Art Journal Siddur / Amanda Nube

Background

For women, praying 3 times a day is not an obligation, but for me, daily prayer is essential and has changed over the years. I love prayer books; Renewal ones, Reform, Conservative, and Orthadox ones, Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Spanish, and Hebrew ones, Mincha/Maariv, Portable, and Beautiful ones.

For my Atiq project I decided to create my own and add in my own prayers and art. 

Process

With this project, creating my own personal siddur companion, I ask myself where do I begin? With which prayers? 

This past year I have deepened my practice with the traditional Artscroll Siddur prayer book. It has been a year of understanding the siddur more, learning more prayers and more Hebrew.

This siddur journal begins, as most Jewish customs do, with evening. With a regular weekday evening when I am most likely to pick up pen and paper and respond to prayers with my own personal reflections. I started by making collage pages, drawings of images to accompany certain prayers, and re-writing key lines of prayer. I turned these pages into a photocopiable Zine, with room for writing and drawing, and with the hopes of sharing it with others to see how others respond and fill in the blanks next to these prayers. Ultimately, I went back to an art journal format where I can keep populating the pages.

My Prayer

To make visible the silent, the unseen, unheard whispers of our hearts, 

To lift up our prayers, the meditations of our hearts, 

To prepare ourselves to write new praises.

What are the ritual tools I connect with most often? 

How do I do Jewish ritual anew?

How do I “do” my Judaism in the day to day?

WORDS, PRAYER, SONG, ART

Share your reflection on
“Art Journal Siddur”

Amanda invites you to consider: How do you wish to engage with Jewish prayers? Send an ArtJournal Prayer for Zine #2: