“From the Four Corners”

2002

COLLABORATION WITH LAYA CRUST • TORONTO ONTARIO

HONOURING THE MEMORY OF JACKIE SCHAU RAND

COLLECTION OF OHEL MOSHE SYNAGOGUE AND MUSEUM, SHANGHAI CHINA

Our contribution to the “Gift of Friendship” project is inspired by a typical Ming Dynasty stem bowl. Instead of porcelain our bowl is paper, another material that the Chinese invented and highly developed.

Collaged on the outside are four antique maps. Meandering silk and gold thread represents wanderings of the Jewish people. Inside the bowl the maps and various handmade papers form the petals of a lotus. One petal shows Jackie. Her family moved from Russia to China where she was born and lived until 1957.

The lotus is also a compass pointing to the band of cursive calligraphy of a text from Isaiah: “May He gather us together from the four corners of the earth”.