childlike wonderWhen I made this piece, I wanted to use fun, bright colors to represent a child’s imagination and viewpoint of life. I drew a picture of myself in the middle with colored pencils and surrounded myself with different-colored flowers drawn in oil pastels, just as I did when I was a little girl. I made the flowers grow bigger as they expanded outwards, to show the expansion of creativity many children have.
17’’ x 23’’
Digital self-portrait Using my skills in Adobe Illustrator, I chose an image of myself and made different colored shapes according to the shadows and highlights of the picture to create a unique self-portrait image of myself.
Flickers of tradition I made this art piece about my strong connection to Judaism and its traditions. I drew myself spinning a dreidel, a common Hanukkah toy/game, and 9 Hanukkiah candles below me, representing the traditions of my favorite Jewish holiday. I used Sharpie and watercolors to paint Hamsa hands all around me. This symbol is associated with both Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and Judaism. The word "hamsa" comes from the Arabic word for "five". The hamsa hand is often depicted with a symmetrical design, where the thumb and pinky are the same length. The number five has symbolic meaning in Judaism, representing the five books of the Torah. The hamsa is thought of as a protective symbol. I wear one on a necklace that I never take off. Behind me is a Torah made out of fabric; something I wanted to include because it is believed to be the direct word of G-d and significant in Jewish culture. This piece overall shows my religious upbringing and memories connected to Judaism.
18’’ x 12’’
Dash of red For this piece, I wanted to evoke a feeling of loudness and stress. I painted myself screaming, overwhelmed with all of the stressors from school assignments. The red, sharp shapes coming towards me represent more and more assignments piling up and more anger and stress surrounding me. I painted myself using ink on vellum and used red paint for the sharp shapes.
24’’ x 18’’
Maya papaya This piece is inspired by the nickname my family and friends called me when I was little: Maya Papaya. I have always loved this nickname because I thought that papayas were such fun and bright fruits. I felt that I could relate to them through my energeticness as a kid. To capture this, I used very bright colors in this piece, focusing on the yellow and orange seen in papayas. The hand-embroidered black beads represent a papaya's many seeds. They bounce off of me, emphasizing the radiant energy of me as a little girl. I intentionally chose a playful and fun photo of myself, with my mouth open and wearing silly sunglasses, to reflect my childhood's essence. This piece has allowed me to express the type of child I was, and I'm able to carry that with me to this day, still being an outgoing and energetic person.
18’’ x 24’’
stripes of time, slice of life For this piece, I wanted to honor my grandfather, who I called Baba. There is a mockingbird in the center of the artwork, with an orange peel wrapping around it. This represents me holding onto Baba's memory and presence. My grandpa was Israeli, served in the army, and lived in Israel. Oranges are a common fruit in Israel, and the color orange represents the idea of mourning a loss in Middle Eastern culture. He also used to wear shirts with grey and white stripes all the time. After he passed away, my family and I started seeing a mockingbird flying around us constantly, and we haven't stopped seeing it since. We believe it's a sign from him because of the similarity between the stripes on the shirts he used to wear and the stripes on the mockingbird's wings. Mockingbirds also symbolize innocence, and when Baba passed away, I was just a little girl in elementary school who couldn't fully process this sad event. In this piece, I hand-stitched every fabric segment and every bead onto a piece of raw canvas. This is inspired by Billie Zangewa, who hand-stitched pieces of fabric to make art that portrayed her life.
35.5’’ x 27’’
golden lullaby This piece is dedicated to my grandma, one of my favorite people ever. It was inspired by her favorite fruit, banana, and a memory of her singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to me when I was little. I painted her as if she was looking down at me before I went to bed, with a dark blue and gold background to represent the night sky. She is surrounded by stars decorated with gemstones. The main aspect of this piece is the big banana above her, representing a half moon. I used different bead and threading embroidery for the banana, to make it more realistic and detailed.
18’’ x 24’’
mini experimentation pieces: stripes of time, slice of life These mini recreation pieces of ‘Stripes of Time, Slice of Life’ were made to focus on experimentation of different materials: thread/sewing machine techniques and paint. For one of the pieces, I used paint to recreate the design. For the other, I played around with different settings on my sewing machine, mainly a zigzag stitch close together, and used this to create the shapes of the orange peel and the bird.
8’’ x 10’’
