Sonia was drawn to calligraphy while she was in high school and college and was studying Jewish texts. When she learned about the tradition of the Name Pasuk ("Name Verse") from Rabbi Sidney Greenberg z"l, back in the early 2000's, she immediately felt compelled to represent this tradition of linking a person's name to Tanakh (Scriptures) visually and that's what she's been doing ever since. (Learn more about the Name Pasuk at pasukart.com)


Along the way, the intersection of ancient Jewish texts and modern life have inspired her to create artwork with many other texts including the "Asher Yatzar" blessing for the body, "Aishet Chayil", "Ani l'dodi" and the list goes on.


"When I am in shul I notice words that I've said hundreds of times pop out. I find myself wanting to spend time with them, dwell within the words, bringing out their meaning. So I sketch them- sometimes a hundred different ways, other times just once- and come up with a layout and design that communicate something subtle about the words and their meaning."


A selection of these pieces are available as art prints in Sonia's Etsy shop.


In the last 10 years, Sonia and her mom, Philadelphia-based potter Nina Gordon, have worked in collaboration on ceramic bowls and sculptures with Hebrew carved into them.


Sonia and Nina describe their inspiration:
"We were inspired to merge texts and bowls when we learned about ancient incantation bowls from an Israel Museum exhibit catalogue. We started with bowls for healing, and have expanded to serving bowls with the Hebrew blessings for foods, mindfulness bowls with the saying "Gam zu l'tova", "L'dor v'dor" bowls and more. At our friends' requests we created bowls with blessings for celebrating an engagement, wedding or anniversary. All of our bowls are physical vessels for our prayers and blessings.


How do you make the bowls?:
"My mom throws a series of bowls on the wheel, then she lets them dry for a few days so they're leather hard- not too soft, not too hard. We get together and look at each bowl and choose which verse or phrase we want to carve into it. I do the initial carving, and then we go over each letter and carve the letters deeper. I plan out the letters in my mind, but the actual writing feels spontaneous on the smooth, moist surface of the clay. Then my mom takes care to let the bowls gradually dry over the next week or so. She does a bisque firing (first firing). Then she glazes the bowls so beautifully and fires them a second time.


What is one thing that's special about working with your mom?
"As a child I watched my mom draw with paper and pen as she talked on the phone. I loved her stream-of-consciousness doodling and saw a connection between her "phone doodles" and the structured patterns she carved into her clay bowls and clay lamps. When we started working together we organically incorporated these designs into our letters- illuminating the texts with rich textures. When we are working in my mom's clay studio it is easy to enter a relaxed state of focus. There are very few distractions and the sounds and smells are comforting. In this state the designs flow from within."