Susan Shender, founder of Sukkah Soul, and long-time member of the Jewish Art Salon, creates evocative jewelry
pieces that call upon ancient processes and texts. Her works, primarily made of bronze, are imbued with layers of thought, symbolism, and meaning. Her unisex pendants are inspired by the ancient Hebrew alphabet, Kabbalistic concepts, and based on Jewish art motifs and sources.
The pendants are made of cast-bronze using the ancient lost-wax method and each is a signed, limited edition of museum quality.
Her Shma Sculptural Paleo Pendant is the perfect example of the great thought and depth that goes in to her work. As she writes, “Shma (Hear) is written with a large ayin and echad (One) is written with a large dalet in Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4). The ayin and the dalet together in Hebrew is Eid and means ‘witness’ be a witness to that truth. Read backwards, it reads Da and means ‘know’ that G*d alone.”
You can find her work here.
Hebrew Pendant Series – Wear Your History
Words and writing are central to Jewish identity. The ancient hand that carved and wrote was the inspiration for the pendant series based on Paleo-Hebrew and Hebrew.
Rich in color, the light affects the polished bronze in various ways as shown by the photos.
About the Alef Paleo-Hebrew Pendant shown to the right:
The first letter of the alphabet is connected to an Ox. In Gematria, the alef stands for 1. Alef is the first letter for Fire in the Hebrew Aish.
The alef the elusive alef. Silent and one. The unity expressed in diversity, silent and whole – G*dliness in its most expressive most unified.
See more of her pendants here.
Lost-Wax Bronze Casting – an ancient process
The lost wax method of bronze casting was developed in the Ancient Near East in the late 4th millennium BCE, found then both in ancient Ur and Egypt.
This ancient process is used today to create fine art bronzes that embody the artist’s touch. In the pieces, you can see the imprint of the artist’s hand molding clay and modeling wax. It is a labor-intensive process, demonstrating fine craft with 5000 years of history utilized during the time of Abraham.
A native of Chicago, Susan Shender lives in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Sukkah Soul is dedicated to creating meaningful forms and spaces inspired by text and sources. Its creations are built upon traditional ideas and research renewed with a delicate spiritual energy.
For those searching for a fresh relationship with Jewish ideas, Susan’s designs respond to an interest in reinterpreting traditional concepts.
