Master of Fine Art Thesis
Blue Milk and Other Short Stories
Gabrielle Egnater
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirement for the degree of Master of Fine Arts, School of Art and Design Division of Sculpture/Dimensional Studies New York State College of
Ceramics at Alfred University Alfred, New York
2023
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Gabrielle Egnater, MFA
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Coral Lambert, Thesis Advisor
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William Wheeler, Thesis Advisor
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Joey Quiñones, Thesis Advisor
Abstract
Blue Milk and Other Short Storiesis an exhibition and written thesis that engages in a type of world building or judeo-futurism. Blue Milk is an invented product in an invented world; influenced by the mythology of Techelet or “biblical blue”, the moral fable of the golden calf, the 1971 adaptation ofFiddler on the Roof, and the artist's own fraught relationship with healthcare. These influences and moments of fantasy help develop and question what is considered to be sinful, holy, hurting, and healing.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my thesis advisors Coral Lambert, William Wheeler, and Joey Quiñones along with the faculty of Sculpture/Dimensional Studies (SDS) Rebecca Arday, Angus Powers, Gali Greenspan, Sarah Blood, and Stephanie Lifshutz for their guidance; all those who helped put together the exhibition Vanessa Rivera Saltos, Victoria Angier, Josie Fasolino, Mike Shultz, Erin Taylor;
and all the participants of the Fall 2022 Sculpture Foundry Course, SDS Seniors, and SDS Grads who helped me tip my cow.
Introduction
My work focuses on American Ashkenazi and Jewish history. Influenced by my reformed Jewish community in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, I have explored how Jewishness has assimilated into Americanness. I am drawn to these moments of assimilation in the way I can capture them, create them, or manipulate them through world building. Engaging in a type of time travel or time removal.
In previous works, I have grabbed at cultural touch points such as the delicatessen, the holiday ritual, and the holocaust memorial. These points allow me to build a discussion while remaining within the laws of aniconism stated in the second commandment1. I am building a discussion about religion and culture without directly representing the figures of the religion. This places my work in a position to respectfully question and play with humor, irony, and violence; three things that are synonymous with the American Ashkenazi experience.
InBlue Milk and Other Short Stories,my work engages in a type of world building or judeo-futurism. Blue Milk is an invented product in an invented world;
influenced by the mythology of Techelet or “biblical blue”, the moral fable of the golden calf, the 1971 movie adaptation ofFiddler on the Roof, and my own fraught relationship with healthcare. The exhibition explores Blue Milk through
1“You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.” David E. Stein and Adele Berlin,
“Exodus 20,” inThe Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006).
costumes, tools, and containers captured through photography, fibers, metal fabrication, and metal casting.
The Cow
In my thesis, I am using several references to the cow such as the story of the golden calf, the 1971 adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof, and the history of milk consumption in relation to Jewish genetics. My interest in the cow was first influenced by the Old Testament's morally driven story of the golden calf. In the Torah, there is a moral fable about when the Jewish people wandered the desert and Moses left them to climb Mount Sinai to retrieve the ten commandments. In that time, the people lost faith in g-d and decided to create a new icon, a golden calf. An excerpt from Exodus states, “When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.”2
In response to this narrative, I created a digital simulation of a melting calf.
I was interested in the story as it transformed the image of a calf into the
representation of sin and loss of faith. However, I was also interested in the story from the perspective of a craftsperson and metalcaster. If the calf was “burned..in the fire” and “ground.. to powder”. How was this achieved? What did it look like?
2Eugene H. Peterson, “Exodus 32,” inThe Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).
Using a 3D modeling software, I uploaded a calf model and melted it in a digitally simulated space. I manipulated the speed and type of melt to result in a variety of mutilated or morphed calves. These digitally rendered calves visually resemble a mountain or landscape in their solidity, yet also resemble viscous oozing and puddles.
Molten Calf/ 2022 / bronze molten calf / 1’ x 1’ x 1’
I combined several of these models so multiple calves blended into one sculptural object. This object was 3-D printed and taken through the ceramic shell process. The process references the old testament's story by burning the polylactic acid of the 3-D print out of the ceramic shell and melting bronze to pour back into its place. Though the calf is known as the “golden” calf, many
interpretations of the story state that the people melted down their “jewelry” to create the idol. As most jewelry is not created from solid gold, this results in the
alloy of bronze (a mixed metal) to be an accurate representation of the mixed metals and elements.
