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The "Sinister Drawings" were made using my left hand, after I broke my right arm in June,2000, and reflect diary entries and x-ray sources as my arm was healing. Each task was a small victory against my disability. The title is a pun on the meaning of "Sinister," (left), which ascribes a threatening, perhaps even an evil connotation of skeletal images. Although my "Fourteen Stations"/"Hey Yud Dalet" project, my Kaddish for the victims of the Holocaust, had to stop for months, work on this book was a defiant reaffirmation of my creative abilities in the face of a temporarily crippling condition. I incorporated wrought iron bars, originally tests for frames of my "Fourteen Stations" drawings, with solid walnut and readily available hardware to create the actual covers/base for this book. The continued of use of my favorite materials with innovative juxtaposition of images and journal entries recording the healing process of my Humerus. As my bone healed, the process of drawing and constructing this book healed my spirit.
 

The Book of Sinister Drawings 1

The Book of Sinister Drawings 2

The Book of Sinister Drawings 3

Sinister Drawing 1

Sinister Drawing 2

Sinister Drawing 3

Sinister Drawing 4

Sinister Drawing 5

Sinister Drawing 6

Sinister Drawing 7

Sinister Drawing 8

Sinister Drawing 9

Sinister Drawing 10

Sinister Drawing 11

Sinister Drawing 12

Sinister Drawing 13

Sinister Drawing 14

Sinister Drawing 15

Sinister Drawing 16

Sinister Drawing 17

Sinister Drawing 18

Sinister Drawing 19

Sinister Drawing 20

My mother was born in 1903 in Galicia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Poland. She was fluent in five languages and well educated for a woman of her day. My father was a master tailor and fluent in three languages. They survived the war, escaping from the Nazis into Russia. While in labor camps in Siberia, my brother and sister died. Eventually, my parents’ life journey brought them to America. From my father’s death until her eighty ninth year my mom lived by herself. As her health deteriorated she moved into the Northwest Home for the Aged in Chicago, IL. I commuted often from New Jersey to be with her, and sometimes I would make a small drawing of her in my journal/sketch book. I was working on my “Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet” drawings at the time and the specter of my mom’s death hovered over me. I, in turn, hovered over images where death claimed millions of my people.

Mom developed aphasia, and communicated only through gestures. I sat next to her at the hospital and tried to comfort her with reassuring words. I spoke in Polish, telling her that I loved her. After months of silence, a voice found its way from her throat. It wasn’t her voice, but a deep rasping sound. “Ja Ciebie też kocham,” (“I love you also”). These were her last words.

The final drawing was an unintended one. Sara and I arrived at the Home not long after mom died. I kissed my mother’s still warm head. It was the only familiar part left of her body, the rest being a tiny skeletal shape beneath the sheet. I could find no peace. I went to the nurses’ station, for paper and pencil, and returned to the room. Only by drawing could I look at her without breaking down.