This series was inspired by the hassidic legend Lamid Vav. In seeing it through a contemporary lens I used 36 squares to represent the 36 righteous Jews whose very existence keeps the world in balance. The one empty square marks a transition as one of these righteous Jews dies and just before God anoints a new person. I have known only one such person who I think was one of the Lamid Vavnicks.

Susan Schwalb is one of the foremost figures in the current silverpoint revival. Born in New York City in 1944 she studied at Carnegie-Mellon University and has had over 50 solo exhibitions in galleries and museums world-wide. Her work is represented in most major public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and the British Museum, London. Schwalb was one of only three living artists included in the historical metalpoint exhibition Drawing with Silver and Gold: From Leonardo to Jasper Johns at the National Gallery of Art, Washington which traveled to the British Museum in 2015. Her book written along with a co-author Tom Mazzullo, “Silverpoint and Metalpoint Drawing: A Complete Guide to the Medium”, was published in 2019 by Routledge/Focal Press, UK. Her two-person exhibition of metalpoint paintings and drawings will open on April 29 through June 1, 2019 at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London, with a reception on May 8 from 5-8pm. http://patrickheide.com