By reimagining the story of the golden calf, my work is paired with a religiously defiant and questioning undertone. I never create a fully formed golden calf, but I create something that points at it. I question what is truly sinful while being mindful of the second commandment. Using a digital process, in this questioning, adds a clinical and contemporary approach that further separates it from direct mimicry. Though this work was created a year prior to my thesis work, it has unintentionally become the starting point of my thesis research,
Moving from the biblical, the second reference to cows, or more accurately the dairy they produce, that I utilize is fromFiddler on the Roof. The version of Fiddler on the Roof that I reference is the 1971 movie adaptation of the fictional short story compilationTevye the Dairyman, which was written in 1894 by
Shalom Aleichem. With over five Broadway revivals starting in 1964, Aleichem’s story has taken on many forms and alternate narratives. In the 1971 movie adaptation, we follow the life of Tevye, the village's dairyman, living in early 1900’s Tsarist Russia. As his life slowly unravels throughout the story due to his daughters challenging his traditions and the pogroms sweeping across Russia, his horse goes lame and Tevye is forced to pull the dairy cart to continue his business3.
Many aspects of this story, such as Tevye’s uniform and the town of Anatevka, have influenced my thesis work; however the movie’s focus on dairy
3“Fiddler on the Roof,” Encyclopedia.com (Encyclopedia.com), accessed February 2, 2023, https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/fiddler-roof.
becomes a juxtaposition for the history of the cow in Judaism. Growing up with Fiddler on the Roofand the story of Tevye,I always viewed dairy as an economic source for Eastern European Jews. Since opportunities and economic sources were limited for the Jewish people in Tsarist Russia4, having a business was a blessing. I am interested in the opposition or comparison between the sinful golden calf and the blessing of dairy in Fiddler on the Roof.
ThoughFiddler on the Rooffostered a generation of people connecting Tevye the dairyman with the general Jewish populace, the interactions of Jewish bodies and milk have a far darker history. One based in fact, rather than biblical storytelling. There have been multiple studies on the human ability to consume milk products, one of which was featured recently by the New York Times. The study claims that Early Europeans could not tolerate milk because they lacked the proper digestive enzymes. Despite the discomfort caused by this, they continued to drink the milk anyway to survive epidemics and famines5. Among that Eastern European population was a sect of the Jewish Diaspora named the Ashkenazi. The Ashkenazim developed during the middle ages after they had moved from Germany and France into Northern Europe and Eastern Europe6. Over 75 percent of the Jewish population lack the proper enzymes to digest
6“Ashkenazi,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., January 3, 2023), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ashkenazi.
5Carl Zimmer, “Early Europeans Could Not Tolerate Milk but Drank It Anyway, Study Finds,” The New York Times (The New York Times, July 27, 2022),
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/science/early-europeans-milk-tolerance.html.
4“Russia has never been a good place to be a Jew, particularly in the last century. The history of Russian Jewry is one of discrimination punctuated by episodes of violence leading to mass emigration.” Lambroza, Shlomo. “The Tsarist Government and the Pogroms of 1903-06.”Modern Judaism7, no. 3 (1987): 287–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1396423.
dairy7. The lack of proper enzymes in the Jewish population is a hint at the larger genetic issues of the Ashkenazim.
As many as one in three Ashkenazi Jews carry a genetic disease8. This fact has turned the Jewish people into the ideal guinea pigs for genetic mutation studies9. There are many theories as to why the Ashkenazi have a high risk for genetic diseases, though the most recent theories are relatively simple.
Wikipedia states it as Consanguineous Marriage and Population Bottlenecks10, which are nice ways of saying Inbreeding and massacres. These facts, combined with the story of the golden calf, connect dairy and the cow with a history of violence, sin, and self-harm. This is ironic form of harm, given the fact that many Ashkenazim have and still use milk as an economic source globally, especially in the kosher dairy industry11.
This research of cow imagery in Jewish history and popular culture has fed into my thesis showBlue Milk and Other Short Storiesby utilizing the form of udders and milk cans. A major piece in my thesis work is a cast aluminum udder shaped basin set into a sheet steel table and steel pipe legs.
I was interested in creating an udder basin or sink to simulate or reference the act of bodily creation. Udders are responsible for creating, carrying, and
11“OK Certified Restaurants,” OK Kosher Certification, September 29, 2020, https://www.ok.org/consumers/ok-certified-restaurants/.
