Weisberg exhibition takes the long view

The fascination carries through to today, in drawings, paintings and prints in a career that counts about 70 solo shows, a core of loyal collectors and 12 years as dean of the USC Roski School of Fine Arts.

"I tell my students, 'Don't be too concerned about careerism or being fashionable, because it's a very short-term thing,' " says Weisberg, 64. "If you're in fashion, you're not in fashion long. You have to work from deeper sources. I try to teach my students to dig deep, because that's the only source of originality."

In 1985 Weisberg was invited by Hebrew Union College in New York to create a work for the school's new gallery. Her practice, then as now, was to work in series around a theme, and she took the opportunity to tell one long narrative on a continuous surface. The result, three years in the making, is "The Scroll," a mixed-media drawing combining autobiography with Jewish history and tradition. About 90 feet long, the work is anchored by three key themes related to major Jewish holidays: creation (or Passover), revelation (Shavuot) and redemption (Sukkot).

"The Scroll" was eventually purchased by the Skirball Cultural Center, where it is being shown in a specially constructed oval room in the exhibition "Ruth Weisberg Unfurled," opening tomorrow. On the room's periphery are about 30 other drawings, prints and paintings from the last three decades of the artist's career that explore issues of Judaism, community and the cycle of life.

Curator Barbara C. Gilbert calls "The Scroll" a pivotal piece in Weisberg's career. And art historian Matthew Baigell writes in the accompanying catalog that " 'The Scroll' is one of the most important works ever created in the entire history of Jewish American art." He also finds it notable for addressing "Jewish subject matter from a Jewish feminist point of view."

The work begins and ends with teeming masses -- perhaps her ancestors, Weisberg suggests -- and reads from right to left. Creation is represented by a messenger from God pushing the upper lip of a baby, part of Jewish folklore that explains how a child is coaxed into the world. The scroll moves through scenes of adolescence, marriage, celebration and death -- or, more gently, passing into another world.