RELIGION NEWS SERVICE [
AOPrize Finalist: Click to Vote]
By David Van Biema
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| Tobi Kahn (American, born 1952), Omer Calendar, Saphyr, 2002, acrylic on wood, 27 1/2 x 22 1/4 x 9 1/2 in. (69.9 x 56.5 x 24.1 cm). PDigital image © 2006 The Jewish Museum, New York. Photo by Ardon Bar Hama |
As the early-April sunlight streamed through a window in his cheerfully cluttered studio in Queens, New York artist
Tobi Kahn bent over a workbench with a number 10 Filbert brush. He was putting the third wash of glaze — out of eight — on a painstakingly worked silver-painted peg, a unique miniature sculpture soon to join 48 others. Kahn’s first Omer counter (he is now creating his third cycle of seven) hangs in New York’s Jewish Museum. The 49 sculpted forms are set in a grid; each one can be placed in its designated space in only a single way. By a daily act, the viewer becomes a participant in the continually changing work, a celebration that takes place over measured time. [
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| “Saphyr (Omer Counter),” 24 x 18 x 5.5 inches, acrylic on wood, 49 individual sculptures in a larger housing component, 2015. Photo courtesy of Tobi Kahn |
