Draw Yomi. Daily Talmud Drawings
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In January 2020 I completed a 7 year project to draw the Talmud, a page a day. There are 2,711 drawings in total. The Talmud is a Rabbinic text, covering law and lore and is the primary text for Jewish life. It was complied in the 6th Century, and first printed in it’s current form in 1523. Daf Yomi is a discipline to study a page of Talmud a day, that began in the 1920’s. The Talmud is subdivided into 39 sections, I used a different drawing material for each. The materials led me in new directions, and as I worked with ink, charcoal, pencil or paint, my thinking would shift and change.
I am the first, and to date possibly only, person to have consistently engaged with the Talmud as a drawing project. The A4 notebooks became a dialogue between my handwritten notes of the Talmud and my drawing on the corresponding page. They became my feminist critique of the patriarchal text, where I grappled with what was written on the page, and engaged with what, and who, was missing from the Rabbinic discussions. To see more of this project, please go to the Draw Yomi blog |
the first and last drawings of the Draw Yomi Talmud drawings project
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Drawing The Talmud - conclusion
This short video uses pop up screens as marginalia, reminiscent of the boxes of commentary on the Talmud page. The voice you will hear is me stumbling through the Kaddish, recorded at a Siyyum event when I completed drawing the Talmud in Jan 2020. Kaddish - a prayer, often associated with mourning rituals, is also said after completing a significant section of learning. It is not about grief, but an extended praise of God. The images in this short video show my drawings only of the first and last page of each section.
This short video uses pop up screens as marginalia, reminiscent of the boxes of commentary on the Talmud page. The voice you will hear is me stumbling through the Kaddish, recorded at a Siyyum event when I completed drawing the Talmud in Jan 2020. Kaddish - a prayer, often associated with mourning rituals, is also said after completing a significant section of learning. It is not about grief, but an extended praise of God. The images in this short video show my drawings only of the first and last page of each section.