10“Medical Genetics of Jews.”Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Apr. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_genetics_of_Jews.
9Harry Ostrer and Karl Skorecki, “The Population Genetics of the Jewish People,”Human Genetics132, no. 2 (October 2012): pp. 119-127, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00439-012-1235-6.
8National Gaucher Foundation, “The 5 Most Common Ashkenazi Genetic Diseases ,” National Gaucher Foundation, March 24, 2022,
https://www.gaucherdisease.org/blog/5-common-ashkenazi-genetic-diseases/.
7Josie Glausiusz, “Jewish Genetics: 75% of Jews Are Lactose Intolerant ,” Haaretz.com (Haaretz, July 8, 2015),
https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2015-07-08/ty-article/.premium/12-facts-about-jewis h-genetics/0000017f-f808-d044-adff-fbf9706f0000.
expelling a life-supporting source and product. The use of aluminum and a work table evolve the work into something mechanized or simulated. Something that links it closer to its role in capitalism.
Udder Basin/ 2023 / cast aluminum udder basin, steel table, blue milk, rubber / 4’ x 5’ x 5’
Aluminum is a light, cheap, and readily available material that is common in manufacturing.The steel fabrication of the frame and table top references the form of a lab table, or a kitchen table. Something sterile, feeding, and violent. The technique of casting an udder basin links it to the kitchen sink. Something that references the domestic without ever formally embodying the domestic. This is a method to not fully give into the simulated or provide a sense of opposition.
The form of a cow udder may be received as familiar or unfamiliar. Though I have spent time with this form, it is not familiar to me. I grew up in a city, with opposing experiences to the local population of Alfred, New York, where there is an intimate connection with dairy and cows. In the area, I have been exposed to dairy plants specializing in cheese, milk, and sour cream; where most of the employees jump from plant to plant for better opportunities. This relationship to dairy pushes it further away from a life nurturing source, and towards a product of a capitalist system. Something sacred that is now engaged with something
exploitive, more exploitative than Tevye’s one dairy cow.
In the pattern making process of the udder basin, I aimed for a realistic depiction of a cow udder. I focused on the outside form of the udder, knowing that the core or center would be exposed after the mold making and casting process.
While building up and sculpting the pattern out of foam, the peer and advising feedback likened the form to a more sexual or Louise bourgeois object than intended. I am not against the interpretations; however, I think that once the udders were flipped and part of a frame, the causes of those associations were taken away.
The mold making process quickly turned into a challenge. The udders required a 3-part 1,2000 lb sand mold. The challenges were exacerbated by time, equipment, and labor. After creating the pattern, I focused solely on the technical aspects of moldmaking and castings. Something that stunted my conceptual understanding of the work.
Now having sat with the work, I am interested in how it relates to the simulated molten calf I made a year ago; a disembodied representation of sin.
The udder basin started from the idea of Blue milk, but I have begun to use it as an outlet to consider the balance between sinful and holy and/or hurting or healing.
Beyond the form of the udder, I have utilized the form of the milk can and milk lid. I am interested in how a milk can, based on size and shape, can point to a specific place and time in history12. A skill that has been commodified in the antiques circuit.
Knowing that a milk can can be reliably placed in a specific space and time from its form, I questioned what form would point to the place and time in whichBlue Milk and Other Short Storiesexists. The milk cans I have produced are made from cast aluminum to utilize the same mechanization and coldness as the cast aluminum udder basin. To create the redesigned milk can, I used a found milk can to use as a pattern, and created a three-part resin sand mold to cast a hollow vessel.
For the milk can lid and adorning bells created from PLA, I have been influenced by the forms of Torah crowns. When not in use, Torah scrolls13are often dressed in different types of adornments such as a mantle cloth, a shield, and/or crowns. A Torah Crown is usually placed on both of the Torah scroll
13“The written Torah, in the restricted sense of the first five books of the Bible, is preserved in all Jewish synagogues on handwritten parchment scrolls that reside inside the ark of the Law. They are removed and returned to their place with special reverence.”“Torah,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), accessed February 12, 2023,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Torah.
12Kate Miller-Wilson, “How to Date Old Milk Cans,” LoveToKnow (LoveToKnow, July 28, 2022), https://antiques.lovetoknow.com/antique-price-guides/how-date-old-milk-cans#:~:text=Milk%20ca n%20designs%20changed%20frequently,date%20that%20patent%20was%20issued.
handles. It acts in the same way a crown would for a king or queen, to represent power and separation from the common.
