I’ve been going through the archival documents and photos of our family and trying to find out all I can about the Russian origins of my family.

This is a collage portrait of my great- grandmother, Sadie Halpern. She and her husband migrated to the US in the early 1900’s, fleeing the pogroms in Austria. She worked in the garment industry in the lower east side of New York, spent many years of her life until her death living in the Bronx, and lived to be 104 years old. She was renowned for her pierogis.

This piece is part of a collection of pieces; it’s a work in progress. I began by making linocuts collage portraits of family members, and Fox scribbled around the people, and both of our lines were used to create collage portraits of my family members. Each portrait also contains photocopies of original family documents. In this portrait, there are copies of some of the Yiddish letters in my family collection, as well as a translation of one of the letters.

The final collection of 8 portraits will be displayed along with actual family archival documents and a written narrative; details to be determined.