THE MANNA PROJECT
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT (Exodus, Chapter 16), manna was food sent by God to sustain his chosen people, the Israelites, during their 40 years in the desert. Today, we refer to any lucky windfall as “manna.” But manna is both privilege and bondage, freighted with judgments of worthiness. In this project, empty vessels of various kinds testify to the cycle of dependence, fulfillment, and fear of abandonment that accompanies manna.
This series comprises works in various media. Images of empty vessels and empty hands can imply continuous refilling, or continuous loss. Purses without bottoms can accept wealth but not keep it. Still lifes of paper currency and coins are meditations on our fraught relationship with money, which often defies rational thinking and behavior surrounding finances. I propose that money, the ultimate manna, really is everything.
Please click on the photos to see caption details. Scroll down to see works in various media.
