VIDA, an e-commerce platform that promotes socially responsible shopping, has selected local Minneapolis artist, writer and journalist, Susan Schaefer's Kabbalah Aleph collection of wearable art for their curated design line.
VIDA, founded by Pakistan native Umaimah Mendhro and launched in 2014, connects artists with craftspeople and manufacturers to source and design products, bringing global consciousness and "an impeccable sense of taste to style-seekers through carefully selected artistic partnerships and luxurious, responsibly produced clothing and accessories—starting with a line of tops and scarves," says Mendhro.
VIDA does more than simply cater to fashion enthusiasts – it brings real-world benefits to the people working on its products ensuring that the people producing its products receive livable wages along with literacy and math programs. CEO Mendhro believes today's consumers care deeply about the way in which clothing is made, and that it's important for shoppers to feel connected with the items they buy. She emphasizes how this goes beyond monetary compensation - scarf-makers in Karachi, Pakistan, for instance, earn literacy classes for every 15 scarves produced. A designer is even able to see how many workers will receive classes based on purchases of her products.
Schaefer, more familiar to Twin Citians as a communications business and civic leader, has added visual arts to generate her visual and verbal storytelling practice.
Currently a featured columnist with a well-received series on the Twin Cities' Creative Class for The Southwest Journal and The Journal, and an intermittent photographer and reporter for the online non-profit Mill City Times, Schaefer is also a continuing education student in the University of Minnesota’s (UMN) Fine Arts Department. This past summer, she graduated from St. Catherine’s highly regarded Women’s Art Institute’s Summer Studio Intensive.
Yiddish Immigrant Connection
The Kabbalah Aleph design centrally featured in Schaefer’s inaugural VIDA collection is taken directly from her Recollection: My Lost Yiddish Civilization, a diptych installation featuring ten individually collaged panels arranged in two columns of five, with an artistic nod to the Ten Commandments. Constructed as a remembrance of her own lost Yiddish ancestry and culture, the piece was shown in a group show this past summer at UMN’s Quarter Gallery, adjacent to the Katherine E. Nash Gallery located in Arts Quarter of the West Bank campus.
Recollection: My Lost Yiddish Civilization uses rare archival Schaefer family photographs, ink drawings on paper, fine art papers, found papers, and newsprint. Schaefer taught herself Hebrew script and calligraphy for this project. For VIDA, she scanned a photo of the Hebrew Aleph panel.
"The lost history of the Yiddish civilization is my history, and the mysticism of the Kabbalah my spiritual center. In these trying times where the topic of immigration is a global concern, I’m thrilled that the pieces I will showcase through VIDA have this integral connection to the real life of my family of refugees and immigrants.”
The divine meaning in Hebrew letters
For this particular VIDA collection, the significance of the Hebrew letter Aleph is central.
Renowned author Paulo Cohelo explains that Hebrew alphabet is not simply a collection of abstract linguistic elements like the English alphabet. All Hebrew letters have names and identities, and in post-Biblical times, numerical values. Cohelo writes, “The Hebrew alphabet contains the precise plan of the principles of creation - each letter a crystallization of one of the aspects of manifestation of the divine word that in turn corresponds to a number and is connected to the creative forces in the universe. The first three mother letters, Aleph, Mem and Shin, form the Divine prime trinity representing the three dimensions of space."
Most important is Aleph whose numerical value of 111 contains the trinity and is also the constant of the magic square of six. 111 = 1 + 10 +100. Symbolically this means that Alephcombines the divine, the spiritual and the physical world. “The mystical precepts of the Kabbalah lean much on these meanings. Wearing my design is fitting for these times when we can all use some extra divine connection,” says Schaefer.
Schaefer's leadership roles include: serving as President of the Public Relations Society of America, Minnesota, chair of the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce’s esteemed Leadership Minneapolis™ program, as well as founder of its Creative Class Public Affairs Committee, and as the executive board member of the Seward Neighborhood Group. For the University of St. Thomas she created and taught the Master’s of Business Communications (MBC) Program’s first public relations curriculum, and is adjunct faculty member at the University of St. Catherine’s Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership (MAOL) and lecturer in St. Kate’s Leadership Institute.
Schaefer embraces her growing arts reputation. She is active in NEMAA and WARM, has been in a number of juried exhibitions, and beginning March 21st she will have solo photography show at the Birchwood Cafe’s Gallery in her former Seward Neighborhood, her second solo show in six months.
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Editor’s Note: VIDA offers a generous wholesale arrangement for those purchasing multiples. 15% off 5-9 units of a design (code: ARTIST15), 25% for 10-19 (code: ARTIST19), and 35% for 20 or more units (code: ARTIST35). The code appears in the check out window.
For more information contact Susan Schaefer, insights@lifeintrans.com
Sunday, February 5, 2017 at 3:16PM
This is the fourth year Izzy’s is hosting their February event, 13 Days of Giving. Izzy’s makes their delicious ice cream work to help great causes by teaming up with a diverse group of organizations that are bettering our communities in the Twin Cities and beyond. 
