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The All is a Miracle Dreidel
The All is a Miracle Dreidel
The All is a Miracle Dreidel
The All is a Miracle Dreidel

The All is a Miracle Dreidel

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by Julia Elsas

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Artist Statement

The All is a Miracle Dreidel was visually inspired by the playful shapes, colors and textures seen in the sculptures of Peter Shire and Ron Nagel. The text “All is a Miracle” is from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, and it is written in both English and Hebrew on the top of the dreidel.

Traditional dreidels outside of Israel have the Hebrew letters lנ (nun), ג (gimel), ה (hay) and ש (shin) which translates to “a great miracle happened there.” The text on dreidels in Israel are a little different as the letter ‘shin’ is replaced by the letter ‘pey’, which translates to: “a great miracle happened here.”

I wanted to create a sculpture that referenced the celebration of the dreidel game and the Hanukkah holiday and is also a beautiful object to be displayed year-round. The All is a Miracle Dreidel is meant to offer hope while pausing and celebrating the small quiet moments of being a human on this earth. Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote perfectly captured that feeling for me.

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

Why We Love It

Claire Mazur about The All is a Miracle Dreidel:

"I’m selfishly thrilled Julia has expanded the scope of her Hanukkah line with her 20x200 edition: As the mother of a half-Jewish three-year-old, dreidels are the most obvious entrypoint into the joys of Judaica—they are a toy, after all...[The All is a Miracle Dreidel] blends the universal theme of mindfulness with the traditional dreidel message that ‘a miracle happened here.’"

Read more on the blog.

Details

+ Approximately 3.5" wide and 2.75" tall standing on the base
+ Base is 3.5"x2.5"1"
+ Dreidel is 3" in diameter and 2" tall
+ Due to the handmade nature of this piece, please note there may small marks on the underside of each work resulting from the firing process.
+ All orders for this edition are final sale and not eligible for discount or return.
+ Limit of 2 dreidels per collector

Medium:

White stoneware clay with gloss and palladium glaze.

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Julia Elsas

Julia Elsas was born in Birmingham, Alabama and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Her visual art encompasses printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, installation, and performance. Julia’s line of functional and playful ceramic goods was established in 2016. Each ceramic piece is one-of-a-kind and hand-built in Julia’s Brooklyn, NY studio.Julia's work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Better Homes and Gardens, Domino, Into the Gloss, Museum at Eldridge Street, New York Magazine, Remodelista, Sight Unseen and Who What Wear. Her ceramics can be found in the Whitney Museum Shop, The Jewish Museum Shop and The Museum of Arts and Design.Julia has been... Read More
an artist-in-residence at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia, Venice, Italy; Gowanus Studio Space, Brooklyn, NY; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA; and Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA. She was in the 2018-2019 inaugural cohort of the New Jewish Culture Fellowship and was a 2019 - 2020 Keyholder Resident at the Lower East Side Print Shop. In 2022, Julia was an artist-in-residence at Obracadobra in Oaxaca, Mexico. Julia also is the co-founder of SONIC MUD, an experimental music group which brings together Julia’s ceramic sonic sculptures and established musicians for one-night musical performances. Past performances have taken place at Cooler Gallery, Printed Matter, The Drawing Center, The New School, NARS Foundation, Ortega y Gasset, Relationships, BKLYN CLAY and Pratt Art Institute.
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