August 2012
10 posts
The Lantern
What we refer to as the lantern is the crowning cupola of the Gwozdzeic synagogue ceiling where the baroque interior curvature of the ceiling resolves at its highest point. Added in the early 1700’s, to a barrel vaulted ceiling, it was part of a renovation that inspired a stylistic trend that informed wooden synagogue architecture across the entirety of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (Hubka...
A Book Recommendation: Go for Gombrich!
Sense of Order. A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (1979) is a book by E.H. Gombrich, published after he presented his investigations at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as part of a programme called Wrightsman Lectures. Gombrich was an Austrian art historian, probably one of the most significant figures of this discipline in 20th Century Europe. This book is a very broad and...
Wrocław
The final workshop has begun! It is taking place in the city of Wrocław in western Poland. The group is happy to be back here, having painted in Wrocław for three weeks last summer. The White Stork Synagogue is a beautiful place to work, and a perfect setting for the documentary film of the Gwozdziec reconstruction project, produced by Trillium Studios, which is currently being shot (thanks to...
July 2012
13 posts
The Necklace
My name hangs like a pendant in the necklace of generations. Link after link of h & n Helena is Hannah is Hebrew for Grace threaded through slavic cities washed anew in the mikvah to shine, a red squall between my mother’s legs. A name is heavy to carry down the wide hopeful avenue of tomorrow and light, after so many repetitions so many prayers. It dodges the fluid borders of seven...
Traditional Methods: Paint mixing
The method of mixing paint for the Gwozdziec Synagogue ceiling is as traditional as the synagogue itself. Since there were no tubes of paint, all the paint was made by hand. As many students flow in and out of different workshops we are all taught the traditional methods. Learning the process is interesting, fun and very rewarding at the end. After completing the process of mixing the pigments...
Roztocze National Park
The fourth workshop of the 2012 Gwozdziec Synagogue ceiling painting project is underway in a section of Poland known as the Lublin Uplands. This region of South Eastern Poland is characterized by gently rolling farmlands interspersed by large tracts of woodlands. The survival of much of the remaining natural beauty of this area can trace its roots back to 1589 when the founder of Zamosc, Jan...
Review of the exhibition in the Warsaw Royal... →
This Thursday, we will travel to Warsaw to attend the opening of an exhibition of completed Gwozdziec Reconstruction panels in the Royal Castle. Two Domes and Zodiac panels that were painted during the workshops last summer will be on display over the next two weeks. Check out this review from JewishJournal.com!
Painting in the Shtetl →
Here is the link to a blog made by Sarah Bierman, a student at Brandeis University, during the weeks she spent working with us in Kazimierz Dolny.
The Synagogue in Kazimierz Dolny
The Kazimierz Dolny synagogue where we are working is just a few meters away from the main market square. Local legend claimed it had been built by Kazimierz the Great (1333-1370) at the behest of Estera, a Jewish beauty from KD who had apparently enjoyed the infatuation of the enlightened ruler. A perhaps more reliable story has the synagogue being built from limestone during the second half of...
June 2012
19 posts
Time Stands Still AND Moves Forward in Poland
Bialystok
The Group 2 HandsHouse students visited Bialystok which was a major cultural center along with Vilnius for the Jewish diaspora. The burning synagogue in the video on the handshousestudio.org web site is the one in Bialystok. We had heard there was a Memorial to the Synagogue and our bus driver took us to it. We were all walking and chatting away when we turned a corner and - boom -...
Sejny History
After work last Wednesday, the students and painting leaders piled in buses and drove from ‘our’ manor house outside Sejny, around the lake, to another manor house at Krasnogruda. This site had been the home of the nobel prize winning poet Czeslaw Milosz. Newly reconstructed, the manor house and surrounding buildings are dynamic, multifaceted spaces, perfectly suited to the energetic...
We are very lucky to have Charlie Roderick, a professor at Harper College, and Sara Black, a professor at Antioch College, joining us in Sejny as the group 2 faculty leaders. Charlie’s beautiful photos (below) document the group’s visit to Vilnius, Lithuania and our experience so far in Sejny, at the lake-side manor house and at the Synagogue where we are painting.
Charlie Roderick's Flickr Photos - Group 2
Making it all line up: problem solving the corners...
Here in Sejny we are working on the lowest section of the Gwozdziec ceiling known as the Cove. Four pieces, each approximately 30 feet long and 2 feet wide, this highly decorated section forms a curved transition from the log walls to the main sections of the dome and upper cupola. In the summer of 2011, during the tail end of the timber-framing portion of this project, the boards for the Cove...
Sejny
The painting team arrived in Sejny last week to set up the work site and put finishing touches on the pendentives before joining the second student group for a few days in Vilnius, Lithuania. The whole group has now returned to Sejny, where we are starting to learn the complex history of this small town and the space in which we are working.
We are joined this session by students from Antioch...
The Leviathan in Jewish Legend
This week, painting leader Nick Farnham has been developing and painting the Leviathan. We wanted to share some information about the origins of this creature in Jewish legend.
Some scholars believe that the Leviathan is based upon similar legends that belonged to ancient peoples the Jews came into contact with. For instance, the Canaanite sea monster Lotan or the Babylonian sea goddess...
May 2012
7 posts
Truth/Stories
This tradition has been carried over from last summer: every morning we meet to discuss the day and these meetings will end with a poem or a few words of reflection. This morning Rick shared a passage introduced and read by Bob Smith during the timber framing workshop last summer in Sanok, Poland: While the sign there may say Gwozdiec Reconstruction, I think it is important to remember that...
Today was an exciting day! After a week of preparation and testing, paint is finally going on the boards! The background colors are on the four pendentives and the vines are being traced and painted. Students and painting leaders have been working on narrowing down color choices for borders and details. Our goal is to finish the pendentives by the end of this session. Everyone is working hard and...
Day 1 Gdansk
The Gwozdziec Synagogue Reconstruction Project of summer 2012 has begun!!! We will be working for the next two weeks in a wonderful, active synagogue in Gdansk. This morning we met the four Polish and one Belarusian student that will be working with us during the first painting session. They were immediately tossed into the signature Handshouse “organized chaos” as the delivery truck...
March 2012
1 post
WatchCheck out our new Kickstarter campaign to bring a film crew with us this summer and donate if you can! We’re offering some great incentives!