I am interested in combining the Torah crown form with a milk can lid as a way to combine the religious with the daily, to mark the importance of the daily, to embrace the irony of religious intervention on a capitalist product, or to embrace the irony of religion as a capitalist product.
Milk Cans and Helmet/ 2023 / cast aluminum milk cans, 3D printed milk can lids, 3D printed bells, modified helmet / 5’ x 6’ x 2’
The Lost Blue
In my thesis, I am looking at and utilizing the connection between Jewishness and blue. I grew up with the assumption that blue was Jewish and Jewish was blue. This was reinforced by Hanukkah decorations, ritual garb, candles, the Israeli flag, holocaust uniforms etc. Through my research of tzitzit, I discovered that this blue had a history, that I was utilizing the idea of blue rather than a pantone shade of blue.
This idea of blue is often known as “biblical blue”, “techelet”, “the rarest blue”, and “the lost blue”14. The alternate spellings of techelet include but are not limited to tekhelet, tekheleth, t'chelet and techeiles15. These multitude of
references further support the elusive and mythological history of this “Jewish blue”.
The lost blue refers to a blue dye first used in ancient Mediterranean civilization16. This dye was commonly used for tzitzit, a Jewish ritual fringe. The source and processing of this dye eventually became lost. Neither the Old Testament norTalmud17explicitly states the source or method of production for the dye. However, a section of theTalmud describes the source as, “its body
17“commentative and interpretative writings that hold a place in the Jewish religious tradition second only to the Bible (Old Testament). The Hebrew term Talmud (“study” or “learning”) commonly refers to a compilation of ancient teachings regarded as sacred and normative by Jews”“Talmud and Midrash,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), accessed February 12, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Talmud.
16Talmudology, “Menachot 42b ~ How Do You Make Techelet?,” Talmudology (Talmudology, September 21, 2018),
https://www.talmudology.com/jeremybrownmdgmailcom/2018/8/28/menachot-42b-what-is-techele t.
15“Home,” Techeiles Chabura, September 15, 2021, https://www.techeiles.org/.
14Baruch Sterman and Judy Taubes Sterman,The Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered(Jerusalem: Ptil Tekhelet, 2017).
resembles the sea, its form resembles that of a fish, it emerges once in seventy years, and with its blood one dyes wool sky blue for ritual fringes.”18Though the Talmuddoes not explicitly state the source, it does explicitly state how to test that it is the right blue: “The Gemara asks: And is there no method for testing sky-blue wool? But didn’t Rav Yitzḥak, son of Rav Yehuda, test it to ensure it was dyed withtekhelet? The Gemara provides a mnemonic for the test, which was carried out with items whose names contain the lettersgimmel,shin, ormem. He would bring alum clay [megavya gila], and water of fenugreek [shavlilta], and urine [meimei raglayim]”19to complete the test.
Only within the past hundred years has there been an agreed upon theory for the identity of the source; Murex Trunculus, a sea-snail commonly used to create a purple dye, but when the hypobranchial gland is exposed to sunlight and harvested, it creates a sky blue20. This violent and ancient process has been resurrected by companies like Ptil Tekhelet. They have produced over 200,000 pairs of the ritual Jewish fringe from the traditional source. Ptil Tekhelet are actively remaking and reviving the mythology of tekhelet21.
I am interested in “the lost blue”– I am interested in the idea of a lost color that, even when lost, manages to define the aesthetic of Jewishness. This blue is not defined by shade, but by talmudic alchemy or context clues. It is a blue that I
21“Homepage,” Ptil Tekhelet, December 26, 2022, https://www.tekhelet.com/.
20“How Is Tekhelet Made,” Ptil Tekhelet, April 13, 2018, https://www.tekhelet.com/how-is-tekhelet-made/.
19Adin Steinsaltz, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, and Joshua Schreier, “Menachot 42b,” inKoren Talmud Bavli, the noé Edition. Talmud Bavli(Jerusalem: Shefa Foundation, 2017).
18Adin Steinsaltz, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, and Joshua Schreier, “Menachot 44a,” inKoren Talmud Bavli, the noé Edition. Talmud Bavli(Jerusalem: Shefa Foundation, 2017).
have chosen to define the aesthetic of my thesis. Each sculptural object is either blue or defined by the lack of blue.
