Visit to the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Yesterday morning, I met a group of fifth grade families from Edot, Shira and Y'tzira in front of the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.

While our sixth graders and their families were involved in their final B'nai Mitzvah Prep workshop of the year on the Isaiah campus, the fifth grade families and I were treated to a wonderful tour of  the Museum's latest and largest exhibit,"Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs."

We began gathering outside the Museum's main entrance at 9:45 a.m., by which time the temperature on the plaza was already reaching into the low-'70's.

Just a couple of minutes before 10 a.m., our two assigned docents, Ruth and Jenni, came out to greet us and to give us each a round CJM sticker to put on our shirts. By this time, as nice as the weather was outside, we were more than ready to go inside into the cool building (a former PG&E substation). Jenni's group stayed outside for a few minutes extra to learn about the architecture of the building, while Ruth's group began the tour inside.

David Liebeskind, the architect, had designed the original building and the new, blue "cube" that was added on, to resemble the Hebrew letters "chet" and "yud" which spell the Hebrew word "Chai" (Live). Jenny brought along a photo showing an aerial view of the Museum. It's only from above that you can easily see the formation of those two letters.

It didn't take long, once we were inside, for Jenni to lead us upstairs to the second floor. As we rounded the corner from the staircase, we were confronted by this oversized Roz Chast cartoon, published in the New Yorker Magazine. Jenni introduced us to Roz Chast and her work, using this cartoon. There are people squeezed together on a couch, sitting in what looks to be a subway car, but with obvious discrepancies. Just in this one cartoon, Roz is sharing objects from the Brooklyn (Flatbush) apartment where she was raised as an only child by parents who were half a generation or more older than most of her friends' parents, even as she is sharing a social comment about the isolation of New Yorkers in spite of how close together they are sitting.

The exhibit is divided by temporary walls into several sections in a large space. As you enter through the doors leading into the large space, the following video is projected onto a wall. Immediately we become a part of the creation process of this very gifted artist. The video was taken in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts; if you look carefully, you'll see Museum visitors there coming and going as Roz fills in a projection of a sketch of the outlines of the cartoon, prepared in advance.

To the right of the wall on which the video is projected, Jenni gathered us to introduce the first section of the exhibit, Roz Chast cartoons submitted and accepted for publication by the New Yorker Magazine. I have to admit that I've read the magazine for years, and have always enjoyed the cartoons published in it, but never really looked closely to see who the artists were. I will from now on!

Jenni asked us to look at the cartoons (as many as possible since there were at least 30 of them on the wall, probably many more!) to find whatever Jewish themes we could in them. The one above, "The Rebirth of Venus" and the one below are two good examples:

 

It's easy to find what's Jewish in this cartoon. The caption above reads, "Grandma Yetta's Gefilte Fish" and the text in the dialogue bubbles reads, "What's in it? Don't Ask."

A very big part of the exhibit was dedicated to Roz's memoir, "Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?" in which she shares what her life as a single child of elderly parents was like, growing up in Brooklyn and having to deal with so many issues as they aged. On this page, she's sharing how it felt to have parents older than those of her friends - how isolated she felt from an early age.

There was also a section dedicated to her illustrated books, in particular drawings from her children's book, "Too Busy Marco" in which she created stories about a pet bird she once had in her home.

And in her free time, we learned from Jenni that Roz enjoys hooking rugs. She sketches what she wants to illustrate on the backing of the rug, then hooks the individual threads of yarn to form the pattern. The example above was created by her a few years after her father died. It shares something of her parents' religious leanings - they were both born in New York, but their families were victims of the Holocaust, so they always maintained a strong Jewish identity. But as to how they observed this identity - well, it was a mixed bag to say the least. Pictured on the rug are her father's favorite foods spread out on the table - among other foods mentioned are gefilte fish, borscht, lox, honey cake, schav, ham - hmmm, not kosher that last one, but then again he refused to eat pork or bacon. He drew very strange lines on what was permitted and not, according to Roz.

At the very end of our tour, we went back to one of the 3-dimensional objects in the exhibit - the sofa. Look familiar? (Remember the subway car cartoon above?) Roz uses this piece of furniture in many of her cartoons. Her parents had a couch like this one (though this particular couch was acquired by the Museum for the exhibit). Four of our 5th graders agreed to pose for a photo on it...

...and while their proud parents were photographing them, I was photographing the parents. Hmmm - any Jewish themes in this photo?!

Once the tour was over, we all went downstairs to the art room, where Jenni and Ruth introduced the families to the art project. Each family was given a "Roz Chast Storyboarding" form on which they would plan their own cartoon.

Each fifth grader was then asked to choose one card from an orange deck and one from a pink deck.

Written on the pink deck cards were prompts of subjects that Roz Chast dealt with in her cartoons...

...while the orange deck cards held captions from her cartoons. Once each student had chosen the two cards, the families put their heads together to design the cartoon.

Even younger siblings had a chance to put their creative juices to work.

Daniel and David decided to work together on their cartoon.

We had an hour put aside to work on the cartoons, but as it turns out many of the cartoons were finished in time to allow volunteers to share their cartoons with the rest of the group.

Kassie's subject (above and below) was homework.

Below, Daniel and David are sharing their cartoon with us (subject: Relationships; caption "Down the Hatch") :

Here, Aeryn is sharing her cartoon (subject: Consumerism; caption "What Went Wrong?"):

Collin also shared his cartoon (subject: Academic Pressure; caption "Youth Wants to Know?) :

Yasher Koach (Bravo!) to all our fifth grade artists. And Yasher Koach to our two docents, Jenni and Ruth who helped make our visit such a success!

If you haven't had a chance to see this exhibit, I highly recommend it. It will be on view until September 3rd this year, so you have plenty of time to see it. There is free admission on Tuesday evenings; and if you're bringing the whole mishpoche (family, in Yiddish), take a look here for upcoming family events at the Museum.