Asherah Cinnamon

: OFFERING, sustainably harvested maple wood and dogwood, dyes, inks, thread, archival paper, Visitors to the 2015 Maine Jewish Film Festival and to Art Kibbutz NY for the 2015 Shmita ARTFest in New York City, were invited to answer the following question: “WHAT ACT OF HEALING WILL YOU COMMIT TO AND OFFER TO YOUR CREATOR/ TO YOUR PLANET/ TO YOUR UNIVERSE?” Their responses on paper were incorporated into this work, 24″ W x 22″ H x 4″ D, 2015

: L’SHANOT: CHANGE, mixed local, sustainably harvested hardwood, stained, 7′ W x 4′ H x 2.5′ D, 2013

: BET HA’AM : HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE, Sustainably harvested applewood, maple, red dogwood, archival 140lb paper, purchased reed, wood dyes, pigment inks, thread, Members of this congregation were invited to think about their synagogue and kiss a triangle of paper, the triangles were colored, sewn together into Stars of David, linked to each other, placed in the basket container, 52″W x 40″H x 22″D, 2015

Asherah’s frequently collaborative work translates concept into object, installation, or performance, using sustainably harvested wood, fiber, and recycled materials. Her projects often engage the public in discussion, thought, and action about personal relationships and social justice. Highlights of her career include solo and group exhibitions at three Jewish Museums from Oregon to London, England and a 2008 Beijing Olympic Landscape Sculpture Five Rings Award. She is the first two-time recipient of the Linda and Joel Abromson Award. As a social activist and community builder she received recognition from the New England United Methodist Church, the State of Maine, and the US Holocaust Museum. Deeply rooted in Jewish Feminism, she makes her home in the Maine woods.

“Asherah Cinnamon is an artist whose work is conscious, protective and celebratory of the natural environment, resonant and deeply in tune with Jewish themes, and viewable and understandable….Indeed, Cinnamon accomplishes simultaneously in her …. [recent solo exhibition] what some artists dream of doing for lifetimes and never accomplish…. Her interventions, even when radical, seem subtle and natural. She creates in true harmony with her media, and-more impressively-her media serve the meaning of her work in a manner that feels similarly organic and unforced. ‘Trees,’ she says, ‘connect me with the earth.’ But in creating her powerful, poetic, and moving pieces, Cinnamon is able to give back to the earth-melding the intensity of nature in all its wildness and unpredictability with the nurture of an ancient tradition, some six thousand years of story-telling…. She is a storyteller through ritual, and a ritualist through the telling of stories….All her work has the quality of ineluctable utility-that is, it all feels as if it can be used to a purpose that is simultaneously intellectually and actively/ritually fulfilling.”

– Marc Michael Epstein, Professor of Religion, Vassar College, author of The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative & Religious Imagination, a Times of London Literary Supplement “Book of the Year”