Feature: Green Siren in Black Leather... and Silver - Judith Nemes

Judith Nemes in MarLa studio - literally.

I must celebrate the official beginning of leather jacket season with this image of Judith Nemes.  One day last spring she landed in my studio. I say landed, because her superhero energy indicates she may just be able to fly.


Judith Nemes is a journailst, photographer, professor, and vigilant champion of all things environmentally protective and green. I dub her my "Green Siren". Not only is she wicked smart and true to her cause, she's full of female awesomeness and beauty. Strong but searching, determined but questioning, pushing for change and transformation but accepting her many divided roles gracefully - she's all that, and so much more. SO - run now - and read her latest article - the TOP news story in TODAY'S Crains Chicago Business.

No coincidence she is wearing "With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might" with the "Keepsake Heart",  combined with the framed "Prutah Coin". 
The Prutah Coin is from c. 70 ad. and was struck by the Israelites in rebellion to Roman rule. I frame them in copper backed with sterling silver.

Rebel, but all heart. 

Beyond honored - she sent me the most touching validation:

"I feel like something powerful happened to me today. Our rambling conversation dipped into some corners of my life that have been dormant for a long time, and now they've been stirred again, awakened, and I'm thinking about them in a new and more thoughtful light. Thank you for that. 

You have a wise and gentle spirit.

Meeting you turned out to be about much more than jewelry ... or was that obvious?"

Wow.  So honored to be among your "Super Friends". 

New Year. New chance.

I can actually make quite a ruckus with this horn. It works.

The ram's horn makes a most primal sound. I love it. I love when ritual is raw and arresting - when it shakes me from the mundane and demands attention. The peculiar and un-lovely sound of the shofar is perhaps what I race towards all year. Pushing through time and experience to return to the sound, reset, refresh the screen, and get another chance to try again. This is the ultimate, most precious gift for which I am beyond grateful. So very grateful. Another chance to try again and make it all count.  
Ok! Bring on the horns!

A happy, healthy, sweet new year to all.

A Passover Prayer, and a Cross

Cross for NB

You know you're fortunate when, without even realizing it, you have a very close friend that seemingly came out of nowhere. Someone who casually stepped in one day, and stayed. Over time you realize how you depend on them for support, comfort, humor and their remarkable gift for recognizing the oddness and beauty of things many others miss.

You know you're lucky when your work brings you to such a friend. My friend is very modest and very private, she is a brilliant woman battling a devastating cancer.  She herself is a cancer researcher, neuroblastoma to be specific - a childhood brain tumor. She's witty and wry, compassionate and open, always the optimist, and loving.

My friend wears the "Square Cross", among several other pieces. The cross however, is her very favorite.

Our personal objects are among the things that help steel us when facing the world. We wear jewelry as emblems of ourselves, talismans for good luck, protectorates and shields against ill will and the vagaries of  misfortune. Our objects and jewelry have as much power as we assign them, as we hope they possess intrinsically, to giveback to us. We give our precious symbols the power to let us believe - and sometimes that's more powerful than a force we can scientifically measure.

On this Passover, the holiday of great symbols and miracles, I pray for my friend. I am eternally grateful for her friendship, and for the cross that brought her to me.

Chasing the Moon

Come Out Supermoon! Come out! We'll give you cookies!

I have always felt intimately connected to the Moon. An object of intellectual curiosity and visual wonder, emotional longing and universal truth - the Moon feels like my odd, cold, but comforting friend. The Jewish calendar being lunar is another personal connection to, and fascination with the moon.

According to the Jewish calendar, the new month begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible again after the dark moon. In ancient times, new months were determined by observation.

Well, tonight my side kick Jonah and I tried very hard to see way more than a sliver - we were hoping for the SUPERMOON - the largest, closest moon to Earth that happens once every 18 years - the Super Perigee Moon! Due to high, thin cloud cover our lakeside efforts were for naught. We saw a halo, we saw some light, we saw shadowed clouds, but not the big kahuna. Oh well!

Always being impatient for the whole moon (and obsessive!) -  I like the Moon so very much, a while ago I made one!

Moon pendant

WOW!!!! Rockin' Purim in St Petersburg!!!

Do YOU know what PURIM is??? This is the happiest, smiley-est, best-est, most delightful, most affirming, fantastically done Purim piece ever!!!!! Watch and enjoy! I veesh I nooo Rashhin!!! BUT! The translation is below... YAY, YAY and YAY for the talented, great looking, groovy St. Petersburg Hillel! With all that's happening at this time, it feels so, so good to smile.  It's ccccold there in Russia, but this is way warming. 
ENJOY and HAPPY PURIM TO EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE!!!!


