FRUMA MARKOWITZ
Hilloulah to the West and to the East - A Prayer for Peace, 2024
Cotton fabric (figures) and cotton interfacing (background substrate) colored with cyanotype - a historical photographic process, treated with table salt and select toning in black tea and coffee, embellished with gold embroidery and machine stitching, with gold ribbon and rope textile trimming, brass bells
30.5 x 121.9 cm
Copyright The Artist
$ 3,600.00
'During a long-awaited trip to Morocco in 2020, I learned that Jewish, Muslim, and Amazigh (Berber) women have shared friendship along with a confluence of stories and myths, religious beliefs...
"During a long-awaited trip to Morocco in 2020, I learned that Jewish, Muslim, and Amazigh (Berber) women have shared friendship along with a confluence of stories and myths, religious beliefs and practice, personal adornment and handcraft design, that goes back for centuries - and became intrigued. Since that trip I have built an ongoing personal photographic project around this concept, using the historic cyanotype process, collage embellishments, and incorporating imagery from a vast archive of photos of these women, made by men at the turn of the 20th century to sell as tourist postcards throughout North Africa. The images were, consciously or not, also meant to “other” these women/cultures as “exotic” and “barbarian,” as the women depicted were often sexualized and labeled with a photographic nod to the Orientalist movement in painting that was still in vogue at that time.
I chose one of my cyanotype collage pieces on paper from this series as the foundational concept from which I created a new, fully fiber/textile work made specifically for this show. It is also made from cyanotype, this time on 100% cotton textiles, and embellished with gold embroidery, thread and trimmings. The piece depicts a line of female dancers facing to the West/Left (the Strophe, if you will), while the other half of this long diptych depicts more women dancing to the East/Right (the Antistrophe), as they might do in the chorus of a Greek play. According to shared Jewish and Muslim tradition, they are on a pilgrimage, a celebration known by both as a “Hilloulah,” to the tombs of deceased saints (male and/or female), where they seek to have their prayers answered, to change and influence the heavens in their favor – for fertility, for marriage, for health and healing, for the safe return of their men from war, for peace." - Fruma Markowitz
I chose one of my cyanotype collage pieces on paper from this series as the foundational concept from which I created a new, fully fiber/textile work made specifically for this show. It is also made from cyanotype, this time on 100% cotton textiles, and embellished with gold embroidery, thread and trimmings. The piece depicts a line of female dancers facing to the West/Left (the Strophe, if you will), while the other half of this long diptych depicts more women dancing to the East/Right (the Antistrophe), as they might do in the chorus of a Greek play. According to shared Jewish and Muslim tradition, they are on a pilgrimage, a celebration known by both as a “Hilloulah,” to the tombs of deceased saints (male and/or female), where they seek to have their prayers answered, to change and influence the heavens in their favor – for fertility, for marriage, for health and healing, for the safe return of their men from war, for peace." - Fruma Markowitz