I want to visually represent the lost blue in a way that does not require me to hunt and process an almost extinct sea creature located on another continent.
It is a conceptual decision and a moral decision. I am comfortable embracing the evolutions and replacements of this blue that have naturally manifested in dyes such as Indigo. It is a continuation of the lost blue’s history.
When “Blue” becomes an idea, representing the idea of a color becomes an elusive concept to explore. My solution has been to engage with this idea of blue by using blues that feel like Techelet; admittedly an extremely biased
approach. In discussion with Alfred University Faculty and artist Gali Greenspan, she said there is no exact translation of Techelet from Hebrew to English. The closest is maybe a light blue. However, it is a blue that I have a feeling of because of my lived experience growing up in an American Ashkenazi Jewish community.
I have chosen to work with the blues that I feel, the blues that I have seen and maybe don’t understand, the blues in my temple’s judaica store, the blues that I fear. Sometimes those blues reference more tzitzit or more holocaust or more Target hanukkah outfits. These have manifested as indigo dye, blue acrylic, blue marker, blue rit dye, blue fabric, blue yarn, blue candles, blue paper. A color study.
Udder Basin/ 2023 / cast aluminum udder basin, steel table, blue milk, rubber / 4’ x 5’ x 5’
This research into the lost blue combined with the cow imagery in Jewish history and culture, led me to create Blue Milk, an invented product in an
invented world. When introducing the idea of Blue Milk. I feel like I am
disagreeing with someone when they say the sky is blue. I take an American fact of white milk, that can occasionally be flavored with chocolate or strawberry, and call it blue. I am interested in the references I get with the mention of Blue Milk;
most often thought of as the drink from Star Wars or a reference to the often required high school readingGathering Blue, references to fantasy and other worlds.
Visually, the Blue milk can be read as spoiled or contaminated; filled with sediment, bubbles, and pigment. The bright pigments might even speak to an unnatural chemical in the liquid. I am interested in the combination of the spoiled with the other worldly as a link or parallel to the holy and the sinful.
The Uniforms and Tools
In my thesis exhibition,Blue Milk and Other Short Stories, I am utilizing the uniform/costume and object/tool to explore assimilation, capitalism,
world-building, and once again, the 1971 classic movie,Fiddler on the Roof.
When referring toFiddler on the Roof in the uniforms, I am moving beyond the references to diary and the cow and towards the town of Anatevka alongside Tevye’s personal narrative.
Exhibition Documentation / 2023
Anatevka is the fictional village that was first depicted in Shalom Aleichem’s 1894 short story compilation and has been kept through the
Broadway and movie adaptations of this story. Though Anatevka does not exist, the fictional space has been brought into contemporary times as the namesake for several Jewish refugee communities. Ukraine22, Croatia23and many other countries have created Anatevkas. Though I understand the desire to use the name of a village from a beloved Jewish story, there is an irony to the namesake.
A main plot point of Fiddler on the Roof are the pogroms sweeping through
23“Anatevka Jewish Refugee Community,” Anatevka, accessed March 17, 2023, https://www.anatevka.com/.
22Simona Weinglass, “Inside Anatevka, the Curious Chabad Hamlet in Ukraine Where Giuliani Is 'Mayor',” The Times of Israel, January 31, 2020,
https://www.timesofisrael.com/inside-anatevka-the-curious-chabad-hamlet-in-ukraine-where-giulia ni-is-mayor/.
Russia. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines pogroms as “an organized massacre of helpless people / specifically: such a massacre of Jews.” Between 1881 and 1924 more than two million Jews left Russia due to inhospitable
conditions24. These conditions were represented in the fictional town of Anatevka, which resulted in Tevye and his remaining family being forced out of their homes.
I question if these contemporary Anatevkas take the name in defiance of being pushed out of their homes or are tempting fate by taking the name of a village that has already kicked out all its Jews. I am interested in Anatevka as a namesake for this strange irony of hope, defiance, and possible foolishness.
Anatevka has appeared in my work for the last year in the form of a brand;
a consumer brand and a physical brand. Sometimes represented by an “A”, it is filled with the same isolation as the scarlet letter, but a blue letter. I have screen printed, bedazzled, stamped, and 3-D printed “Anatevka” and “A” on clothing and objects to muse on its irony. While these words do not show up in the current iteration ofBlue Milk and Other Short Stories, it is still the impetus and framework for the world of Blue Milk.
