Zena Zipporah (b. 1942) is an American artist and poet. [1] She often uses quotations and words in her art, which she describes as being "all about spirituality and gender." [2] Her inspirations include ancient cultures and religions, especially creation and destruction myths. [3]
She moved to Cleveland in 1976. [3] There, she wrote poems and did freelance work for local magazines; [3] at first she was a writer and poet rather than a visual artist. [2] Later, however, she transitioned into visual arts, although she continued to use words prominently in her work. [2] She describes the shift being inspired by a papermaking class she took as an evening course, where she began putting her writing on handmade substrates. [2]
In 1989, her work was included in the Center for Book Arts 15th anniversary show. [4] In 2013 Zipporah was the recipient of a Creative Workforce Fellowship from the Cuyahoga County Community Partnership for Arts and Culture. [5] [6] In 2015, her work was included in the Ohio Craft Museums exhibition On the Page: The Book as Art. [7] Her mixed media assemblages were accepted for the May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art; in 1985 and 1993. [8]
Asked in a 2016 interview to periodize her art, she divided it into five periods, listed below:
Her book Recall of the Soul is in The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. [9] Her book Breast tea is in the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA). [10]
Her work "Notes from Other Worlds" is a collage made from things taken from a 1930s scrapbook, including receipts, photographs and postcards, as well as Zipporah's own drawings and found objects. [3] Tiny words, phrases, and excerpts are scripted on the objects and in page margins. [3]
She also handmade an "autobiography", full of completely embellished pages covered in drawings with tiny words featuring in the designs. [3]
Her work "My Autobiography on Eggs" consists of a square grid of eggshells, on each of which is written her life story in tiny font, surrounded by two rows of plain eggshells. [3]
Her work "Madonna" is a montage of Madonnas. [11]
Other works recorded in the Ohio Online Visual Artist Registry include Bed I: Hair & Eggs (1993), Hopi Creation Dress (1995), Bed of Sorrows (1996), Creation/Destruction (1997), Iroquois Creation Bonnet (1997), L'Espirit Du Monde (1997), Wahungul Akuni Creation Dress (1997), and Kabbalah Dress (1998). [12]
She attended Case Western Reserve University. [13] Zipporah was married to Myron Kapalan, and together they helped host Junkyard, a poetry festival in the 1980s that was held at the Pearl Road Auto Wrecking and run by Daniel Thompson. [14] According to her, Junkyard originated in a poetry reading held at her ex-husband's Auto Wrecking Junkyard. [2] In later years the festival also came to include music and visual art, which she contributed to. [2]
