I worked on this tall house illustration back in December, and I’m presenting it to you today with a little secret. Shh, it’s not quite official and may be going slowly, but this house illustration and the house illustration I posted in late December will be part of a new “mural” painting that will appear on my leoraw.com home page. I came up with the idea about two years ago to redo my home page completely and give it a “Highland Park, NJ” look – to me, that meant the old houses of Highland Park. And some trees. An old-fashioned suburban look perhaps. I started working on the actual “mural” or banner earlier this week – it needs a third house, so that is on the list to be done.
My next step will be either cloud or tree illustrations – which should it be? Clouds or trees, anyone?
Nuts, Raisins and Sunflower Seeds, watercolor and ink pen by Leora Wenger, 2014
I painted this scene of nuts, raisins and sunflowers seeds for the food exercise in One Watercolor a Day. I’m not convinced of the scale I chose – perhaps since I made the nuts as big as I did, the sunflower seeds should be bit bigger? But no point to criticizing one’s own work – here it is for you to view. In the Facebook group for One Watercolor a Day, someone painted a lobster. It was quite a painting – lively and colorful. As I keep kosher, I would not have considered lobster for a food study, but that’s the sort of range one gets with these exercises. I also did a watercolor food study of beets – perhaps I will post that one closer to Pesach (Passover) and tell you how to make fermented beets, one of my favorite foods.
My son bought a new printer, an Epson XP-310 (or I bought it for him). I used the scanner for this painting, and I was quite pleased with the results – no more excess gray. I may buy a standalone scanner so I will have a larger scanner (the Epson XP-310 is quite small). When I do, it most probably will be an Epson.
The next watercolor exercise I plan to try is to paint some toys. I have a doll in mind to add to my still life. What other toys should I add? We still do have plenty of toys in this house, even if my children are no longer little.
Layered landscape scene, watercolor by Leora Wenger 2014
Haven’t had much time to blog – I was working today (on a Sunday!) and helping my daughter with a school project (about Chana Szenesh), and all of a sudden, it was 5 pm. I started preparing dinner, and now that a few things are warming up I decided it would be a nice time to post the above landscape watercolor, one that is an exercise from One Watercolor a Day.
Thank you to Naomi Firestone-Teeter of the Jewish Book Council for hosting the February Jewish Book Carnival and including my review of Rabbi Lau’s book.
Holocaust books can range from only brushes the surface to difficult to read to powerfully upsetting. There was one book I read in part and never finished because I found it so upsetting. In that book, everyone Jewish died (each a gruesome, slow death) – the narrator himself was a prisoner in the camp but not Jewish. Then there are books that seem to suggest if only we all were nice, such horrible things would not happen (except only nice people read those books – mostly drivel to me).
Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last by Israel Meir Lau we get an autobiography with hope, perspective, respect for many different kinds of people and a story of a boy who loses his parents and much of his family but succeeds, succeeds in his own life and in touching many others. Rabbi Lau is imprisoned in Buchenwald as a young boy – most children his age are killed right away, but his brother, a Russian man and others manage to help him survive. At one point he is getting food to his brother Naphtali, because he is in the non-Jewish part of the camp where there are more rations, and his brother is among the Jews who get little. Because of his brother and his brother’s promise to his father, the two make it to pre-State of Israel Palestine and are reunited with an uncle and a half brother.
One cautionary remark about this book: in some ways it is divided into two parts. My 11th grade son had to read this book for school last year. He found the first part, where little Lulek (Rabbi Lau’s childhood nickname) survives the Holocaust, to be quite interesting. The rest of the book he found more difficult to read. Indeed, we follow Rabbi Lau around the planet where he visits the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Brooklyn, Fidel Castro in Cuba, King Hussein of Jordan and Pope John Paul II. As the narrative tends to jump around a bit, it is not always easy to move with it, but I found much of what he had to say of interest. For example, I did not know he was so close to Prime Minister Rabin. Sometimes he gives his divrei Torah (words of Torah) in detail, and you wonder if the person to whom he is speaking understands what he is saying.
