In this New Year,
may we use the knowledge of
“from where we came”,
and the tools we have to shape
“where we are headed”…
to build a world of inclusion & peace for all.
The people who fashioned the James Webb Space Telescope have enabled us to peer into the deepest past of the cosmos, presenting a richer understanding of our origins. Meanwhile, Michal Shomer, in Israel, has fashioned a font that enables us to read Hebrew in a multi-gendered manner offering us a chance to shape a richer, more inclusive future.
The image on this year’s card is an attempt to capture some of the glory of an early photograph from the telescope depicting a group of five galaxies, two of which are in the process of merging. It also uses the Multi-Gender Hebrew font laid out on a möbius strip with the first phrase דַּע מֵאַיִן בָּאתָ displayed as a mirror image so that the entire phrase reads continuously forward and back:
I imagine our task as constantly looking backward and forward as each phrase leads into the other.
I printed many inked variants of the background image:
I first photographed the text on the möbius strip:
I flattened the image:
Drew it onto the linoleum (acually a rubbing, so the image would appear reversed):
Cut the block:
Ran a test print:
Printed on the background (with varying success):
And finally added the spot color of silver, as seen at the top.
Linoleum cut produced by Mark, Summer 2022
©Mark Hurvitz 2022