What in Your Life is Irreplaceable?

If you had to flee your home in an instant, what would be the one object you absolutely had to take with you?

In a recent Zoom with friends, whose lives have been touched by the recent natural catastrophes, I gingerly posed that question. Once we were done commiserating about Trump, we had moved on to other disasters.

Since the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles had shown us that life can turn on a dime, that question has haunted me. Apocalyptic disasters seem to be happening with more frequency. Life in general feels even more precarious under Trump’s regime of extreme uncertainty.

Whether fires or extreme storms, these disasters have illuminated how tenuous life is. How fleeting our accumulations can end up being. Carefully curated homes filled with a lifetime of collecting- precious things that cohabitate with the mundane -those things that make up a life can vanish in a moment.

What in your life is irreplaceable?

It’s Not Just Stuff

“It’s only “stuff” is the common refrain heard in the aftermath of tragedies.

The stuff of life, of course is not just stuff you can easily replace. The things we call stuff are containers for memories; for experiences. For history both personal and collective.

When the zoom with my friends ended, I found myself walking through my home, room by roo,m asking myself what I would take in an emergency. As an artist, collector, world-class saver and the guardian for generations of my family’s mementos, the choice felt agonizing.

Yet there was one item that stood out. The one I would take that is truly irreplaceable.

In the event of an emergency, after I grabbed my always at hand go-bag filled with cash, documents, meds and a hard drive, I would scoop up a small bunch of hand-painted nesting dolls resting on a living room desk.

Though there is a Russian connection, these are no ordinary Russian dolls. These hollow wooden dolls that fit inside each other are of my family. I painstakingly painted them early 30 years ago for my mother, Betty’s  70th birthday.

Now that I am days away from turning 70 myself, they take on a new poignancy.

A Blank Canvas

In the early 1990s, I had purchased dozens of unpainted wooden nesting dolls from a woodworking shop in Vermont. At that time, we rented a house in Stratton, driving over 4 hours every weekend from our apartment in the city to go skiing.

One of the places I enjoyed going to was a woodworking shop in Weston where I could get lost for hours. Walking into the store, my nose would be filled with the heady, resinous, musky, and sweet scent of freshly cut wood. Along with beautiful handcrafted wooden bowls and carving boards, which still fill my kitchen, were hundreds of unpainted wooden objects in all shapes and sizes. Like a blank canvas, they beckoned to be painted and sparked my imagination.

Suddenly, a grouping of unpainted hollow nesting dolls made of smooth linden wood caught my eye. I owned several lacquered Russian Matryoshka dolls, and the thought of creating my own was irresistible.

I had seen nesting dolls used for political figures and Russian fairy tales, but instinctively I knew that my family belonged on one of these.

This was long before you could easily acquire blank nesting eggs online or at your local Michaels. I wanted to make sure I had plenty, so I purchased a literal carton of eggs, tucked it away,  where they remained waiting to painted.

Milestone Birthday

Several years passed, and the dolls lay untouched as I got involved with other projects.

Until my mother’s milestone birthday approached in 1996.

For someone like my mother, whose love of family history had been passed down to me,  I knew the perfect gift for her. It was time to pull out that box of nesting dolls from the closet.

Russian Nesting dolls, also known as Matryoshka dolls, symbolize family and motherhood. Matryoshka comes from the Latin word “mater” which means mother. The Russian nesting doll is a symbol of the powerful female matriarch and the primary figure in the family. They represent the idea that life is passed down through generations.

Nothing could be more fitting

Original Rooster Girl Russian Nesting Doll

The first nesting doll was created in Russia in 1892 by artist Sergey Malyutin and woodworker Vasily Zvyozdochkin.

They named her the Rooster Girl, who was from the Russian countryside, holding a black rooster and dressed in a kerchief and work apron. The wooden doll was hollow on the inside and could be opened up to reveal a second doll. This doll held another, which held another,  until a seemingly endless number of siblings had emerged from within the first.

Each child carried an item telling of peasant life: a basket, a sickle, a bowl of porridge, a broom, and a younger brother in tow.

Traditionally, the dolls are a representation of a mother carrying  child within and is seen as a representation of a chain of mothers  carrying a family legacy. My set of nesting dolls depicting my mother’s maternal side of the family, would include the men in the family too, appearing on the reverse side of the female counterpart.

The fact that they are Russian nesting dolls is perfect because this branch of my family fled from Russia.

My great-grandfather, Dr. Abraham Posner, born in Russia, started a children’s shoe company, Dr Posner Shoes, and their logo sits on his shoulder

My great-grandmother Rebecca Posner, born in London, immigrated with my grandfather to the US in 1880. Settling in Brooklyn, she was more fluent in Yiddish than English so she always read the Forward

The 5 dolls worked out perfectly. It would begin with my great grandparents, Rebecca and Abraham Posner who came to America from Russia by way of London in 1880.

My grandmother, Sadie Posner Joseph, toting her ubiquitous shopping bags from Best& Company and Saks Fifth Avenue

Arthur Joseph, my grandfather an avid photographer and golfer, lived in Brooklyn 

Once opened up, it would reveal their daughter Sadie and her husband Arthur Joseph, my grandparents, and my mother Betty’s parents.

My Mother, Betty  in an apron as the quintessential mid-century housewife, is seen here holding the Temple Bulletin and coupons as my dog Prince holds on

An avid grill man, my father Marvin is seem grilling at the barbecue, gin and tonic in hand, Prince by his side.

Inside held my mother, Betty, and my father Marvin, and that opened to me and my husband Hersh until the final doll, my brother Andy and his wife Beth.

Each doll had its own distinctive accessories and identifying objects.

My husband Hershel is seen with the skyline of NY in the backdrop holding a TV remote and our dog Max

I pictured myself holding  paintbrushes  and a copy of my book “This Year’s Girl” as our dog Max looks on

My sister in law Beth a collector of tea cups and brother Andy, an editor at Newsday newspaper, bears the headlines wishing my Mother a Happy Birthday and announcing the Big July Birthday Bash we held at my apartment

Beginning in the spring of 1996, I worked on them daily, sifting through old photographs to use just the right image to pay homage to my family. Along with my paints and brushes, I would pack up the dolls and take them with me on weekends out to our summer home in East Hampton. While others went to the beach I sat by the pool putting the final touchs on the dolls until they were finished for her Bastille Day birthday.

These dolls became the pride and joy of my mother. She treated them like the family heirlooms they are proudly showing them to any guest who came to visit. When she died, they were on display at her funeral with other objects of her life.

Now they are back home with me, displayed on the same antique desk she kept them on, the desk that belonged to my great grandfather Abraham, that stood in my childhood house for 60 years, that eventually found a home with me.

The nesting dolls moved from home to home , carefully packaged, and if I need to flee, they will be the objects that make wherever I land a home.

Like me, both my grandmother and mother were savers or what I like to think of as saviors of the past.

I like to think they would have made the same choice of what to save.