By Rita Weinstein, Special to JTNews
When the Sisterhood of Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue decided to beautify the walls of the social hall, they also decided to approach the project from an entirely new angle — they decided to involve the entire congregation in creating the art. Although “art by committee” often suggests a watered-down, mediocre end product, the Walls of Connection project proved to be a stroke of community-building and aesthetic genius.
As a longtime friend of Judaic artist Nancy Katz, Sisterhood President Shellie Oakley knew the connection between project and artist would be inspired. Internationally recognized for her textile and graphic work, Katz began creating Jewish art in 1982, when she first taught art at a Northern California Jewish summer camp. Her artwork, which captures the fabric of Jewish life in cloth and honors tradition with contemporary design, can be found in galleries, synagogues, homes and private collections throughout the United States and Israel, as well as at the Judah Magnus Museum of Berkeley and the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. Most importantly, Katz has experience working with many groups of all ages in creating community artwork.
In early March, Katz came to Temple B’nai Torah and met with the Sisterhood at their retreat. Serving as facilitator, she led a creative process that helped each member define those values that reflect what is most important in their communal life. Using oil pastels, Sisterhood members used words and images to convey their own personal connection to both Judaism and the synagogue.
As a follow-up, over a five-day period Katz also met with members of other groups at TBT, including the men’s group and the youth group. All were encouraged to contribute their most deeply held feelings about community to the project. The process allowed members to share, learn and discover many new things about each other, creating a new sense of connection among temple members.
The words that came up most often in group discussions were words like family, strength, heritage, identity, forgiveness, soul, foundation, compassion, and social justice. Katz took these words and their accompanying images back to her studio in Berkeley, Calif., in order to synthesize the input. Using recurring themes and images, she created a vision for 12 silk fabric panels, to be hung in groups of four to fill the large, empty wall space.
The project was the largest and most comprehensive Katz had undertaken with a community to date — not only for the size of the permanent interior space, but also in terms of gathering information. Collecting values concepts from more than 100 individuals and then synthesizing the information to design one very large finished piece was an enormous challenge. Also, because the wall on which the 12 sections will hang is often separated by a room divider, the pieces had to work individually, in groups of four, and as a sweeping whole. Creating a work that would work visually either as a whole or when only a portion of the entire piece is seen took the artistic challenge to a whole new level.
Katz chose twelve Hebrew words: emet (truth), tzedek (righteousness), kadosh (holiness), shalom (peace/wholeness), bracha (blessing), ahava (love), and sh’ma (the commandment to listen/hear), and accompanying images from which she created the designs for the panels. She chose the colors to coordinate with the color already in the social hall. Her response to the challenge of making the image work in unity or as segments was to create a Torah scroll that flows across the top panel of each section. She then sketched her designs onto the fabric with a rubber-based resist. On May 5 she brought the panels back to be painted by the congregation.
For the event, Shellie Oakley and the sisterhood organized a community painting party, complete with food and music, throughout the day. That’s when the fun — and bonding — really happened. When parents and children arrived for religious school, all was ready for them. The bare, white silk panels were tightly stretched on wooden frames and placed on tables. Dyes and sponge brushes were on a separate table. Although Katz selected the palette of dyes that would be used on the panels, each individual artist was given the creative choice of what color they’d like to paint on the sections they were working on. While the smallest children painted their own banner for the children’s lounge in a separate corner of the social hall, older children of all ages were encouraged to participate in silk painting along with accompanying adults.
As the social hall hummed with enthusiasm and energy, the bare panels quickly began to reflect a spontaneous vibrancy. Designs and words began to stand out to the eye, resulting in an intricate explosion of color, design and meaning. Under the watchful eye of the artist, each panel was taken to another corner of the room when it was completed, and blow dryers were used to dry the dyes. Each finished piece was then removed from its frame and draped over a table to dry, while a new panel was stretched on the frame for the eager painters by Katz’s assistants.
The finished panels then went back to Berkeley for a dry-cleaning process to remove the rubber resist material. With the rubber resist gone, a white border appears around each single component of the design. Avriel Skolnick, a religious-school second grader and painting participant, described the panels well: “They look like stained glass.” The next step for the panels will be mounting on acoustic board in order to serve a dual purpose in the space after they’re hung.
The Sisterhood’s goal in doing the Walls of Connection was to end the process with something of beauty that would bring the congregation together, give them the pleasure of sharing in the act of creation and beautify the walls of the social hall. The design itself is so vibrant and intricate, it will invite reflection even after years of viewing. Certainly, the creation of such a meaningful piece of Judaic art will have a lasting impact on visitors and congregation alike for years to come.