Charlotte Shields-Rossi | a&e editor

On Oct. 27, 2018, Susan Ribnick saw a CNN headline about a shooting at a synagogue located in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. That day an armed gunman walked into the Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha congregation — killing 11 people during a Shabbat morning service. The shooting was the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community in American History.

Ribnick, an artist who resides in Austin, was over a thousand miles away at the time, but as a Jewish woman it still hit close to home.

“I was in a synagogue a week earlier. 
That could have been me,” Ribnick said. “My gut reaction was we need to do something because walking around feeling angry is not very productive.”

She called a board meeting with The Austin Mosaic Guild (AMG) and created “From Darkness to Light: Mosaics of Healing and Hope,” a collective mosaic art project that aims to honor the 11 lives lost and highlight the impacts of antiemitism.

The exhibit travels around the country, and this semester, it found its way to the Duquesne University Gumberg Library.

“We felt like we not only had something to say, but we wanted there to be a strong educational component to this project.
 And that is one reason why we’ve decided that it should be in school,” Ribnick said.

When Theodore Bergfelt, Duquesne humanities librarian, got an email inviting the university to host the exhibit he was delighted to do so.

“This is the sort of thing Gumburg Library likes to be involved in,” Bergfelt said. “[The shooting is] something we can’t forget, as soon as you forget something that happens, it happens [again].”

Bergfelt took the pieces out of the boxes and created the display, placing each tile close together.

“They almost create a quilt of something, you can enjoy it as one large piece or zero in on the details of one,” he said.

The exhibit has 41 panels from different artists around the country and internationally. In the middle of it all is the “Dedication Panel,” the first and largest of the pieces. It was created by the first group of artists which included 18 people, that number symbolizing life in Hebrew.

The piece includes the names of those who lost their lives that day, each engraved on a leaf. The fused stained glass has a green gradient that goes from dark to light, symbolizing a tree of life as well as the good that can come from bad.

“Out of horrific things, you know, there can be hope, there can be maybe progress in human society,” she said.

When Ribnick started the project she had no personal ties to Pittsburgh, so she emailed the synagogue inviting members to a dedication service. In May 2019, Dave Kalla, congregant and ambassador of the Pittsburgh synagogue, went to Austin. Since then Kalla and Ribnick have been partners on the project.

“I’m not an artist by any means, but the more I started to think about it and talk to people I realized this mosaic is truly an instrument to encourage discussion about hate and antisemitism,” Kalla said.

He said that every college has different programming around the mosaics, but the goal is always discussion and education.

“Its harder to change older people’s minds, but on college campuses you’re there to learn and hopefully have a better understanding [on] why things happen and have deep discussions,” he said.

It is fitting that the most recent addition “Fitting The Pieces Together” was created by students themselves. Cincinnati students from Walnut Hills High School, Shelanu High School and Teen Think Tank brainstormed and created a dedication piece in response to the shooting. The work of art includes hundreds of little pieces that come together to create the Pittsburgh skyline with a giant tree in the middle.

After connecting with Kalla, Ribnick was able to visit Pittsburgh. During her time in the city she was able to deliver a piece of artwork to EMS at the firehouse that had responded to the tragedy.

The 2019 art piece was titled “In Honor of First Responders,” created by Lysa Lurie, an interior designer in Minneapolis.

Lurie had known Ribnick for years, so when asked to be a part of the project she was thrilled to do so. She wanted to do something to honor the people that responded to the tragedy that day.

“My tile speaks to the people who come to the rescue and help when everybody seems to be running in the other direction,” Lurie said.

The tile’s base is blue. Incorporating both soothing and intense colors was an important design choice. She included the Pittsburgh fire department’s logo, who responded to the scene. Next to the logo is a quote from Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers) who lived in Squirrel Hill:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

“From Darkness to Light: Mosaics of Healing and Hope” will be at Duquesne University until March 31, located in the Popular Reading Room. To look at programming surrounding the art installation visit guides.library.duq.edu

“You never know what you are going to do, what impact you are going to have,” Ribnick said. But you know that doing nothing isn’t going to do anything.”

Charlotte Shields-Rossi can be reached at shieldsrossic@duq.edu