The other day I was in a rush and I had just charged my camera battery, so in the dim natural light of my apartment I stuck my recharged battery into my camera. I stuck it in wrong. It is now jammed in there and my camera doesn’t work. I feel like a dolt. There’s an arrow on the battery that corresponds to another arrow on the camera, for crying out loud. So aside from trying to pick it out with my thumbnail and saying curses under my breath, I’m not quite sure what to do. I will ask Cricket, perhaps he can solve this with a minimum of destruction and bloodshed. I wanted to take a picture of the project I’m working on right now, but I cannot, so I will have to describe it to you, which is so very very lame.
My sister K. is celebrating a birthday soon, and I never know what to get her. K. has a small mezuzah collection on one of her walls. For those of you who do not know what a mezuzah is, here is a brief explanation. “Mezuzah” (“doorpost” in Hebrew) is a little box that is affixed to the doorpost of your house (and if you’re particularly observant, every doorpost to every room in your house except the bathroom or the kitchen). Inside the box (which can be decorated in a myriad of ways, more on that later) is a piece of parchment with Hebrew verses. It blesses your house. What’s so great about them is as long as they don’t have a representation of a human on it (Judaism is very wary of human representation on their religious items, you might be worshipping false idols; by the way, Islam has the same rule, that’s why mosques are usually decorated only in geometric patterns and text) you can put most anything on the decorative container. Here’s a website that shows a variety of different styles.
Also, they can be made out of any material. Metal, stone, plastic, glass, you name it. My parents once received one made out of bread that had been shellacked. I should probably mention my parents have about 300 of them. They’ve been collecting them for over 30 years from all over the world (lots of artists make them and they are small and easy to carry in your luggage). ANYWAY, my sister has a collection of about twenty and she asked me to make her one for her birthday. I’ve recently discovered the true awesomeness of polymer clay. Remember how when you were young, you made deformed lumpy figures out of Sculpey or Fimo and then baked it and your mom put it on the mantle or whatever? That’s polymer clay and that is only the tip of its potential. It can be carved, sanded, drilled, polished, painted with acrylics, made to mimic other things like stone or stained glass – oh my God, why haven’t I been using this stuff more often?!!? So I’m making K. a mezuzah out of polymer clay. There’s a liquid form that you can pour over a colored pencil drawing, bake in the oven, and when you pull off the paper, the colored pencil adheres to the now hardened liquid polymer. SO AWESOME. For the mezuzah I made a drawing of a tree with a moon in the background, colored it in with colored pencil, baked the liquid polymer on it, and now I’m putting copper leaf on the moon to make it all pretty and shiny and sparkly. And I am also now realizing that my description SUCKS and if my camera worked it would be so much better because I imagine many of you are going, “Huh? She did what now?” I truly hope Cricket can fix my stupid camera.
UPDATE: My beloved co-worker A. just pulled the battery out with two butter knives and I had put the battery in correctly! Ha ha! But this now means something is for-real wrong with my camera or my battery (A.’s comment, “Perhaps it swelled with the humidity. Well, you got a better idea?”) so I will go to a camera store in the area and see if this can be rectified in some way. Expect pictures of mezuzahs with copper leafing in the near future!
[…] work. The piece I’m making is a mezuzah for my mother. I spoke quite a bit about mezuzahs here, if anyone needs a refresher […]