Spring has Sprung

Spring is finally here and I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with @moshgansart who painted this gorgeous floral border with the most delicious textures and uplifting colors—which also happen to match our collection of alebrijes (pic #3).

I have loved our collaboration from day one, honored to hand-letter the text for this ketubah, and am also glad that the wedding, like so many others which had to be delayed this past year, is finally back on!

Mazel Tov, Happy Spring, Happy Passover and Nowruz, Shabbat Shalom, and most importantly—everyone stay safe and well so we can get back to celebrating good times together in person.

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Blessings for Home

New hand-painted Home Blessings!

It looks like the pandemic is going to be keeping us home more often for a while longer yet. Wherever you call home, we could all use more peace and happier and healthier times.

Each blessing is painted on 8x8” watercolor paper and reads:

“May happiness, health, blessings, livelihood, and peace rest within this home.”

Please contact me for price and to customize colors for your home or as a gift.

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We Remember

There is no substitute for hearing and learning from the stories of those who bore witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Growing up, Gerda Weissmann Klein’s personal account as a survivor, her book All But My Life: A Memoir, had a significant impact on me—her recounting of humanity and inhumanity, friendship and family, hope, chance, small gifts and sacrifice, and the ultimate arrival of liberation and new love.

I had the great honor and pleasure of sharing a meal and visit with her a few years ago. I think especially of Gerda and other survivors having to watch the destructive hatred, racism, antisemitism, fascism, and general disregard for the sanctity of all human life that has continued to permeate our society and rear its ugly head.

I think of so, so many people we lose to hatred and inaction, and feel a renewed sense of urgency to listen while we have the opportunity so that “Never Again” does not become an empty promise.

Here are just some of the memorials from around the world (Israel, Berlin, Hungary, Holland, U.S., Italy) that for me best express the immense and profound loss.

Honoring the New Year of Trees, 5781

Ketubah with Tree, Ketubah and Tree, Ketubah of Tree, Ketubah in Tree….

Happy Tu B’Shevat, aka New Year of the Trees and Jewish Arbor Day, observed on this, the 15th (tu) of the Hebrew month of Shvat!

May this next year be a time of growth, better health, renewal, and greater awareness of our environment and impact.

Images left to right: Poetic Hebrew phrase with cut paper details, Red Earth ketubah text next to vintage paper with a red tree motif, Ketubah text written on a large piece of sanded and polished wood, circular Ketubah text written for collaboration with artist Ali Dachis of @mayimarts.

KG at the Table

Capiz shell table place cards!

After creating A & A’s ketubah, they asked me to hand-letter the place cards for their wedding reception.

Such a beautiful and creative idea they had to use these iridescent and translucent shells with Marine Blue ink (which also matched their ketubah) for their wedding on the coast of southern France.

Table place cards are just one of the hand-lettered commissions Ketubah Graphia is available for in addition to custom ketubahs.

Just Write

Happy National Handwriting Day!

I have always enjoyed the written word--the process of creating letters, the meditative, tactile, and patient experience, the various writing instruments and materials, and looking at other people's handwriting--each as unique as the individuals themselves.

Besides handwritten letters to loved ones, writing ketubahs for people's weddings and other lifecycle events is one of the most enjoyable and meaningful things for me. I consider it such an honor to hand-letter each couple's vows to one another. While I do so, I am thinking about the people for whom I'm writing--the meaning of the words they're exchanging and the commitment they're making to one another. I am composing shapes and positive and negative spaces that make up each letter of the various different languages in which I write. I am enjoying the way ink sits on paper and the sound of pen to paper, and appreciating the opportunity and necessity to slow down, concentrate, and create, especially in our increasingly fast-paced and digital world.

Write a little something--anything--in honor of this day.

Going Dutch for a Trilingual Ketubah

Adding additional languages to a ketubah is a special way to honor your various backgrounds, be inclusive of different sides of your family and make the reading and ritual of the ketubah more accessible, and offer an opportunity to include even more color as well as texture into the ketubah.

I have previously hand-lettered up to four languages side-by-side on a ketubah. This is the first time writing in Dutch, and the first time a couple has requested my interlinear format for three languages. Whenever possible I try to match up lines so that what you read in one line is echoed in the other language underneath. Luckily, for this trilingual ketubah in Hebrew, English, and Dutch, I was able to sync all three languages from start to finish.

This ketubah is written in the ink colors pearlescent Dutch Blue (naturally!), pearlescent Birdwing Copper, and Cool Grey (all made by Daler-Rowney), surrounded with the ’Infinite’ border design, and further decorated with a Hebrew poetic phrase which translates to, “When I go forth to find you, I find you seeking me.”

Sign of the Times

Sharing these gorgeous ketubah-signing photos I received from Erika and Michael from their recent wedding. Thank you, E & M, for giving me the honor of making your ketubah and the pleasure of designing something with you that I hope you’ll cherish together for many more joyous and loving moments!

Photos by @starfishstudiosfl

We Made It

This design was originally commissioned as the cover of a gift for my Uncle Hillel's 65th birthday. It is a combination of his name, הלל, and the Shehechiyanu prayer which celebrates special occasions and thanks God for granting us life, sustaining us, and bringing us to reach this time.

Since his name shares the same root letters and meaning as the psalm of praise and thanksgiving called the Hallel, הלל (clearly in both English and Hebrew), I hope my uncle is okay with my repurposing his gift for today's momentous inauguration. This can still be a time of thanksgiving even amongst division, hardship, and much work ahead.

The pre-eminent scholar and teacher, Hillel, after whom my uncle was named, was known for his kindness and ethics and many recognizable sayings, including two that feel particularly relevant and poignant today:

“If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I?
And if not now, then when?”

and

“Do not judge your fellow until you come to his place.”

I post this for today's changing of guards and for having reached this day; as gratitude for the health and safety of my family and friends, including my cousin (my uncle's daughter) in DC; for our teachers--current and throughout history; and as a reminder of our responsibilities to one another in hopes that this country can begin a new kinder, more ethical, peaceful, just, healthy, informed, and honest chapter together.... starting now.

Happy Hanukkah from Ketubah Graphia

A short animated greeting for Hanukkah:

No Sleep 'til Lovesick Brooklyn!

Only 2 days until the Lovesick Expo at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, and Ketubah Graphia is busy getting ready to kick off 2015 at the coolest wedding event around.

Contact me if you're in town and want to come as my guests this Sunday, 11 am - 3 pm!

www.lovesickexpo.com