That's my red-haired mother as a baby, born in the spring of 1916 in Minnesota. At times lately I feel as if I am, in some odd way, her mother.
When my mother was about the age I am, she strongly considered converting to Judaism. She had long felt a kinship with Jewish people and felt that there must have been someone who was Jewish on her father's side of the family. While our family was attending an Episcopal Church during my growing up years, she introduced me to the works numerous writers and artists who were Jewish. I remember that she went to hear Isaac Bashevis Singer speak at a local synagogue when I was in high school.
In the early 1980s, she met people from the Jewish community in Mendocino County and subscribed to their newsletter and felt welcomed and at home in that small community. When my father protested, she celebrated all the Jewish holidays semi-secretly, far below my father's radar. My father did not know enough about Judaism to know that she was celebrating the holidays right in front of him.
My mandala series was inspired by my mother's mandala series which she created when she was about the same age I am. Her series included mandalas for Jewish holidays.
One of the books she passed on to me when I was in high school was The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. This morning, following links as I do, I discovered an extraordinary series of drawings and paintings by Jeremy Kagan, the man who directed the film version of The Chosen. They remind me of Jacob Lawrence's series: Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis, which I was fortunate to be able to see when they were shown here in Bellingham. They also make me think of William Blake. I find Jeremy Kagan's work to be deeply engaging, despite the fact that I am not a religious person.
My mother's parents were married in a Unitarian Church in Boston. Her mother's father was a Theosophist. Some of her great grandparents were Roman Catholic and the others Protestant. I recall my mother saying that her father, a World War I veteran, had a well-worn copy of the Bhagavad Gita, possibly belonging to my grandmother who died before he did and whose father was the Theosophist. My only nephew's grandfather is Jewish. His grandmother is a Roman Catholic convert to Judaism. My father's father's side is entirely Lutheran and then there is the mysterious great great grandfather on my father's mother's side whose ancestry and religion are unknown. In my generation and the younger generations, there is a little of everything, atheism included!
It will take me some time to look through all sets of drawings and paintings by Jeremy Kagan. I'm astonished to find that his third set are what I would call mandalas. A glimpse from his first set:
and then this.
Feeling gratitude this morning to my complicated mother, an artist, writer, creator of delicious meals, pattern knitter, and spiritual seeker, among other things, who would be 105 years old this year.
