|
The ketubah has been a part of the Jewish tradition for centuries, and over
that time the actual text of the ketubah in Aramaic used by the Orthodox has
gone unchanged. Modifications to this text were made by the Conservative movement
in the last century to address the issue of secular and religious divorce.
The Reform movement completely abandoned the traditional text along with its
use of Aramaic. New texts were written in Hebrew and English to reflect the egalitarian
ideals of the movement. Since the Reform movement adopted no individual text,
many variations of egalitarian ketubah texts have been written by a large variety
of authors including rabbis, ketubah artists and scribes, and even individual
couples.
These new “ketubah” texts, while having no legal binding under
Jewish law, are essentially statements of vows the couple make to each other.
This new “tradition” opened the door for a variety of “ketubah” texts
to be written for non-traditional uses including interfaith marriages, commitment
ceremonies, and anniversary commemorations. Even non-Jewish couples have started
using the “ketubah” concept to beautify their weddings.
But what would a ketubah be without its beautiful decoration? (Do you see
couples framing their marriage certificates?) Just as the ketubah texts went
unchanged for centuries, so did the way it was illuminated. Traditionally a ketubah
design consisted of a decorative border surrounding the text. The themes for
the decorative border would include religious symbols, symbols of fertility,
other Jewish symbolism, and/or other imagery relevant to the couple being married.
The artistic styles didn’t vary much either.
At the end of the 20th century, Micah Parker became one of the first artists
to usher in a new era of ketubah “art”. He started creating designs
that didn’t use the traditional “border-around-text” format.
He used a variety of artistic styles and themes that had never been used to illuminate
ketubot before. While the ketubah text is very important, he didn’t feel
that the “decoration” had to be placed around it. He created designs
where the text fit into the art or became a part of the design. And black and
white was no longer the order of the day, since he started using colors for the
text that coordinated with the design. Within a few years, as his work’s
popularity grew, other artists started following this new trend of “modern” ketubah
design.
At the same time he was creating this new path in ketubah creation, Micah was
also pioneering a new way to produce his pieces. He became the first to widely
use the giclée printing process developed a few years earlier to produce
ketubot. This new printing process gave him the ability to print each ketubah
individually, which allowed Micah to customize each piece quickly and affordably
to an individual couple’s desires. Before this time a “custom” ketubah
would have to be created from scratch, which would take time and could be costly. |
