Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts (FSA) Artist-in-Residence Cheselyn Amato participated in a B’reishit Shabbat service at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) Synagogue on October 25th, 2024, in Charleston, SC. The unique significance of this particular Shabbat (coming after Simchat Torah – the unrolling of the scroll) involves reading the first weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish reading cycle. This ritual follows Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Days that inaugurate the liturgical new year.

Amato contributed a spoken word or “drash,” a poetic exegesis of B’reishit (Genesis), the Jewish creation story, meditating on the commandment: “Let there be light” (her full text is linked below). “This beginning of creating, and creating of the first beginning,” remarks Amato, “is a confirmation and affirmation of possibility, that choosing to give form and shape is a marvelous way to engage in the world with everyone and anyone and anything and anywhere. We all carry within us the blessing of possibility – to create, re-create, and create anew.”

Amato’s new series of work created during her residency in Charleston, relies on light as her key ingredient, activating sculpted forms of radiant film. The iridescent mylar reflects and refracts light frequencies as color projections captured by surrounding surfaces. (See Amato’s Open Studio for reference). Connecting the materials of her work with the etiology of light and creation from the B’reishit reading, Amato offered the congregation of KKBE a theological reflection on the mystical qualities of light in spirituality and art.