ASSEMBLAGE ARTISTS LAURIE BETH ZUCKERMAN AND SUSAN WECHSLER'S EXHIBITION OF ALTARS, "MEMORY: LOSS AND FOUND" SHOWING AT THE DAIRY CENTER FOR THE ARTS, BOULDER, COLORADO, OCT 17-NOV 4, 2014

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady" installation
includes three altars and three memory jugs at The Dairy Center of the Arts

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Memory: Loss and Found altar installations
at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, Colorado

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady
altar installation center closeup, Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder, Co.

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Memory: Loss and Found installation
at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, Colorado

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Memory: Loss and Found installation
at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, Colorado

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Bella Donna" altar installation at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Bella Donna" altar installation at The Dairy Center.
Donna Zuckerman is pictured on her wedding day with her husband,  Irving Stone.

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "The Tarnished Angels"
altar installation at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady"
altar installation, grandma's empty rocking chair and suitcases at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady"
altar installation with "Locked Away" memory jug at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady"
altar installation with "The Bell Jar" memory jug at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady"
altar installation with "Locked Away" and "The Bell Jar"
memory jugs at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's "Behind the Eight Ball" memory jug
made in 2003 is included in her altar installation at The Dairy Center

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's altar exhibition at The Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder is entitled, "Memory: Loss and Found." This is a joint exhibition with my dear friend, mosaic artist Susan Wechsler of Boulder County, Colorado. Susan and I collaborated in her Longmont studio last year, sharing each others personal techniques and artistic sensibilities with found-object assemblage. We have planned this exhibition since March 2013, each creating new works expressly for our theme and The Dairy Center venue. Our exhibition is unique and outstanding, and I am grateful to Susan for suggesting this joint venture. Few other artists are as obsessive and meticulous about their artwork as we are.

Susan and I define ourselves as Jewish altar makers. Our eclectic shrines and memorials reflect our own family traditions and life experiences, and are informed by diverse cultural heritages from around the world. We both honor memory in order to evoke spirituality in our work, share a mutual love of collecting and flea marketing, and incorporate vintage materials into our found-object assemblage shrines.

Our exhibition title, "Memory: Loss and Found" plays with grammar to make a point. Both of us have created works that reflect "losses" we have experienced, and to make a statement about what is "found" by examination of and reflection upon memory. Some observers may reflect that the found objects and personal items used in our works are imbued with the energy and spirit of those who once possessed these things. My altars are constructed primarily from antique Victorian mourning paraphernalia, Mexican black clay folk art from Oaxaca, and a host of vintage collectibles.

I made these Madre Dolorosa altars and memory jugs in remembrance of my Russian-Jewish ancestors and their tragic life stories, which have colored my life with a somber gloom. This black cloud has hovered over me as long as I can remember. My altars are manifestations of these family legacies, told to me by my storytelling father, Hollywood screenwriter and novelist, George Zuckerman. My father used words meant for moving images or the printed page to tell his stories. I use historical objects in a physical manner to express my own take on these deeply personal stories. I aim for a visual shock and awe reaction from my viewers—I want people to feel my work in their gut.

My "Madre Dolorosa: The Spanish Lady" altar installation includes three individual altars, plus a rocking chair display. This suite honors the sadness my Grandmother Sarah Melnik Zuckerman, and her only daughter, my Great Aunt Elizabeth Zuckerman, who died at the age of six during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, aka "The Spanish Lady." Sarah lost her mind, fled home, and lived away for two years, abandoning her three sons, the youngest of whom was my two-year-old father. My father named me Beth, out of respect for his older sister, Elizabeth. It would have been too much for my Grandmother Sarah, if my parents had named me Elizabeth.

My "Madre Dolorosa" installation includes a suite of three memory jugs, two of which honor the massacre of nearly thirty Melnik/Zuckerman relatives during the Nazi invasion of Poland in July 1941. Their titles are "Behind the Eight Ball" and "The Bell Jar." The third memory jug, "Locked Away" honors the memories of her lost daughter that were locked in my grandmother's fragile mind, and remained secret from her four surviving sons. My teenage father did not know he had a sister until he discovered a trunk of Elizabeth's belongings in the attic.

