“It Could Always be Worse” is one of the titles given to a classic Yiddish folktale.
It also was the name of the puppet show that nine residents and staff members of the Sarah Chudnow Campus: A Senior Living Community in Mequon staged for residents and guests this past Friday, under the direction of Jeffrey Holub of the Mask and Puppet Theater.
In an interview, Holub explained that about 30 people at the SCC and the Chai Point Senior Living Apartment Complex have been working on this endeavor.
“My idea was to make this a collaborative project,” he said. Different individuals performed different tasks, including helping make the puppets, sewing the curtains for the stage that Holub made, provide voices for the puppets in the show.
“Everybody contributes to the whole and all take the credit…. This has been great fun … and they enjoy it as well,” said Holub.
This project is one of a series of Visual Arts Residencies that Ruach, Inc., the Milwaukee Jewish arts and music initiative, has organized for 2008.
As Ruach’s executive director, Joshua Richman, explained in a telephone interview, Ruach seems to be most often associated with its music offerings in the community since the organization began about three years ago.
However, visual art also “has been a significant component since the beginning,” Richman said. The Visual Arts Residencies are simply an “evolution” of the organization’s efforts to “cater to agencies that might be underserved in arts programming,” he said.
The project involves four local artists who work with agencies such as the Coalition for Jewish Learning (the education program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation), The Academy (Hillel), the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, Torah Academy of Milwaukee and Yeshiva Elementary School, as well as the Sarah Chudnow Campus and Chai Point.
“They are going out to a broad spectrum of different agencies,” working with people “from toddlers to senior citizens, teaching them and producing lasting works of art in a variety of media,” said Richman.
Holub said he is working with the three day schools mentioned above — The Academy, TAM and YES — on more elaborate shows, with performance dates not yet determined.
The three other artists work in a variety of media.
Grafton artist Sally Duback works in handcrafted paper, among other media, and she has collaborated with Holub in the puppet shows.
Milwaukeean Pessa Kayla Finn works in collage, repousse, ceramics and fabric printing, among other media, and is “an accomplished educator with whom Ruach has been familiar for some time,” said Richman.
Finally, Mequon metal artist Seth Tyler rounds out the list. Projects for his residency include working with TAM students to sculpt metal roses that will become permanent items at the new TAM facility, which is now being constructed in Glendale, Richman said.
The artists began their various residencies in February. Richman said that not only have the artists “gone beyond the call of duty in serving Ruach and the agencies,” but they also “have really collaborated and networked among themselves and have formed what we think will be lasting collaborations and friendships with each other.”
As a result of that, Ruach is working on involving the artists in “a collaborative summertime residency,” with details still being planned.
The Ruach Visual Arts Residencies are funded by the Mary Nohl Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, among others.
For more information, call 414-873-4890.
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