinets, boxes, books, people, cats, and dogs. Doors were hung and then taken down. 

 

Now, there are rooms we can use for ourselves and there are pictures, dishes, rugs, books, furniture left behind. Lots of memories. Lots of history. 

 

When I got the prompt, I drew the things I was looking at that had moved around so many times. For another view, I was thinking about sediment - like a stone or earth cut open to show where things settled.

Contra-Construction Project

1923

Design for a Kiosk, 1919 

 

This menorah, which my father made, and I have somewhat abstracted, is a great symbol of who I am. My father, who converted to Judaism when he and my mother married, made an important mistake in making it - he included only eight candle holders and there are supposed to be nine. My mother, who identifies culturally as a Jew but rejects the conservative religion she knew growing up, is never one to hold the standard. I find this pretty funny because I identify as Jewish, but like the menorah and I suppose like so many secular Jews, it is a ¾ measure, a sign of assimilation.

 

More than that - when my father died I found a sheet of paper with family names in one column and the names of their homes on the other: the Bakers, Todds, Edwards, Pattesons, the Lewis’ of Llangollen, Fairview in Sangamon County, Clover Hill, Fort Hill, the Forks of Elkhorn. His family were true culture keepers with books and books describing their lineage back to the 17^th century. He loved that history as much as they did, so I included the family names along with my mother’s family names (though most of those people and that history is lost) and wrote them into the menorah.