Let's start from the beginning:
My name is Leah, or - Malka Leah Shayna.
I grew up in Moshav Mevo Modi'im, a moshav that gathered students and followers of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.
Many beautiful people who immigrated from the United States, artists, people who were involved in nutrition, yoga, health, art.
All the kids in the moshav went to a ceramics class. We had a teacher named Bracha. A fascinating character. We could dedicate an entire blog to her, she really deserves it. I started going to the class at age 5, and I don't think I ever stopped...
From the age of 12 I worked to pay for everything I wanted. My parents didn't have a lot of money, they had a factory that made natural peanut butter, but they were 10 years ahead of their time and went bankrupt. I didn't feel poor, but I paid for everything myself. Clothes, classes, everything I wanted.
It was important to me to continue the class with Bracha, so in exchange for participating in the classes, I was her assistant, helping her in the classes for the younger children. I remember myself waiting to create, I wouldn't miss a single class, it was sacred.
We also had a goldsmithing class at the moshav, where I learned goldsmithing and jewelry techniques. And so I started creating jewelry - Stars of David, tribal decorations, patterns inspired by nature.
It wasn't a very unusual thing. A lot of people around me made jewelry for themselves. My mother would sew clothes for us. There wasn't a lot of money but there was a lot of creativity and productivity.
In high school I was a film major. I loved telling a story. I still do. Even when I create an object, which is seemingly a static thing, there is usually a story behind it. This axis, of story - object - encounter, is the axis on which I move.
After the service, when I had to make a decision about what to study and which direction to go, I initially chose the story line, and went to study visual communications at Hadassah College. I mainly worked with video there, but I left after a year. My father passed away, I moved back in with my mother, and I couldn't be on the computer all day anymore.
One night I was sitting at the Abram Bar (late) with a guy I was dating. I had no idea what to do with myself. The bartender said something about the School of Visual Theater. I saw that they had entrance exams, I signed up, and I was accepted. They were very impressed with me, but they had reservations about me being religious. Reservations in both directions - could I study there as a religious person, and could they accommodate me there, with my religiosity.
Still, I went to study there. It was very interesting to me visually. I learned a new language of creation. I expanded my knowledge of art criticism, history, mythology. It was also very difficult. I felt foreign and different. There were no people there who spoke the language of my soul, and perhaps I didn't know how to speak it in a sufficiently understandable way either. It took me a long time to find my place. I had some serious crises, many times I almost left.
I received a lot but I was in a constant struggle for my existence - to bring myself, to feel loved, to belong. The struggle was so hard. It took me a few years after school to heal, to return to myself, to the community and people who speak my language.
After school, I went to work simultaneously at a khan and an art and Judaica gallery in the Old City.
At the Khan I was a costumer and props designer for shows, and at the gallery I started as a salesperson in the store and in my free time I learned to weave talits.
This was a significant point, I lived my two worlds simultaneously - the world of theater on one hand, and the world of Jewish art on the other. I would arrive in the Old City, in the Jewish Quarter, and feel like I was starting to cleanse myself.
Working in the gallery taught me a lot of things - I learned how to run a store. I started weaving.
We wanted the place to function as a workshop, in addition to being a gallery, with artists working there. So I invited 6 artists, each artist had their own corner. There were a few artists there that I really helped to get published. It reminded me of another strength of mine - that I'm good at connecting people. I know how to create community in the place I'm in. I brought with me a spirit of sharing, I created an atmosphere where everyone felt part of something.
Once I brought in the treasures of my interpersonal communication, it made me want to bring in more of myself - my art. So I started painting there, in the gallery. I would sit and paint downstairs, and that would attract passersby to come into the gallery. Then I brought in my jewelry.
Suddenly I was pulled out of the place where I felt worthless and started selling my art. And people bought it. At gallery prices. It was a wonderful feeling. It helped me get back to my place, my value, and my giving.
At the same time, one of the managers left, and I became the manager of the gallery. I was the manager for about six months. It was a good time. But then the stabbing intifada began in the Old City, and the gallery suffered financially. In addition, I was already 30 years old, in the midst of Nachlaot's singlehood crisis, and I felt I needed to move. So I flew to Spain for a month, and when I returned they decided to fire me and hire a new manager. That was accurate because I already wanted to leave.
Today, when I have Malchuta, I realize how much I learned there - about management, about the world of tourism, about sales...
So I came back from Spain, signed an unemployment form, and said - that's it. Now I'm building my business. I don't know how, but now is the time.
It was July. My ceramics teacher called me, told me she had cancer, that she was going to die, and that she couldn't teach anymore, and asked if I wanted to teach in her place. She spoke about it with a simplicity and directness that amazed and shook me.
I came to her house. I asked her to take a picture of her, she agreed, and from this period a documentary about her was released. (A video of her life story) We will detail it in the next blog. I said to myself, okay, until she gets better, I will study in her place in the studio.
She taught me everything I needed to know about the actual creation of ceramics - for example, how to make glaze and load a kiln. I taught at her studio, classes for children and classes for adults. Half of the money would go to her and half to me.
