Tucson artist facilitates healing through art

MALA BLOMQUIST | MANAGING EDITOR

Artist Beth Surdut is a wildlife illustrator, environmental educator, stained glass designer and writer. She began painting on silk in the 1980s, starting with scarves, which have been on display in the Smithsonian, in Washington, D.C., and then moved on to larger paintings. She also creates chuppot, Torah covers, tallitot and healing scarves.

She first got the idea to create a tallit while sitting in temple at HaMakom: The Place for Passionate and Progressive Judaism in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“I belonged to a wonderful congregation, and it was so small that we could sit in a circle and you could see who you were davening with,” said Surdut. “I thought, ‘I should start doing custom prayer shawls,’ which personalize that invitation into what I think of as a portable house of prayer.”

She talked to her rabbi, Rabbi Malka Drucker, about the idea and she said, “Great, I’ll buy one.”

People started commissioning her to make custom tallitot. Her clientele varied from kids to adults, with many women in their 60s, or older, who hadn’t had a bat mitzvah. She starts the process by interviewing the individual and asking them about their interests, what makes them happy and if they had a day to do anything they wanted — and if money and time travel were taken care of — what would that day look like?

“It’s very interesting to work with someone who’s only been on the planet for 12 years versus somebody who’s been on the planet for 60 or more years,” says Surdut. “Their perspectives are quite different because of their life experiences.”

As people discovered that she was a wildlife illustrator, they also began asking her to put animals on their tallit. There was one client who had three Sulcata tortoises and she wanted one on her prayer shawl because of what the animal represented to her: “ancient wisdom, a creature that has lasted for so long and has been in the universe for so long.”

Surdut also likes to suggest that people put the Hebrew names of their family members on the corners. “During services, when you gather those four corners together, you’re gathering your family together,” she said.

The tzitzit on the tallit come from Israel. “I think of them coming from very happy sheep,” she said. “There is a directive that the wool for the tzitzit needs to come from sheep that are clean and don’t have burrs and dirt in them. So, I picture happy sheep that are gently and lovingly sheared.”

Surdut’s first introduction to Tucson came in 2012, when she visited the annual Tucson Festival of Books. The following year, she returned to accept the festival’s Literary Award for Nonfiction for “Listening to Raven,” a compilation of illustrations, stories and personal essays.

In 2014, Surdut gave a presentation, “The Modern Tallit,” at the Tucson

Jewish Community Center and during that visit, she was featured in shows by Arizona Illustrated and a radio piece on Arizona Spotlight. Drawn to the wildlife