My work features three uniforms. The first uniform was originally made as a solution to one of Tevye’s problems that occurred throughout the plot of the 1971Fiddler on the Roof. As Tevye’s horse went lame and he decided to pull his dairy delivery cart, I was struck by Tevye's choice to physically take the place of a horse and his choice to pull a cart with only two milk cans. It speaks to his work ethic, constant focus on economic stability, and maybe the foolishness of both. I
24“From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America: A Century of Immigration, 1820-1924,” Library of Congress, September 9, 2004,
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html.
wanted to approach the problem with a solution, one that mimicked a human-centered design approach.
Milk Delivery Suit/ 2023 / suit, milk bottles / 4’ x 4’ x 4’
Instead of a cart, I created a milk delivery uniform that features chaps and aprons filled with pockets that would fit in the world-building of Blue Milk. They are visually similar to foundry chaps and cooking aprons. Both things I find familiar, comfortable, and laboring. I am interested in how a crisp uniform made for one individual's labor speaks to a larger industry. Reinventing mythology or
tradition for the use of commodifying a product is not a new trend in Judaism.
Elliot Weiss explains the motive for this in “Packaging Jewishness: Novelty and Tradition in Kosher Packaging”, when he states that “references to tradition help to obscure the paradoxical effect in which the very mass production processes that make a packaged product possible are the same processes responsible for eroding traditional production methods and practices.” In trying to escape the irony of a man pulling a horse cart, the uniform has found itself in the irony of commodifying a tradition.
Ghillie Suit/ 2023 / modified snow ghillie suit, western fringe, jewish ritual fringe / 4’ x 4’ x 4’
The second uniform is a ghillie suit, metaphorically used to find and gather the sea snails used in the creation of Blue milk. The suit addresses visual
assimilation through its camouflage to the environment and represents diasporic assimilation through the use of Jewish ritual fringe and western fringe. The ghillie suit was created from a modified snow ghillie suit. It was stripped of its short white fringe, dyed blue, and adorned with hand sewn fringes.
My interest in Jewish ritual fringe combined with western fringe, stems from the immigration story of Nudie Cohn the tailor. Cohn, bornNuta
Kotlyarenko, was an Eastern European Jew who fled Tsarist Russia. A similar story to our tragic hero Tevye. However, Cohn was able to reinvent himself in 1940’s Hollywood, CA. In this Golden Age of Hollywood, Cohn opened “Nudie’s of Hollywood” and defined the over-the-top western aesthetic seen in his iconic designs for stars such as Elvis Presley and Elton John25. Informed by this story and my own experience as an Askenazi Jew in Los Angeles, western fringe could be seen as the assimilated, atheistic, and unknotted evolution of the Jewish ritual fringe.
The cultural assimilation in the fringe is also mirrored in the visual
assimilation of the garment. Ghillie suits are classified as camouflage for snow, forest, sand etc. This suit was modified from snow to fit in the world of Blue Milk.
Something that could camouflage with the bottom of the ocean, something that could camouflage with the feeling of a Jewish Blue. The camouflage visually assimilates to its environment in the same way that many objects of Jewish
25“History,” The Official Nudie's Rodeo Tailors Website, accessed March 17, 2023, http://www.nudiesrodeotailor.com/new-page-1.
culture have visually assimilated to their environment; objects such as the Jewish tile work in Morocco and Spain or the Stars of David in theGrand Choral
Synagogue of St. Petersburg.
Ghillie Suit/ 2023 / modified snow ghillie suit, western fringe, jewish ritual fringe / 4’ x 4’ x 4’
The garment represents Jewish objects assimilating to their environment.
But similar to cultural assimilation, there is a double edged sword. Harvard University’s Pluralism Project States that “Jews have been a visible and
significant part of American life from the inauguration of George Washington to the present day. Their success, however, has wrought the challenge of
assimilation, which joins antisemitism as one of the two major threats to Jewish existence.” In my liberal, reformed, Ashkenazi community, assimilation was not looked down upon. However with the rise of Antisemitism in the post-Trump era26, there seems to be a call for outward Jewish pride. This brings into question what has been camouflaged? Why? How?
