The Work of Diane Samuels – An American Artist in Buttenhausen and Grafeneck (1996 – 1999)

Artistic Background Information

Since 1991, I have made a series of related art pieces exploring the contemporary meaning of Jewish folktales and Kabbalistic lore that interrelate prayer, the alphabet, creative power, and a sense of belonging. My interest is not specifically religious. However, I do take seriously the premise that the world can be experienced as a book, insofar as we make it together and assert meaning to the making. To live in the world is, thus, inevitably to be both a reader and a writer.

A Jewish folktale tells the story of a scholar who petitions God to help him meet his heavenly study partner in this life. The scholar travels to a distant village, where he goes to the local house of study in search of the fellow learned scholar. But instead he eventually finds his study partner in a simple house, with neither books nor commentaries. The scholar is surprised and asks, "How can you pray when you have no books?" The man replies, "I have no books because I cannot read or write. But I can recite the alphabet. I ask God to take my letters and form them into prayers."

Another Jewish folktale is about a golem, an artificial person, composed of earth and brought to life, according to the Kabbala, by inscribing the Hebrew word EMET ("truth") on its forehead. A golem is created for a specific purpose and must obey the commands of its creator. When the golems work is done, its creator returns it to the earth by removing the letter E from EMET, leaving the word MET, which means "dead." Golems have been created by Jews to help the community in time of great need, and they often succeed when people do not. One of the very earliest "recipes" for making a golem was written down by Eleazar ben Judah of Worms, at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Each letter of the alphabet, according to the Kabbala, has a great importance. There are stories of men who spend their lives counting the letters in the Torah to make sure that they all there, that there is not one missing. Each letter is precious and powerful.