arts & culture
OCJAC Debuts Exhibit
for Tisha, Tu B’Av
to be ends of old patterns,” they said.

Th e curatorial strategy for the
exhibit refl ects this. In addition to put-
ting pieces in conversation with one
another to help build an understanding
of the meanings of the works, Appleton
considered how people move through
the space.

Th ey imagine the process of walking
through an exhibit as a linear one, with
an audience viewing pieces one aft er
another, but at the end, there is a full
picture of what the exhibit is about. Just
as life is an ebb and fl ow of beginnings
and endings, the exhibit refl ects this
by having pieces that evoke various
emotions and experiences culminate to
create a complete experience.

“It’s like going through a movie,”
Appleton said. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com N OMIN
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Jewish Exponent
PHILADELPHIA W
JE ld City Jewish Arts Center is
interested in exploring new
beginnings this month in
more ways than one.

On Aug. 5, the space celebrated its
new exhibit in a First Friday opening,
with a new guest curator and a new
theme “exploring ending and begin-
ning, destruction and rebuilding, grief
and resilience.”
Th e exhibit, open through Aug. 28,
falls during both Tisha B’Av, a holi-
day that marks the destruction of the
two temples in ancient Jerusalem, and
Tu B’Av, a holiday celebrating love,
observed a week later.

Th e timing of the exhibit was no
coincidence: Just as the two holidays
transition from themes of sorrow and
mourning to rebirth and joy, so too
does the art displayed in the exhibit.

“We wanted to fi nd something
universal to relate and convey to the
masses, for First Friday and exhib-
it-goers — something from the past
of destruction, but not getting stuck
in the darkness and instead focusing
on how we stand in the present and
apply that to the future,” said OCJAC
Executive Director Rabbi
Zalman Wircberg.

“With this art, it’s
really looking at the past
and seeing what we can
learn from the darkness,
the negativity and how we
can transform that into
light,” he added.

One piece featured
in the exhibit is a room
divider made with sepa-
rate wood panels burned
with sodium chloride and
a torch to create a decora-
tive fl oral pattern. Artist
Melissa Rothman wanted
to balance the masculine
and feminine, using a
harsh and violent method
of burning to create fl ow-
ing adornments.

Artist Sally Eisenberg with her painting “A
Fresh Start”
Rothman, who is not
Courtesy of Sally Eisenberg
Jewish but is a frequenter
“Th ey’re all very diff erent from each
other, which I’m excited about, because
grief is a very personal experience, and
so is resilience,” Appleton said. “It’s
going to have a little bit of my aesthetic
skew to do it, but there’s a lot of diff er-
ent ways in which you can think about
the subject through the works that
were selected.”
Appleton was drawn to the theme of
destruction and rebirth that Wircberg
proposed because of their own values
and personal experiences.

“My approach to life is that it’s all
one continuous pathway,” they said.

As a young person, Appleton strug-
gled with change. As an adult, they’ve
come to accept it.

“It’s been really liberating for me to
embrace change as constant, and what
are perceived as endings to be begin-
nings of new phases, and for beginnings
ISH PH
IA O
of OCJAC, wanted to comment on the
gendered history of diff erent art medi-
ums, with many craft ing mediums
being relegated as “women’s work.”
“It shows resilience and that you’re
able to sort of make your mark on the
art world and create something sur-
prising and fresh, while still harking
back to this very old tradition of wom-
en’s work,” she said of her piece.

Sally Eisenberg’s painting “A Fresh
Start” uses a vibrant pink to catch
the viewer’s eye, though the painting
is fl ecked with sunshine oranges and
yellows, as well as darker hints of black
and blue.

Th e piece was inspired by the pan-
demic and the attitude Eisenberg took
to endure the diffi cult period.

“My coping mechanism has been to
think of each morning as a new begin-
ning/a fresh start,” she said. “Maybe
today will be better. Th e dance of the
paint, marks, gestures and colors enable
me to convey hope and positivity.”
Guest curator Leah Appleton was
tasked with putting these works in
conversation with one another. Th e
artist and Drexel University Leonard
Pearlstein Gallery curator considered
the specifi c and universal when select-
ing the exhibit pieces.

2 SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
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