Suddenly I had more time and freedom in the studio, so I started creating more. Also a little bigger things. I had a stand in the Horse Garden on Fridays, where I sold the things.
At the same time, there were the visits to my teacher, and the great desire to help her. But she said goodbye to the world.
One day they called me and told me that if I wanted to be with my beloved teacher in her final moments, I had to go to Hadassah Ein Kerem now. I arrived at the hospital, and I entered a room with 40 people singing wildly. We sang around her bed for hours. We accompanied her right up until her last breath. She was a teacher, a friend, an inspiration.
She would say - We came to decorate the world. I want to make the world more beautiful. I remember the last item she made. I still have it.
I continued to work in her studio for two more years, during which I grew and developed as a teacher and creator, until I realized that I needed to embark on an independent path, that I wanted my own place.
I moved to Ein Kerem, took out a loan, bought a ceramic oven, and within a month a miracle happened and I received a huge order, which helped me cover the loan and still left me with a profit. Now I had everything I needed at home to create, and it gave me ground and wings.
I was looking for another job, but at the same time, on Lag BaOmer 2019, the moshav where I grew up, Mevo Modiim, went up in flames. Almost all the houses were completely destroyed. I was absorbed in helping my family and gathering myself from the trauma. Somehow I arrived at a job interview a few weeks after the terrible disaster and with a complete lack of concentration, I interviewed and was accepted to manage the "Kad Ve Hamor" studio - a studio for painting ceramic vessels in the German colony in Jerusalem.
I learned a lot there about studio management, finances, cash register, payroll, working with vendors. I got experience. I learned new techniques.
I love to manage. Create an atmosphere of work with love, support, and sharing. I love my employees, I love seeing people create, and how happy it makes them. Those were special years. I learned to manage with love, and not from a place of control and power.
But then the coronavirus started. We went on unpaid leave. Two months of no work and just before Passover.
A friend told me - make bowls for tidying up, this year everyone is tidying up at home, they will definitely order from you. Keep creating, publish, and people will buy.
I did that, and I started getting tons of orders. Two weeks before Passover, and I was creating like crazy - a few hours before the Seder, people still wanted to buy, and I simply had nothing to sell them.
It felt right, close, communal. I sold things first to people from my community in Ein Kerem. Then I made deliveries all over the country. The Corona crisis was at its peak and I was at the peak of my activity. Financially, it was my best month in a long time.
Many stores have closed due to the coronavirus, including the mythical chocolate house in Ein Kerem.
Stav heard about it, and suggested I open a store there.
I told her - what the hell, it must be terribly expensive.
She told me - what do you care, let's at least check.
We went to the owners, they gave us a price. We sat down with a business consultant, brought in all the data, and figured out how much we needed to make per day to cover our costs. We had both sold at stalls before, and figured out that it wasn't much more expensive than doing a few stalls a month.
So we said - come on, at most we'll sell food there, if it's not profitable at first. I don't know how, I have no idea, without much intelligence, mostly with faith, we went for it.
We did a renovation. At first we thought we'd just paint it, but then we realized that if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right.
Slowly it happened, a friend who is an interior designer gave us advice, another friend came and gave us a tip, my sister-in-law did some graphic design for us.
Within a month there was signage outside, we were on it, Stav was eight months pregnant. We were very task-oriented, creating inventory and merchandise.
We bought furniture at the flea market. We figured out how to make lighting. I made the sink. For one month, we became illuminators, interior designers, managers, contractors… whatever was needed.
Everything happened quickly and smoothly. It took exactly a month from the moment we received the keys to the official opening.
I always joked that I had enough pieces to fill a store. Suddenly it happened, I have a store. After I put everything in place, I had a hard time leaving the store. I said to myself - "What, am I going to leave my kids here alone? Am I going to leave them?
It was a crazy process of expanding my tools. I finally felt like there was a tool that was worthy of me and I deserved it. A display that honored me and expanded the wide range of my work.
The opening was at the end of the first wave of the Corona. Everyone who entered the store was excited. I felt that we had touched a point. We had created a place with a high frequency. When people entered the store and told me that it was moving, not necessarily beautiful, I felt that we had succeeded. I long to touch the heart, to raise the frequency. I do this through a tile, through a tool, through a painting.
It's meaningful. For me and for the clients. It allows me to be in my own kingdom.
When we put up the sign with our names outside the store, I was scared at first. Who am I to put my name on a billboard? Who am I to claim to be an artist?
But opening Malchuta was like saying - this is my story and I'm following it. People who know me and haven't seen my art yet came into the store, and they were really surprised - what, you do that???
It required my consent to be published.
And it was welcomed. The response and sales surprised us for the better, from the beginning. We had great grace from the Creator, blessed be God. That hug gave me a lot of strength.
"Malchuta" for me is not just a physical place. It is a place of consciousness. It is a question that I ask myself every day, about everything - is what I do in my Malchuta? Does it belong to my center?
