Visions of Sinai

In preparation for creating this series for the Jewish holiday of Shavuoth (SHA-VOO-OTE), I read the Torah portion (Shemot/Exodus 19) considered the stories I learned as a child in Hebrew school and in synagogue, as well as the memorable (and unavoidable) imagery of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film “The Ten Commandments.”

Then I sat with all of it.

I thought, “Well, if I had been an artist at the time of the revelation at Sinai, using the natural materials I work with today, how might I have expressed this experience?”

I explored the idea of conscious image-making as expression of spiritual experience and how a representation of this experience might evolve. In this series, I attempted to move a shape (in this case, a “bird’s eye view of an imagined Mount Sinai”) through a process of abstraction while keeping my intention on the experience of being present at Sinai.

Sinai 1

Medium: Local clay, straw, sand (formed into adobe), orange peel, coffee grounds, sand, dried oak, maple, bamboo and beech leaves