Hello, I'm Liya Geldman. I'm a senior student at cinema and television university in St. Petersburg. As you know Russia is a multiethnic and multidenominational country. But do Russians really know traditions of other cultures? Today we came here to find out if they know what Purim is.

- Do you know what Purim is?
- Hello, do you know what Purim is?
- Hi Julia, do you know what is Purim?
- Hello, what is Purim?
Doesn't anyone know what Purim is?

Purim! Purim! Purim!
Purim! Purim! Purim!

Celebrating Purim!
Zenit and Haiduck (Russian soccer teams),
Student and coach,
Human and spider,
Patient and surgeon,
NYC, Moscow and Saint Petersburg!

Purim! Also celebrating in Barnaul
People from Penza and Tomsk,
On Kamchatka and in Kerch,
And possibly even on the moon.

Purim! Let's put some make up on!
Whether you are old or young,
Even if you hadn't slept for 3 nights
It's Israeli mega-carnival!

Purim! We highly recommend it.
The plot is twisted,
It happened almost 3000 years ago
So it might be hard to remember
Where's good and where's bad

So choose for yourself who's good and who's bad
Here's the Mordehai the Jew, King Ahashverosh.
Where's Vashti? The Tzar's ex-wife?
But maybe Hamman could be the Bad Guy?

Imagine for a while that we're in Babylon,
Who's the star on this dark sky? Esther!
Here's a lesson for now and in 600BC
If you're brave, you've got the power!


We'll scream together Mazal Tov!
Our glass is full to the brim.
With what? Lets fill it with wine
And drink it all up.
And during this Purim we'll change the world!


Oleg Dremov

Additional thx to Evgeny Levitin, Liya Geldman, Sergey Teplov, Sonya Mladenova, Sonya i Megan, Anya, Sofa, Sasha, Vitya, Ira, Pasha, Kolya and others.

Artist Feature: Deborah Maris Lader!

In her studio - Deborah Maris Lader holding "A Bird in the Hand" - also wearing the "Sun" and "I have Found the One in whom my Soul Delights"

WOW -  Deborah Maris Lader - artist, musician, powerhouse of creation.  Founder and director of Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, and member of the indie Alt Folk group "Sons of the Never Wrong".  She is the center and force, inspiration and soul, a driving energy in Chicago's art and music scenes.

Deborah's art is shown and collected internationally. "Sons of the Never Wrong" tours to sold out crowds, and plays the coolest, most prestigious venues in the country.  After meeting her, the term "self-actualized" had a picture to go with it.

I met Deb several years ago when I was a printmaker at CPC's first location. It was in a rough space in the pre-gentrified raggedy East Village neighborhood. I loved everything about the place.  She created an oasis of artistic productivity and community, there was nothing else like it.  The newer Lincoln Square space is beautiful, more accessible and expansive in it's draw. It's become a beloved, important institution in the city's art culture - not an easy thing to make happen and sustain.

Back in December I was part of the CPC annual "Small Prints Show", selling my jewelry for the opening weekend event. Over the course of the heavily attended opening, Deb slowly acquired my work. In this pic, layering all her MarLa studio pieces, she's holding her "Bird in the Hand" pendant while the bird in her large etching peers behind her. I love this image.

As a serious admirer of Deborah and her work for many years, it is the greatest honor to see her wearing mine.

V-Day Special! Heidi Meredith Listens

Heidi Meredith wearing a Dendritic Agate One-Of-A-Kind piece, and her "shema" tatt!

Heidi Meredith. Psychiatrist, Mom extraordinaire, partner, musician, Burning Man babe, total woman of valor.... and so, so much more. Heidi listens, for a living and for life - a full, adventurous life.

A graduate of Northwestern's Six Year Med Program, she started professional training when most are still figuring out what to do with their first degree. Medicine however, wasn't this young doctor's singular passion. While teaching herself guitar, she picked up the bass, put on Nirvana, and had every bass line down within minutes. She played nights with her band and spent her days.... well, listening, and treating, and steadily building what's now her own practice.

The word for listen in Hebrew is "shema". It's also the first word of the most recited and important prayer in Judaism. After Heidi saw my "shema" pendant she decided to commit - in a seriously permanent way - to a tattoo! WOW!

In these pics she's wearing a magnificent Dendritic Agate one-of-a-kind piece (her then fiance, now husband) Kurt gave her as a birthday present a couple years ago. For this Valentines day he bought Heidi a combination of pendants she's eyed for some time - "I Have Found the One in whom my Soul Delights" with the copper/silver "Keepsake Heart" . Yes! He also listens. 

Happy, happy Valentines Day!

"I have found the one in whom my Soul Delights" with the "Keepsake Heart" in copper/silver