“If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.”
– Shane Koyczan
Although in our case we had to collect pieces not of the heart, but of sculpture, the muse was most supportive this time as well.
As you may remember, Tevat Paul performed spectacularly in its journey across the North American continent in the Spring of 2022. The only blot on the landscape: it broke, due to a fall when visiting Cambridge MA, one day before Pesach.
After splitting one of its “shoulders”, Tevat Paul continued traveling to NYC, Montreal and back to Berlin–partly broken, nevertheless successful.
At home, Tevat Paul had to spend several days at the sculptor’s atelier in Berlin Kreuzberg–the place of its creation–for a very special treatment, Kintsugi, thoughtfully prepared to both heal and refine its fracture. With the Kintsugi technique, gold is used to attach the broken parts by creating a gold connection that highlights the blemish.
It was my cousin Michelle, a social worker in Lynn, Massachusetts, who introduced me to the Kintsugi method, and I am very grateful to her for this truly wonderful idea for the restoration of Tevat Paul. Michelle’s idea of using the traditional Japanese art of pottery restoration, combined with talent, care and love, turned in the sculptor’s hands into a golden scar on the stone.
Since then, our hexahedral “traveling hero”, Tevat Paul, is whole again, jeweled with a golden scar.
Invite our Traveling Exhibition @CONTACT 📩 to your institution and
Support the project A Traveling Tombstone direct:
Yours,
Elena Medvedev
P. S.: Read more about the project “A Traveling Tombstone”:
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Paul A. Levine Library 