What’s Love Got To Do With It
Finding inspiration in your story to create custom ketubah art
THE CLIENT
Collaborating with couples to design a unique artwork for their wedding vows is a deeply meaningful process where we explore their aesthetic, cultural, personal and religious influences. The ultimate goal is to create a lasting ketubah design that speaks to and about them as they embark on their lives together. So when my mother recently found the original, unadorned ketubah texts from my two sets of grandparents, I was inspired to visually narrate these amazing couples’ histories in one piece of artwork. My initial inclination was to focus on the design elements that would convey the diverse cultural background of my Yemenite and German heritage. Upon further reflection, however, I continued to dig deeper to discover elements they shared in common: the root of their unions (marriage first, love second) were profoundly similar. It is here that begins the creative journey, in this case a deeply personal one, to uncover the true heart of a couple’s story.
THE CONCEPT
While my Jewish identity is primarily a secular one, my maternal grandfather was a deeply religious man and so it seemed only fitting to find a story of love and marriage from the Torah. After some research, I came across the story of Isaac and Rebekah, which fittingly weaves a narrative of marriage first, love second. Rebekah agrees to this arranged marriage without having met Isaac. On the way to his village, she and her chaperone run into Isaac meditating in the field. Rebekah asks about this man whom she does not know, as she is taken aback at the sight of him (in a good way as it knocks her off her camel….literally). This story mirrored my grandparents’ own “marriage and then love” story.
My maternal grandparents: Yosef and Nagma Taassa
THE INSPIRATION PART I
The marriage of my grandparent’s, Nagma and Yoseph, was arranged at a very young age. They had 2 beautiful daughters, moved from Yemen to Israel and had 6 more beautiful daughters (I did say they were religious) of which my mom is #3. My mother tells a wonderful story where my grandfather, already 90, turns to my grandmother and asks her if after all these years she loves him--bring on famous scene from Fiddler on the Roof--to which Nagma jokingly responded, “No. It was a mistake.”
My parents’ at their own wedding: surrounded by family--including 6 of my mother’s sisters--with my grandparents in the center (my grandfather Stephen was not able to attend the wedding).
THE INSPIRATION PART II
My paternal grandparents’ marriage was not arranged. They grew up in Nuremberg, Germany and fled to Israel in 1934, thanks in no small part to my grandfather’s insight that things were terribly wrong. I remember growing up visiting my grandparents in Peekskill, NY (where they eventually settled) and listening to Sophie and Stephen’s wonderful bickering, watching them watch the evening news from well worn “his and her” reclining arm chairs, and my grandfather telling me how lucky I was to have inherited his nose and not my grandmother’s, which he proceeded to mimic. My grandmother once told me that my grandfather wasn’t the best looking guy to ask her out, nor was he the best dancer, but he did buy her a pretty bobble necklace. Her respect and admiration grew with time, as she too found love after marriage.
Sophie and Stephen, my paternal grandparents, at their home in Peekskill, NY and on their 50th wedding anniversary.
THE FINAL DESIGN
With all this in mind, I used the verses from Genesis 24 narrating the story of Isaac and Rebekah as the actual artwork to create a simple, yet truly meaningful paper cut design that includes the original Ketubah contracts of my amazing grandparents. I think my client – mom - will be proud.
Text on the left is Sophie and Stephen’s original signed ketubah, while the right side displays text from Nagma and Yosef’s wedding contract. The paper cut tells the story of Rebekah and Isaac from Genesis 24.