Karolina Kašeová, Rosh Hashone "card." Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
I recently had the privilege of writing about Yiddish and Hebrew calligrapher Karolina Kašeová in the Forverts. Reading the Forverts article first is helpful for background and context. In this post I will further embed Karolina’s calligraphic art within her remarkable personal story. (I’m using her first name to reflect our friendship and the more intimate perspective of a personal blog.)
Karolina’s work is inseparably intertwined with her family’s Jewish story; a more detailed overview than was suitable for the Forverts can be found here. This single family embodies the Czech Jewish experience of the past hundred years, particularly in the lives of Hana Guth (b. 1921), Martina Tetzeliova (b. 1968) and Karolina herself (b. 1991). The family has experienced prosperous semi-assimilation, the horrors of the Holocaust and the cultural dislocation of Communism. They never entirely lost their sense of Jewishness, but they came close. Karolina herself, born two years after the fall of Communism, is the family’s historian and the symbol of its Jewish reinvention.
Given the centrality of women in Karolina’s story, it’s no wonder that some of her most evocative artworks focus on women. Female roles within Judaism are of course complex, and young women of Karolina’s generation have to make choices about their needs and desires within Jewish traditions. Thus the youthful bride in “Dray Tekhter” – seen from behind, engulfed in a swirl of Yiddish words about marriage – stands both for Jewish women's inability to control their own destinies in the past, and for the challenges of being a young Jewish woman today. The girl seems to be searching for answers beyond the confines of the page, and to be turning away – self-protectively or rejectingly – from the burst of words and sounds. Her facelessness makes her both no one and a Jewish Everywoman.
Karolina Kašeová, Dray Tekhter. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
“Veyn, Zhe, Veyn” expresses deep appreciation of the beauties of traditional Jewish women’s lives – but also a sense that these belong to a vanished world: the two challah loaves are represented only by their ghostly outlines, and the curtain evoking the wedding gown is old and fragile. There’s a sense both of mourning and of relief that this ancient way of life – so lovely yet so restrictive – is part of the past. On the other hand, Karolina herself baked these challah loaves for her own Shabbos table; but since she makes her own Shabbos without a husband or children, this is not the same Sabbath that the bride of Warshavsky’s song experienced. The line between past and present, between treasuring and discarding, remains ambiguous.
Karolina Kašeová, Veyn, Zhe, Veyn. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
Emotional multivalence is characteristic of other works as well. “Maror,” for example, bursts with the color and shape of lemons – which are both sour and sweet – and the maror herb grows vigorously; but the Yiddish words evoke timeless cycles of suffering: “We will see each other next year. I am your beloved bitterness (maror).” Bitterness never ceases, but is also a “beloved” and necessary element of Jewish life.
Karolina Kašeová, Maror. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
Similarly, the ink work in “Abyss” is bold and dynamic, but the words (from a Hebrew Hasidic song) are full of grief: “Why did the soul decide to descend from the heights into the deep abyss?” But the song then suggests that the fall of the soul is the precondition for its redemption: so is the message despairing or hopeful? Only the abyss is shown, with the words tumbling into it – but is the possibility of return to the heights implied?
Karolina Kašeová, Abyss. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
Readers of the Forverts article understood that Karolina’s style is her own, but were curious about some of her visual sources. As described in the article, Yiddish illustrated books had a significant impact. Hebrew sacred calligraphy – particularly Hebrew micrography – contributed to the look and feel of her author portraits (like “Sutzkever: Ver Vet Blaybn?”).
Karolina Kašeová, Sutzkever: Ver Vet Blaybn? Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
I also see the elegant poise and economy of means – where less is more – characteristic of Asian calligraphy in Karolina’s work (especially in pieces like “Babyn Yar,” “Flower of Life” and “Fern”). She says that she isn’t especially familiar with Asian art, but I suspect that she has seen and noticed more than she realizes. There’s also a kinship with some Islamic calligraphy in the way she lays out text on the page, though the degree of influence is hard to pinpoint.
Karolina Kašeová, Babyn Yar. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
Karolina Kašeová, Flower of Life. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
Karolina Kašeová, Fern. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
Finally, it’s important to contextualize Karolina’s calligraphic art within her other creative work. She’s an excellent photographer; her perspective is often Jewish, even if not overtly (for example, in her striking photos of the Josefov Fortress – the “twin” of Terezin, notoriously repurposed by the Nazis). She’s also the lead singer in a klezmer band called Mi Martef (From the Basement). As the only Jewish member of the band, she chooses all their songs and makes sure the other musicians understand their spiritual and cultural meaning. She also does Jewish catering for events, making the universality of food into an ambassador for Jewish culture.
Karolina Kašeová, Josefov Fortress. Image courtesy of Karolina Kašeová.
The Jewish journey of Karolina’s family from her great-grandmother Hana’s time to the present is an astonishing one – and it’s Karolina who has brought the story more than full circle. She is not only drawing on the Jewish past, but also remaking that legacy according to her own personal vision. Her calligraphic art is the fullest expression of her identity, but her Jewish creativity is multi-dimensional. Who knows where it will take her next – but many of us look forward to finding out.
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