Pomegranate
Leslie Nobler
About Leslie Nobler
I am a mixed-media artist creating fine art print-collages, digital/traditional artist’s books, re-imagined modern Judaica and surface design. I also write articles on art, technology and social justice. My fine artworks depicts marginalized people/cultures, reinventing their folk art or artifacts using multi-tier technology combined with laborious by-hand methods. My design for ritual objects is based on my background in surface and textile design. I have exhibited widely; for example at New Jersey State and Montclair Art Museum (NJ), Old-Main Art Museum (AZ), Visual Arts NYC and Islip Art Museum (NY), Athenaeum Museum (PA), Kemper Museum of Art (MO). Worldwide, my work was work included in Afrigraphics Pretoria, Intermatopnal Symposia on Digital Art-Bangkok & London, Digital Art Awards/Australia, and Seoul Trade Center Bojagi Gallery. My work is in artists’ book collections of universities and museums and has been featured in the New York Times, New Jersey Star-Ledger, Surface Design Journal, Leonardo, Textiles: The Art of Mankind, the Review/Midwest. Most recently, my immigrant-portraiure project was featured in New Jersey Jewish News and WomensWork.art. I am an Art Professor at William Paterson University. I hod these degrees: BFA/University of Michigan, School of Art; MA/NYIT; MFA/Hunter-CUNY.
About Pomegranate
In thinking about rest for the earth, I focused metaphorically on a surface upon which our meal can rest. This Rosh Hashanah trivet would hopefully support a hot dish of plant-based stew, like traditional tzimmes. It celebrates both the “fruits of the earth” (and even honors those gifts) as well as the safety the earth can provide. This trivet protects the table and tablecloth, and sometimes one’s hands, from damage. Since the Torah instructs about exercising “care,” for our surroundings, bodies and the earth, I also interspersed flowery rimonim, to remind us of those crucial teachings. The design comes full circle, in a sense, since the rimonim used as finials the torah scroll comes from the Hebrew word for Pomegranate.While conveying rest and sustenance, another “surprise” idea is also embedded. The concept of personal safety, in prayer form, as one travels the journey of life is merged into some of the geometric units. A Hebrew prayer for traveler’s safety is transformed and patch-worked with Pop Art-inspired neon-recolored triangles of earthen textures. This prayer was found on a beautiful old-word example of a metal amulet at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art at UC-Berkeley, California. I imagine a “new” prayer for safely resting – caring for our farmland – might complement serving a vegetarian food resting on this ceramic tile, housed in a simple wire-metal base which repeats the pomegranate shape. A place to rest hot food and house the travelers’ weary body … shmita in a sense.
This object can be reproduced and distributed in an unlimited amount through a 3rd-party digital printing center/manufacturer – one with reasonable prices. [It is a ceramic trivet available at the Shutterfly website.]