Creation Through Language (with Elisheva)
בריאה באמצעות שפה
(עם אלישבע)
Mixed media, January 2004
At an estate sale in Westchester I chanced upon a box of little boxes, 22 of them. This is about language, I decided, since there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, but I was at a loss for a long time, how to continue. I do not remember the associative thought process that led me to the dusty, warped and stained poster of the Sistine hands half hidden behind the desk. When I scattered the boxes on God and Adam's hands I knew God was creating by means of language. The plastic letter cubes followed suit, and finally the strip of cotton tape bearing the vowels emerged from God's hand. God's presence in language is in the vowels, the breath, 'ruah elohim'. You could say God plays hide-and-seek in the vowels of God's unpronounceable four letter name, YHWH.
