rivkah lapidus

i'm not much of a writer, so i honestly don't think that i could aptly describe what i saw in rivkah lapidus' studio (during somerville open studios this weekend) and how it made me feel, but i will try. i was stuck between wanting to take everything home with me and wanting to insist that it was preserved immediately in a museum. her materials are simple - and often recycled - and her techniques do not make for the most pristine of products, but everything is so precious.

rivkah has many different series in a variety of mediums. she's made a great number of assemblages which incorporate her family photographs (or photocopies of them). she displays the photos in many ways: sometimes they are in jars; sometimes they are in display cases or shadow boxes; she often uses miniature chairs and couches. i opened the door of an icebox which resembles a two-floor structure where photos of her family meet and mingle amongst the miniature chairs, under the glow of a simple string of christmas lights. they look out at you with familiar faces seeming as though they are greeting you upon your arrival. i would not have dreamed of asking her to purchase any of the family assemblages, but i really loved each one of them (especially that icebox).

the paintings that i purchased (two of the four can be seen above) are from a series of miniatures, most of which are painted on the back of playing cards. they seem to call upon mythologies, the kama sutra, and klimt, among other things. she had an enormous number of variations in this series, i searched through several pages for quite a while before making my final choices. rivka told me that she had painted them one particularly hot summer while sitting in her air-conditioned car. this makes sense.