Seattle Yiddish Fest

A word from Benny Ferdman about his work:
 

“I once saw a wolf floating down the river on a haystack.” Those were the words of my father while recalling memories of his life before the war in his hometown of Lutsk, Poland (now part of Ukraine). The contrast between a haystack, which feeds domestic creatures, and a wild creature, both afloat and rushing down a perilous river– seemed to me to presage my father’s world, a world about to be swept away- as indeed it was, just a few years later. That one sentence memory gave birth to several works of art in years past. And now, while considering my approach to this exhibit, that image seemed to have new resonance in light of the calamitous events in the world today.

 

In this exhibit I’m setting us all afloat on that river – a journey down a river of time, collecting and uncovering a carousel of symbols and wild words that once circled through the lived–life of past ancestral places. A world that has taken me a lifetime to connect with, and embody in this other land.