Mother's Day

Mother's Day is fast approaching and the folds at The Jewish Hostess have put together a nice list of Judaica gift ideas.  Among their suggestions is the newest GRC challah board (the cboard4) that replaces the traditional wooden board with an attractive slab of marble.

Gary Rosenthal:
Gary Rosenthal has been sculpting in welded metals for over 20 years. He is self-taught and his popular style is unique and reflects a rare sensitivity to both his materials and his subject.
Rosenthal sculpture has been commissioned by the International Special Olympics Committee for the 1978 World Games, the Miss Dance America Trophy and the annual membership awards for B’nai Brith International. Mr. Rosenthal’s art has also been used as presentations for individuals as varied as Presidents Carter and Clinton, John Travolta and musician Issac Stern.
This challah tray is a chic modern classic.

A Giant Custom Mezuzah

Just a quick post here, I wanted to share a photo of a recent commission we did.  This is not your standard door sized mezuzah - this commissioned piece stands 14" tall!

Glass Ribbon Frame

Along with the relaunch of GlassRibbon.com, we're looking at ways to make this project even better.  One way we're doing that is by expanding the product offering.  Now, along with all of the previous items in the collection, you can create this new frame, the BCMPF8.  What do you think?

Another Braille Mezuzah

I posted a while back about a really cool Braille mezuzah we had been commissioned to make.  In the summer of 2009, a new building for the Association for the Blind was being completed and nearing dedication.  One of the major donors for the project was a Jewish couple.  As a recognition to their efforts and as a way to represent the building’s connection with the Jewish community, a representative from the local JCC Judaica shop contacted the Gary Rosenthal Collection with a proposition.  She wanted to know if it would be possible for us to create a Braille mezuzah.

We did create one for them.  It was a wonderful piece and much appreciated.  After experimenting with the method used - and finding new uses for it as well - the design has been refined and this new piece has been created, available for anyone who may be in need of this type of special piece.

If you are interested in this, or other Braille artwork, feel free to contact us at 301.493.5577.

Copper in the Arts

Gary Rosenthal and his work is featured in the latest issue of Copper in the Arts, found at Copper.org.

Copper in the Arts: HISTORY

Gary Rosenthal Collection: Contemporary Judaica Art Rooted in Tradition

By Michael Cervin

When Gary Rosenthal dropped out of college for a year to work for his father, a stove repairman, he never knew it would ignite his affinity for copper. But one day, when Rosenthal was torching a cast iron stove's heavy grates, something clicked. 

“I pretty much I fell in love with fire at that point,” he says offhandedly. During this time he also tinkered with metal sculpting, then went back to college to obtain his degree in Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University. He showed his handiwork to a metal artist professor who bluntly told Rosenthal he didn’t possess any sense of aesthetics, color, form, light or shape. As he waited for the final insult, the professor said, “People are going to love your work and it will sell like crazy.” 

Today, that has proven to be an understatement. 

“I’m self taught, but I have a knack for making things people like,” Rosenthal admits. He started making artistic pieces out of copper sheets, cut nails and steel rods; figurines of “people doing things,” as he puts it. Like a fully formed one inch figure “skiing” down white limestone, or a 50 pound rock with two figures on it with a thin copper wire between them so they looked like rock climbers. He was showing his work at a Jewish community center in Baltimore and someone asked him to make a menorah. So he set out to make several, and they all sold out like proverbial hotcakes. Rosenthal soon realized his niche and quickly filled the need for people in search of handmade copper Judaica, like menorahs, candlesticks, goblets, Seder plates and other objects for use in temple ceremonies or in someone’s home. 

“We were ahead of the curve and we dominated the market,” he says. “After WWII America became such a nice open place to live that people began to feel comfortable and at that point Judaica was a market niche that needed to be filled. I know the houses were empty of Judacia because mine was.” At his zenith he employed 50 people working overtime to keep up with demand. “When I first got started I went to the junk yard and got copper scrap, but now we buy a couple of tons of sheet copper each year,” he says. That sheet is often 16 or 20 ounce from roofing supply companies, even up to 1/8 inch plate. But copper markets have changed and copper is now sourced from all over. “I prefer to get materials from this country as it’s been my experience that the quality is higher,” he admits, speaking of some frustrating experience with foreign brass. For his sheets he will cut it down, punch it out to create details on his pieces, even using 3/8 diameter copper wire. And his collection of Judaicia is very contemporary, exuding a playfulness with his use of form and colored copper, something his old art professor would be proud of.

All the U.S. presidents since Jimmy Carter, and other heads of state, have received his work as gifts from other heads of state. Recently a group of Jewish diplomats on the way to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Morocco commissioned Gary to make a set of dreidels each with personalized plates the tops can spin on, which were then given to prime ministers. “Of all the metals we work with, stainless steel, bronze and brass, copper’s my favorite, the way it looks, the way we can color it both hot and cold,” he says. “You go all the way back to the original ark of the covenant and copper was used on it.” Copper therefore has a sacred background. “For me, it's God’s metal,” he says.

In addition to finding his work at stores nationwide, his work is also available in such noted museum gift shops like the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the American Craft Museum, Skirball Museum of Culture in Los Angeles, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Original article