Traditional ART

What inspires an artist? That single word— inspiration—that so consistently reveals itself when discussing art becomes a starting point that then ripples into a series of other questions. For Ben Schachter, Professor of Art, inspiration comes from the influence of something close to him.

“Generally, my ideas come from the Bible and Jewish texts. I am Jewish, so I read from that perspective—that is where I source most of my material,” said Schachter. “It’s always a goal to read more, and as I read, an image or idea comes to mind, and I want to express it.”

One of Schachter’s projects that expresses Jewish tradition was recently selected as a finalist in Solstice magazine’s Summer Contest in the graphic literature category. In addition to publishing graphic literature, Solstice focuses on publishing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and photographic works that promote diverse voices and encourage conversations.

Entitled Las Huellas del Diablo, in just a few pages, Schachter’s bold images translate and unite the ancient wisdom of Jewish traditions into a depicted, contemporary casino scene.

“The Jewish tradition has its own wisdom tradition that has been written down, called the Tanakh, that contains stories and where the sages and rabbis of old discuss and argue ideas,” explains Schachter. “For the Solstice piece, there was a line in the Tanakh written by a rabbi describing the dangers of a ruin . . . one of the dangers being that you might encounter a demon.” The rabbi in the text goes on to describe that if one is worried about this danger, then they should dust ash around their house, revealing the footprints the demon left behind.

Schachter discusses that this story evoked vivid images that he wanted to “put in a new place.” Rather than just illustrating a replication, he wanted to make it more contemporary and change the way it was told, which leads to his idea of the casino setting.

“In the Solstice piece, there is a man in a casino who knocks over his ash tray and the chicken footprints wind up in the ash, so it’s a retelling of the same idea,” Schachter says. “The way I drew those pictures started to enrich as I was doing it. I thought of the casino scenario and thought about the question, ‘Where would ash naturally be?’ As I was doing that, I had no other plans except the man winning and knocking over the ash.” Schachter also had to consider what would cause the man to win: “Hence the three matching images on the lottery machine, and if you notice, they are pictures of devils, which reflects back to the demons in the Jewish text,” he says.

For the creative process of this piece, Schachter describes that he was guided by a page limit while also consistently editing and revising to make the images stronger. “Solstice wasn’t asking for this type of content specifically, but it was a shorter design, so the idea that I already had, this was the place to put them out. The images also started to match the story more and more,” he says. When asked about a project’s completion point and being content with the final product, he laughed and noted, “That is sometimes arbitrary. For this piece, I had a deadline. It is about knowing oneself or when to stop.”

Appearing in Solstice magazine is not the first accolade that Schachter has received for his work. In 2020, a billboard he designed was chosen for the inaugural Emma Lazarus Art Award by the organization Combat Anti-Semitism. The design parallels the proverb “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” with Schachter’s reading, “Apples are good. FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM is better. Did you fight yours TODAY?”

“The Emma Lazarus Art Award demonstrates that design has an audience,” explains Schachter. “An audience places certain demands on the artist or the designer. When the designer can meet those demands, the work is successful. With that in mind, I am glad that I can meet the demands of an audience.”

A concept that Schachter discussed is that sharing art is a driving factor, with the subject matter guiding the process— an idea that has evolved throughout his life. “I’ve always drawn, I’ve always used my hands to make something visual, whether it was artwork from just doing or artwork from imagining and then doing,” he says. “I’ve made a lot of work from the first kind. Now I am concentrated on the way I imagine something and having it look that way.”

Schachter is also the director of the Visual Arts Division of the Fine Arts Department in the School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Having taught at Saint Vincent for 19 years, he’s learned a few things along the way.

“The connection between art and teaching is just practice. I tell my students often that art is like a sport—there is a physical element to moving the hand or the arm in a way that the brain imagined,” says Schachter. “I hope that my students can see how I do something to learn about how to do it, and the same is true when I see them do the work. It is always a two-way street when watching or helping someone else, you learn something passively that way.”

A foundational idea of art that Schachter discusses is the idea that art is natural—it is part of the human condition. It is a natural mode of expression, just as words and movement are other modes of communicating ideas. “Some people talk more than others; some people make art more than others. It’s natural,” he says.

Schachter holds a Master of Science and Master of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. He reflected on his experience there, explaining how he began with painting and moved onto sculpting with electrical hardware, then incorporating new ideas from the Jewish tradition that he was unaware of before. One of these ideas was the eruv map, a symbolic boundary that he describes as a drawing in space with a line around a community in the urban environment.

“From entering Jewish texts creatively in that example, here I am looking for other stories and ideas,” Schachter says.

Inspiration will keep guiding him along the way. ♦