Artist Statement for "Riverbed" Ketubah

Artist: Nishima Kaplan

Original media: Mixed media on paper

As with your love for each other, a riverbed is always changing, always deepening, always flowing. Hand in hand, bathed by the crystal clear water, the riverbed is yours and yours alone to explore. With each step, it offers up a chance discovery: A shiny pebble, a flash of silver, a moment of shared laughter.

The third in Nishima’s "Poetics" series, Riverbed is inspired by the simplicity and beauty of Asian art fused with Nishima’s playful sense of form and color. As carefully composed and balanced as a verse of Haiku poetry. Classic, modern, primal, earthy. Riverbed will grow and change with you.

This mixed media "Poetics" collage is constructed from handmade paper that is torn, cut, applied and layered onto a large, colorful watercolor painting. The process is intensely meditative for the artist. She begins with only an idea in mind. No sketches of the artwork are done prior to beginning. Sudden inspirations, "accidents" and the natural beauty of the paper and the watercolor are allowed to "create" the artwork, using the artist as the vessel of expression. Spontaneous, creative, mystical: the words used to describe the process of creating this "Poetics" ketubah also describe the people who love it.