A: My husband Ken and I have always loved The CJM. We’ve both had artwork exhibited there and it’s where we screened our first collaboration The Tribe: The Unorthodox, Unauthorized History of the Barbie Doll and the Jewish People… in 18 Minutes (it was actually at a CJM exhibition in 1997 that I learned that Barbie was Jewish from a Deb Kass artwork that planted the seed for making The Tribe years later). Ken and I also did our first art installation, Smashing, there in 2008. Most recently, one of my tree ring sculptures about Jewish identity, The Center Will Hold, was exhibited in the California Jewish Open. I have also loved so many of the exhibitions I have experienced at The CJM, especially the Dorothy Saxe Invitationals!

When our daughters Odessa and Blooma were young, we loved coming to The Museum’s fabulous annual Hanukkah celebrations. The CJM has always been the central gathering spot for the Bay Area Jewish mishpacha (family).

A: Ken and I mostly work independently, but come together every several years to do a project together. Our exhibition Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time & Technology was our first comprehensive museum exhibition traveling from the Getty PST ART initiative at the Skirball Cultural Center in LA, and an expanded version is opening in our hometown on January 22 at di Rosa SF. Out of the twenty-plus artworks in the exhibition, four are particularly Jewish; the sculpture Tree of Knowledge includes nearly 200 questions on a 10,000-lb tree section that are, at their core, about Jewish questioning. DendroJudaeology: A Timeline of the Jewish People builds on my work of rethinking histories that trees have witnessed, and this time, we created a timeline through a Jewish lens including over 100 powerful, profound, hard, and humorous milestones in Jewish history. In an online world of disinformation, endless scrolls, and no context, putting 5,000 years of history onto a slab of wood feels powerful—and needed. The sculpture Two Notes and the new work The World Is a Narrow Bridge both explore ideas from rabbinic wisdom.

While many works in the exhibition deal with other subjects like science, AI, and California history, we’re excited to share these four works that are particularly Jewish with our community.

A: We started observing a screen-free day sixteen years ago that we call Tech Shabbat. While we always have friends and family over Friday night, Shabbat day includes a lot of journaling, reflecting, and spending time in nature, mostly on Mt. Tamalpais. All of the physical art I have been making the last three years—and Ken's and my collaboration for this exhibition—definitely grew out of our Shabbat practice of spending so much time immersed in the trees. I love knowing that our people celebrate a “New Year for the Trees” (Tu B’Shevat). In addition to more events on a wide range of topics, we will lead a special Jewish-focused tour of the exhibition for Tu B’Shevat on February 1 (and would love for The CJM community to join us!). The New Year for the Trees is such a fitting occasion for this exhibition, where trees act as canvases and lenses for a new way to look at the world.

A: Challah! It’s the only recipe I have in my book 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection. I was determined to learn how to make a really good challah when the girls were young. Let’s just say at the beginning of my challah journey, it was not so good. Over years of experimentation, it has become much more fluffy. It was such a good activity to do with our daughters. During COVID, we did a Zoom challah bake each week where we had special guests, including chefs like Jake Cohen, from whom we learned a lot. Ancient wisdom in the challah! Now it’s my favorite thing to make for people.

Plus, my mom Carole Lewis’s brisket and Ken’s Shabbat roast chicken!