My "Bella Donna" altar installation honors my first cousin, Donna Zuckerman and her new husband, Irving Stone, who died in a single car crash on their honeymoon to Canada. They were buried one week after their nuptials in Brooklyn, New York, 1973. I was not in attendance for either life-altering event, but my brother, Gregg Zuckerman was. I was living across the country in Eugene, Oregon. I had just graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, and arrived in Eugene just days before Donna and Irv passed away. My sense of hopefulness for life and happily ever after died the day my mother called to relay the devastating news. 

All three of my altar installations and four memory jugs in this exhibit are a part of my Memento Mori series. Memento Mori is a Latin phrase for “be mindful of death" that can also be interpreted as “remember that you are mortal.” Memento Mori refers to the historic genre of artistic creations in European funereal art, cemetery tombstones, and architecture, and include the Mexican El Día de los Muertos imagery used on ofrenda altars. Our exhibit was scheduled to coincide with El Día de los Muertos, and will close after the holiday on November 4.

To see an earlier installation of my Madre Dolorosa Altar that I exhibited in 2012 at the Longmont Museum and Cultural Center in Colorado, click on this blogpost.

Laurie Beth Zuckerman (left) and Susan Wechsler (right)
congratulate each other on their exhibit at the Dairy Center for the Arts

Susan Wechsler (left) and Laurie Beth Zuckerman (right)
at the Dairy Center on opening night

For more information about Laurie Zuckerman and Susan Wechsler's exhibition, please log onto The Dairy Center for the Arts for show times and dates. Please visit artist, Susan Wechsler at her website and blog: http://www.mosaicsbysusan.com 

LAURIE BETH ZUCKERMAN EXHIBITS ANTIQUE MEXICAN CHINA POBLANA DOLL ALTAR AT GLOBAL VILLAGE MUSEUM OF ARTS IN CULTURE, FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, OCT 3-JAN 24

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Antique Mexican China Poblana Doll Altar installation
at The Global Village Museum of Arts and Culture Mexico exhibition in Fort Collins.

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Antique Mexican China Poblana Doll Altar installation
at The Global Village Museum of Arts and Culture, Fort Collins, Colorado

Laurie Beth Zuckerman's Antique Mexican China Poblana Doll Altar installation
at The Global Village Museum of Arts and Culture, Fort Collins, Colorado

The MEXICO: Objects for Living, Objects for Life exhibition will be on display from October 3, 2014–January 24, 2015 at The Global Village Museum of Arts and Culture in Fort Collins. Laurie Beth Zuckerman's installation of antique Mexican China Poblana tourist dolls at this international folk art museum is representative of handmade costume dolls from the early to mid-1900s. Typical "mestizo campesino" munecas (dolls) were made by Mexican artisans as well as foreign makers and sold to tourists during the heyday of foreign tourism. These cloth and/or composition dolls displayed the most famous indigenous dresses of the predominant regions of Mexico. In the early 20th century, daughters of hacienda owners began to embroider colorful dresses for rodeo events, known as Charreadas. They called these dresses "China Poblanas." These dolls model these real-life costumes. I have collected these soulful dolls from flea markets for twenty-some years, as my altars provide a wonderful new home for these orphaned tourist dolls.

The legend of the China Poblana began around 1621. Spain had extended its provinces to the Orient with its base in Manila. Each year Spanish ships would bring treasures to Mexico. A young exotic Hindu princess from the Mughal Kingdom named Mirra was bought at the slave market in Manila. She had been taken prisoner by Portuguese pirates on the coast of India. She was then sold to a sea captain and his wife in Puebla by a fellow Spanish ship captain, and her name was changed to Catarina de San Juan after she was baptized. She wore a colorful silk sari across her face and became know as "La Chinita" or "the little Chinese girl." Catrina died in 1688 after living her life as a nun. Her tomb of the "China Poblana" is located in the Colegio de la Compania de Jesus church in Puebla, Mexico. 

A good book for collectors to research more about China Poblana dolls is Mexican Popular Art: Clothing and Dolls, by Wendy Scalzo, available at Amazon books. Most of the dolls in my altar collection are represented in this beautiful colorful book. They range from the 1930s to the 1950s.