Mickie Caspi | |
|---|---|
 Mickie Caspi, Israeli-American master calligrapher and artist filling in the Mystic Jerusalem Ketubah, Artists' Studio, December 2014 | |
| Born | Micha Padawer June 7, 1961 Chicago, IL |
| Nationality | Israeli-American |
| Alma mater | Columbia College |
| Spouse | Eran Caspi |
| Website | caspicards |
Mickie Caspi is an Israeli-American calligrapher and artist specializing in Judaica.
Caspi was raised in Highland Park, Illinois by two artists, Thelma and Philip Padawer, [1] who encouraged creativity from a young age. She lived in Israel on Kibbutz Nachshon for three years (1970–73). [2] After returning to Highland Park, she studied art at Columbia College in Chicago. [3] [4]
Caspi worked as an artist-in-residence at the Kohl Jewish Teacher Center in Wilmette, Illinois. [5] After graduating from Columbia College in 1982, [6] she returned to Israel, living on Kibbutz Harel and then in Jerusalem. She spent seven years as a freelance artist and calligrapher in Israel before returning to the United States in 1989 and establishing Caspi Cards & Art. [7] Her hundreds of original designs have been reproduced on greeting cards, Judaic art prints, calendars and is known for her innovations as a Ketubah artist. [8] [9] She introduced the first pre-printed Same Sex Ketubah text in 1994, [10] predating Same-sex marriage laws in the United States.
Caspi derives her inspiration from many sources, including traditional Jewish motifs, Persian and Arabic illumination, contemporary graphics, as well as art nouveau and art deco. [11] Her art has been exhibited in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston, and her illustrations have appeared in Hebrew children's books [12] and English publications. According to Marc Michael Epstein (scholar of religion, focusing on Jewish religious culture), "Examples by American artist... Mickie Caspi are among the best and brightest examples of motifs often found in ketubot from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries." [13]
Caspi volunteered at the Horace Mann School in Newton, Massachusetts. In 2011, the Oakland Hebrew Day School used her artwork as a stepping off point for the students to create their own works of art. [14] She has illustrated books including the 1987 reprint of The Sea's Gift, 1930 [Matnat Ha-Yam] by Levin Kipnis, which represented Israel at the International Children's Book Invitational. [15]
An avid organic gardener, Caspi incorporates the beauty of nature into much of her artwork. [16] She currently resides in Newton, Massachusetts, is married, and has three children and two grandsons. [17] [18]
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Ein Harod was a kibbutz in northern Israel near Mount Gilboa. Founded in 1921, it became the center of Mandatory Palestine's kibbutz movement, hosting the headquarters of the largest kibbutz organisation, HaKibbutz HaMeuhad.
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The Jewish Theological Seminary Library is one of the largest Jewish libraries in the world. Founded in 1893, it is located at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City, New York, and holds over 400,000 volumes, as well as extensive rare materials collections, including the world's largest collection of Hebrew manuscripts. Its holdings have been described as "the most impressive compilation of Jewish historical materials outside of Jerusalem." The library is an affiliate of the Columbia University Libraries.
Jewish paper cutting is a traditional form of Jewish folk art made by cutting figures and sentences in paper or parchment. It is connected with various customs and ceremonies, and associated with holidays and family life. Paper cuts often decorated ketubbot, Mizrahs, and ornaments for festive occasions. Paper cutting was practiced by Jewish communities in both Eastern Europe and North Africa and the Middle East for centuries and has seen a revival in modern times in Israel and elsewhere.
Sari Srulovitch is an Israeli artist and silversmith.
Claire Epstein was an Israeli archaeologist. She is noted for her discovery and work on the Chalcolithic culture in the Golan and was a noted member of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Ruth Schloss was an Israeli painter and illustrator. Major themes in her work were Arabs, transition camps, children and women at eye-level. She expressed an egalitarian, socialist view via realism in her painting and drawing.
Naomi Frankel, also spelled Fraenkel and Frenkel, was a German-Israeli novelist. Born in Berlin, she was evacuated to Mandatory Palestine with other German-Jewish children in 1933. She became a member of Kibbutz Beit Alfa, where she lived until 1970. She began writing novels in 1956 and achieved fame with her trilogy Shaul ve-Yohannah, a three-generational tale of an assimilated German-Jewish family in prewar Germany. She wrote four other novels for adults as well as several books for children. In the 1980s Frankel abandoned her leftist convictions and adopted right-wing ideology, settling in the West Bank, where she died in 2009, aged 91.
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Baruch Nachshon was an Israeli artist and mystic.