This division of the book reminds me of the last book I finished: An American Bride in Kabul by Phyllis Chesler. Like Lau’s book, much of the exciting tale happens in the first part of the book, and the rest of the book is explanatory narrative and less dramatic parts of her life, like conversations with her ex-husband forty years later. My apologies to Phyllis Chesler for not writing a full review right now (that’s the problem with taking out brand new library books – you can’t keep renewing them). A jewel of Chesler’s book is a short history of the Jews of Afghanistan. Another remark that relates the story of Phyllis Chesler with that of Rabbi Lau: although she says she comes from an Orthodox Jewish family, it is clear she had very little Jewish education. In contrast, Rabbi Lau came from a long line of rabbis, and his brothers and uncle made sure he got a strong Jewish education in Israel. He also was clearly a gifted student – he jumped from first to fifth grade in one year. Would she have had such a strong attachment to an Muslim Afghan man if she had a stronger education and heritage? Who knows.
One of the most revealing parts of Out of the Depths were the early years in Israel when no one talked about the Holocaust, not survivors or native Israelis. There was some kind of shame attached; indeed, children were taught the Jews went like sheep. In retrospect, one can argue with this statement, but it helps to understand how Holocaust survivors were not given the opportunity in those years to work through the grief, the anger, and all the other feelings. When Eichmann came to trial in 1962, finally, the dialogue about the Holocaust began.
There was one character in the book for whom I felt bad and didn’t really get Rabbi Lau’s reaction to him: the Yiddish poet Itzik Manger. Rabbi Lau comes to visit Manger as he lies ill; Manger compared himself to Noah and how he got drunk after the flood. Rabbi Lau’s comment to the reader is “Although I understand Itzik Manger, I choose to identify with those who suffered immensely during the war but who opted to lead their lives in a vastly different mode.” I am not convinced he really does understand Itzik Manger. This is not to say one should tolerate alcoholism, but underneath that choice to drink alcohol was clearly a lot of depression and grief. I can accept how one can be in such a state having lost one’s whole world. Rabbi Lau claims he understands, but I didn’t really feel that. Perhaps with the right kind of professional understanding and help, Itzik Manger could have had some more healing in his life.
On the other hand, I was in awe of his conversations with the Pope, Fidel Castro and King Hussein. For example, Fidel Castro asks Rabbi Lau a thought provoking question:
Here in Cuba, a child of eight growing up without parents, and especially without knowing the language, will turn into a juvenile deliquent…But you came to Israel barefoot and penniless, and today you are like the Jews’ pope…How did a boy from the streets, who started out with nothing, get chosen to be the senior religious representative of the country?
And then Rabbi Lau, after initially surprised by the question, talks about his heritage of a long line of rabbis, and how his father left a spoken last will and testament with his older brother to take care of his younger brother, and how his uncle took care of him when he finally arrived. He spoke of his teachers in yeshiva and of his tutelage under his father-in-law, Rabbi Frankl. He felt even though he lost his parents, in many ways they stayed with him.
I was impressed with Rabbi Lau’s own self reflection – he was able to note that separations are painfully difficult for him, because of his early separations from his mother and his brother (he was reunited with his brother). He said even a simple goodbye party when leaving a position did not feel good to him.
If you like autobiographies, this is well-worth reading. If you would like to read about a Holocaust survivor’s story, this one is more upbeat than many others. I also learned a bit about the role of the chief rabbi in Israel. The book certainly gave us a rabbi who is a well-rounded person and able to connect to many.
Fanciful Fish, watercolor by Leora Wenger 2014
Another day, another watercolor: inspired by the Day #5 exercise in One Watercolor a Day, I drew a fanciful fish using a drawing from a Dover book filled with art nouveau drawings. Then I drew it again on watercolor paper, put on some masking fluid, and painted in some color. All as I fancied – I made up the colors and some of the pattern as I went along.
Here is a detail of the fanciful fish watercolor that I posted last week on Google+:
I decided a good way to use Google+ is when I am having a busy day, but I need a creative break, I quickly post a detail from a painting that I later plan for a whole post on my blog. I also sometimes post photos on Google+.
I am up late writing this post (people who know me well know I am usually an early to bed, early to rise type) because I am waiting for my son to come home from a trip. He went to visit my other son at college. He said he had a great time. He missed the first train he planned to take (a good experience in travel not always going perfectly), and my husband is out now picking him up.
I did a watercolor landscape last week that I based loosely on the photograph at the bottom of this Meron post. I also have lots of photos of robins – they seem to have invaded my neighbor’s backyard (and the gutters of my roof as well). So maybe a post on robins tomorrow – we will see. Thank you for visiting!
