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Mel Watkin
Waterworks: Red Seas
, 2006. [
Image on front cover.]
Acrylic, ink, colored pencil on map; 20 1/8" x 31"
Education:
M.F.A., University of Montana, Missoula, MT;
B.A., Bennington College, VT.
Selected Collections:
New
York Public Library, NY; Museum of Modern Art Library, NY;
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA
Paul Weissman
26
April 86 + 17,
2005.
Woodcut on paper, jute, and wood;
48"
diameter
Education:
M.A.. B.A., Southern California Institute of
Architecture, Los Angeles; B.A., Yale University, New Haven,
CT.
Selected Exhibitions:
Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion Museum, NY; University of Hawaii,
Manoa, Honolulu
This work depicts a satellite photograph of the dust cloud
from the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in
Pripyat, Ukraine. The image, taken seventeen days after the
disaster, shows the drift of the fallout over the Western Soviet
Union, Europe, and Eastern North America and is formatted
as an infinite circle without boundaries. The palette relates to
its subject, Uranium, the core component of nuclear energy,
while its hoop formation resembles the ‘dream-catchers’ of
the Ojibwa (Chippewa) people that filter a person’s dreams
and allow only the positive ones to come through.
“
My recent works-on-paper are ongoing series of drawings on
roadmaps. The works in this exhibition are from the
Water-
works
series. The original maps have been significantly altered;
in some the roads are replaced with rivers or clogged with
flowering vines, in others, coastlines are flooded and inland
seas rehydrated. In all of the work, erosion, water, overgrown
plant life, and fungi have replaced humanity as the determin-
ing force on the land.”
Founded in 1875,
Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion
is the nation’s
oldest institution of higher Jewish education
and the academic, spiritual, and professional
leadership development center of Reform Ju-
daism. HUC-JIR educates men and women for
service to American and world Jewry as rabbis,
cantors, educators, and communal service pro-
fessionals, and offers graduate and post-graduate
programs to scholars of all faiths.With centers of
learning in
Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Los Angeles,
and
New York
,
HUC-JIR’s scholarly resources
comprise renowned library and museum col-
lections, the American Jewish Archives, biblical
archaeology excavations, research institutes and
centers, and academic publications. HUC-JIR in-
vites the community to an array of cultural and
educational programs which illuminate Jewish his-
tory, identity, and contemporary creativity and
which foster interfaith and multiethnic under-
standing.
www.huc.edu
Laura Kruger,
Chair
Suzette Acar
Catherine Behrend
Judy Becker
Sherry Berz
Semmes Brightman
Phyllis Cohen
Elaine Corwin
Robin Cramer
Gail Davidson
Gloria Dobbs
Cynthia Greener
Edelman
Vicki Reikes Fox
Ruth O. Freedlander
Susan K. Freedman
Phyllis Friedman
Betty Golomb
Joy G. Greenberg
Barbara Gross
Peggy Heller
Frances Hess
Ann Holland
Susan Malloy
Nancy Mantell
Claire G. Miller
Fran Putnoi
Richard J. Scheuer
Pierre Schoenheimer
Helene Spring
Livia Straus
Mildred Weissman
Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion
Museum Advisory Committee
Rabbi David Ellenson, Ph.D.,
President
Dr. Alfred Gottschalk,
Chancellor Emeritus
Dr. Norman J. Cohen,
Provost
Gary Bockelman,
Chief Operating Officer;
Vice President for Administration
Erica S. Frederick,
Executive Vice President
for Development
Dr. Aaron Panken,
Vice President
for Strategic Initiatives
Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff,
Vice
President for Special Projects
Sylvia Posner,
Assistant to the President;
Administrative Executive to the Board
of Governors
Jean Bloch Rosensaft,
Senior National
Director for Public Affairs and Institu-
tional Planning; Director, HUC-JIR
Museum
Shirley Idelson
,
Dean, HUC-JIR/New York
Renni Altman,
Associate Dean,
HUC-JIR/New York