Erev/Evening

By Jean Gerber

Erev/Evening
oil on canvas
48" x 90"
$9600
Available
MBFA
framed

Jean writes: Erev is the Hebrew word for Evening. The concept for this six-panel piece arose while drawing one evening during a canoe camping trip on the Aroostook River in Maine. The project recalls for me evenings camping alone alongside a lake or a river. At this time of day a stillness settles in bringing a vague sense of unease. Emily Dickinson describes this “between” time in her poem “There’s a Certain Slant of Light". There’s a certain slant of light, on winter afternoons That oppresses, like the weight of cathedral tunes… When it comes, the landscape listens, Shadows hold their breath;…. Many cultures see this transitional time of day as a sacred time. In the Hebrew Book of Genesis days are separated not by night and day, but by evening and morning. Each day created ends with, “And there was evening and there was morning, a first (second…) day.” Seeing this sentence written in Hebrew stands out for me. It reminds me of hearing a Narragansett native woman speaking of the liminal times of day, morning and evening, as being sacred. I use the word Erev in the title to suggest the quiet holiness of this time of day.