The third garment plays with the uniform of a doctor or surgeon with a long white coat featuring three ties in the back and elastic cuffs. The coat is paired with a mask featuring a distorted cow head cast in aluminum. The mask form mimics the plastic face shield often worn in medical spaces with a large band around the backside of the head. The work continues with the issues of assimilation and Jewish genetic health.
The Jewish people are often depicted as disease carrying animals or something not quite human27. The depictions range from pigs, vermin, witches, and cannibals. This trope has been taken on by anti-semitic propaganda and has evolved into a slightly self-deprecating Jewish humor. The most popular Jewish take on this zoomorphism is Art Speigelman’sMaus, a graphic novel retelling his family’s experience in the Holocaust with the Jewish people depicted as mice and the Nazi’s depicted as cats28. The cow mask continues this tradition of
28Art Spiegelman,Maus(Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verl., 2004).
27 “500 Years of Antisemtic Propaganda,” United States holocaust Memorial museum (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), accessed March 17, 2023,
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/500-years-of-a ntisemitic-propaganda.
26Michelle Boorstein and Isaac Arnsdorf, “Overt U.S. Antisemitism Returns with Trump, Kanye West: 'Something Is Different',” The Washington Post (WP Company, October 28, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/10/27/antisemitism-kanye-trump-adidas-jews/.
zoomorphic Jews with a little less self deprecation. It questions unholiness rather than inhumanness. I identify with the cow in the way that, as a woman and
human, my body is viewed as a space for production. And having been dealing with a chronic illness the past year, I identify with being stuck in a system based on my ability to produce.
Medical Suit/ 2023 / suit, cast aluminum cow mask, gloves / 4’ x 4’ x 4’
In addition to the garment, there are tools meant to be used in the rituals around the udder basin and the world-building of Blue Milk. The first pair of tools
are meant to be used in the mixing and gathering of Blue Milk. Similar to the length of a staff, they each mimic the forms of a Torah crown and a yad. A “yad”, the Hebrew word for hand, is a small shaft fixed to a miniature representation of a pointing hand. The yad is used as a place marker while reading a Torah scroll to prevent touching the scroll29. The first staff is adorned with modified Torah crown forms and ends in a life-sized pointing hand or enlarged yad. The second staff is adorned with modified Torah crown forms but ends in two life-sized hands forming a cup. The staffs act as a humorous ode to the yad, a distancing
between human and action, and a dismemberment of body that is reflected in the representation of cow throughout the thesis.
29“Yad,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), accessed March 17, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/yad.
Tools/ 2023 / cast aluminum hands, cast aluminum torah crown, wood / 4’ x 5’ x 4’
Tools/ 2023 / cast aluminum hands, cast aluminum torah crown, wood / 4’ x 5’ x 4’
The Sinful, The Holy, The Hurting, and The Healing
Milk and Techelet are both viewed as holy while having the capacity and history to engage in sin. This dichotomy is reflected in their ability to heal and harm, in a spiritual and literal sense. Maybe the two sides of the coin are inextricably linked. However I am interested in the hypocritical and ironic
contextual space they create. Both are informed by violent histories and nurturing histories.
The history of the lost blue runs alongside the history of indigo; one cannot be discussed without the context of the other. In the ancient Middle East, the main source of blue dye, murex trunculus, was reserved for royalty and those
befitting the service of G-d. At the same time in the Far East and Africa, where murex was not known, indigo was reserved for royalty and considered a gift of the gods30. Each respective blue was claimed as holy and sequestered by a certain position in society. For centuries indigo claimed rank as the new prized and holy blue as production moved west and the shellfish dyeing process became lost.
Techelet, Indigo, and other blue dyes evolved from a holy conception and took on the role of something more aggressive. The stories surrounding blue dyes become filled and surrounded with harm and greed, something that seems at odds with the holy tradition. Julius Caesar once said, “All britons, in fact, stain themselves with woad, which produces a blue color, so that they are more terrifying to face in battle.”31With this knowledge, Caesar placed blue as a war winning color meant for battle. He later went on to introduce the restrictions regarding the use of purple clothing that was continued, in varying degrees, by many Roman emperors32. The ancient definition of “purple” was broad enough that tekhelet was included in these restrictions. Under Constantine's rules, the Talmudstates that a group of travelers were caught smuggling tekhelet to the Jews of babylonia33.
33Baruch Sterman and Judy Taubes Sterman, “The Missing Shade of Blue,” inThe Rarest Blue:
The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered(Jerusalem: Ptil Tekhelet, 2017).
