LittleOneInTheCap

Little One in the Cap started with my jewelry, but I have worked in other media for some time now. My latest project is to create and share silk painting challah covers that are interesting, fun, engaging, and beautiful--and that convey themes and passages from Jewish liturgy or scripture.

My desire to make the silk challah covers was born from wanting to work with a more fluid medium than acrylic on canvas, to bring a more explicitly spiritual element to my work, and to create usable art that people would be able to enjoy, touch, and use to celebrate.

As I thought more about my goals, I realized that most challah covers I have seen have a rather limited set of images and phrases on them, and rarely have I seen one that speaks to me either from a Jewish or artistic perspective. And so the project was born: to create artistically and liturgically interesting silk painting challah covers, which could be hung on the wall just as easily as used on the Shabbat table.

I started to collect images and landscapes as well as phrases and lines from liturgy, poetry, song, and Biblical sources. And when I began to design and paint my challah covers, I found it a very gratifying process and medium for me.

The Process

All of my silk challah covers start on a frame that holds them taut above the table so that the paint can flow and not get muddled. I work with a variety of paints, some very thin that function almost as dyes, and some much thicker that sit on (rather than soak into) the fabric. I also use water-based resist to define specific areas for painting. The paints are heat set.