What I Didn't Learn in Hebrew School.

El Sobrante, California:: Lisa Kokin,, 2005.. One-of-a-Kind. 11.75 x 9.5 x .25" altered book. Mixed media book collage including sewing. Signed and dated by the artist. Lisa Kokin: "Using an early 20th century book for children called 'Around the World' as a substrate, I abraded parts of the text and added found photos of children's faces which I sanded down to remove the features, as well as part of a page from a Hebrew school notebook similar to the ones I used as a child. Holes drilled into the book recall bullet holes. "I was taught that no one lived in Israel/Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948." Lisa Kokin, Book Collages: "In my never-ending quest to find different ways to eviscerate books, I stumbled upon the book collage. First I find a book which interests me, either for some element of text, image or marginalia, or for the look of the book itself. Sometimes I remove some of the pages and glue and/or sew the book open to the particular page of interest. Other times I remove all the pages and use the inside covers as the collage surface. I build upon what initially interests me by layering images and text from the same or other books, found photos, and other small objects, using a variety of collage and transfer techniques."  Lisa Kokin, interview with Meg Hitchcock: "My imagery can vary a lot, but there are certain elements that unify my work. There's the presence of sewing in one form or another, which I use as a means of attachment and embellishment. In the past I've made books, sculpture, and installations that have a social justice or historical component, and I've expressed my various experiences of being Jewish, being in a same-sex relationship, and my affinity with the underdog and marginalized. There's also an ongoing investigation into Jewish history in a way that makes sense to me as an adult, as opposed to how it was taught to me as a child. So there's a consistency of looking critically at the outer world and commenting on it, not heavy-handedly or didactically but often with humor. … "I grew up in a Jewish family, very secular, but I went to Hebrew school which was an indoctrination into a certain way of thinking about being a Jew. I accepted it all until I became an adult and started thinking for myself, and eventually realized that I couldn't accept the whole package.