LimmudFest Nola 2023

Quilts are often held up as a way women who lacked education or leisure time stitched stories to pass along to the next generation. While some scholars have argued that the paucity of quilts among Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 1880-1920s indicates Jews didn’t quilt, quilts were important to Jewish American life in the 1840s-1880s. Throughout this era, American Jewish women used the album and crazy quilts to repair relationships torn by war, travel, and distance. Moreover, the rise of Jewish sewing circles meant sewing was often a community-building rite. In this hands-on workshop we will look at how one particular Jewish album quilt from the 1850s can help us understand the lives and aesthetic experiences of early Jewish women who didn’t leave written records.

In this hands-on art session, you will discover what an oak gall is, how to find one, and how to create iron oak gall ink—the ink used by scribes to write the Torah and other Jewish holy books—which is harvested from galls growing on Louisiana oak trees. Learn about the history of this medieval ink and how it relates to my search as an artist for a more sustainable art practice as I create artwork about living in a time of global warming, and specifically what this means to those of us living in Southern Louisiana. You will also create you own pen from bamboo and leave with a small bottle of your own handmade ink.