32Baruch Sterman and Judy Taubes Sterman, “The Missing Shade of Blue,” inThe Rarest Blue:
The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered(Jerusalem: Ptil Tekhelet, 2017).
31Baruch Sterman and Judy Taubes Sterman, “Mood Indigo,” inThe Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered(Jerusalem: Ptil Tekhelet, 2017).
30Baruch Sterman and Judy Taubes Sterman, “Mood Indigo,” inThe Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered(Jerusalem: Ptil Tekhelet, 2017).
Milk Cans and Helmet/ 2023 / cast aluminum milk cans, 3D printed milk can lids, 3D printed bells, modified helmet / 5’ x 6’ x 2’
In continuation of the ancient stories of blue, the contemporary stories of Techelet are also a violent and additionally wasteful one. A video I often
reference, posted on YouTube by the writer ofThe Rarest Blue, features Nobel Prize winning chemist Ronald Hoffman learning how to process the shellfish dye, Techelet. After breaking open the shell with a hammer and cutting into the gland with an xacto knife, Hoffman asks “you can’t eat this?” and his unnamed
companion responds that you can and “we’ve asked that they give the
remainders of these snails to the poor people in Herez to eat, also I have just read recently that derivatives of these chemicals are used in leukemia
research.”34This interaction encapsulates the violence, hierarchy, and healing of tekhelet.
Even with these histories and contemporary knowledge, companies like Ptil Tekhelet have still chosen to revive the practice of creating the biblical blue. It is used as a moment of healing tradition by finally being able to fulfill G-d’s
commandment in the way that it was intended. In the absence of shellfish dyeing knowledge, conservative Jewish communities would not allow tzitzit to be dyed with alternatives. They choose to keep their tzitzit white until the sea creature could be found again.
When I reference milk inBlue Milk and Other Short Stories, I place animals and humans in the same space. They are both maternal creatures that are capable of producing a life supporting liquid. And in the process of creating this product they are pulled into economics and the cultural vernacular. Each of these spaces view milk from the lenses of holy, sinful, hurting, and healing.
The colloquial sayings around milk highlight its duality. The early 1500’s saying of being “milked for all their worth” is used as if something is being
depleted35. Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth states that her husband is “too full o'the milk of human-kindness”36. And the biblical phrase of “milk and honey” indicates
36William Shakespeare and Bernard Groom,Macbeth(Oxford: Oxford univ. press, 1995).
35“Idiom Origins - Milk a Situation or Something for All Its Worth - History,” Origins of Idioms Archive, accessed March 18, 2023,
https://idiomorigins.org/origin/milk-a-situation-or-something-for-all-its-worth.
34Roald Hoffman Extracting Dye From a Murex Trunculus,YouTube(YouTube, 2011), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOdmEd0HxnM.
a fertile land that some attribute to Israel37. These phrases position milk as a taking, a kindness, and a biblical land.
Milk, even when commodified away from its original source, finds a way to be packaged as healing. When writing the first draft of this thesis, I was spending the night at a hotel in Rochester waiting to have a hospital procedure the next morning, for what will hopefully be the third and last procedure on my stomach over the past year. Trying to separate myself from the thoughts of body and thesis, I decided to take a shower at the hotel. However, I was faced with one of the complimentary Dove products titled “Nourishing Milk”, a body wash meant for
“deep absorbing nourishment.”
While I would not trust the “Nourishing Milk” product, with its digital rendering of splashing milk, to nourish me, it did embody a space I have been trying to capture with this work; A product of healing likened to a product of non-healing through capitalism. A holy, sinful, and life supporting liquid reduced to a shower stall, all while claiming to heal a pain that I myself did not know the cause of.
Blue Milk and Other Short Storieshas created a fantasy world where I have been able to take my observations and questions about the sinful, the holy, the hurting, and the healing and pose them through a visual lens. Influenced by my fascination with the color blue, broadway musicals, the Torah, genetics, hollywood glam, and my current health issues, the thesis does not provide an
37“Why Is Israel Called the Land of ‘Milk and Honey’? ,” accessed March 18, 2023,
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/624194/jewish/Why-is-Israel-called-the-land-of-Milk -and-Honey.htm.
answer to the posed questions, but it does leave the audience with a sense of education about contemporary and reformed American Ashkenazim.
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