Jack recently celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. His mum told me that his hobbies include reading, origami, Netflix and gaming. He also likes the fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and practices Jiu-Jitsu. However, Jack's
Hanachat Tefillin ceremony, when a Jewish boy lays tefillin (phylacteries) for the first time in advance of his Bar Mitzvah, was coming up and Mum thought it would be nice to show him wearing tefillin on the front of his Bar Mitzvah album. The hobbies all went on the inside pages.
Jack's mum sent me a photo of the first time her son put on tefillin, the cubic black leather boxes containing Biblical verses, with leather straps, that Orthodox Jewish men wear on their head and their arm during weekday morning prayer. I carefully recreated the photo for the cover of his Bar Mitzvah album, adding some Jack playing cards, since the theme of the Bar Mitzvah celebration was deck of cards. Jack of clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds...
I then decorated five pages inside Jack's album, above. The first page had some books on it, to represent his love of reading. Then I cut out some tiny origami shapes, followed by a television with Netflix on the screen. Next I created a paper version of Jack's blue gi top which he wears for Jiu-Jitsu. His mum told me that he has a white belt. The word "gi" derives from "keikogi", which means training gear in Japanese. Keiko signifies "practice", while gi means "dress" or "clothes" (similar to the "ki" in kimono). Finally, I added the Dungeons & Dragons logo and some of the Dungeons & Dragons dice.
Jack's mum was very pleased with the album. "Thank you very much, it's beautiful" she wrote to me. Very often I end up squeezing a lot on the covers of my albums, at the request of the customer. It can look good but, in the case of this album, less is more. I like the simplicity of it being just the Bar Mitzvah boy and his tefillin against a bright blue background and a few playing cards.
