hey folks. i updated my @ (formerly “@magpiestudio”) & deleted everything in the archive here except the post of mine with the most notes from 2019. trying to start this blog fresh, because social media in 2022 is deeply unstable & the future of my current main platform (Twitter) is looking grim! i’ll be reposting pieces i care about & hopefully putting new work up soon.
i can’t say how active i’ll be here but i’m trying not to have all my eggs in one basket anymore. thanks for sticking around!
an illustration of a fat, feathered, bird-clawed & horned, queer & trans Jewish demon, seated above Yiddish text reading "feygele." the figure is chained by the wrists but appears arrogant & inviting.
a poem with an illustration of bird with a person's head & crown of stars. the title (in Hebrew) is "sheyd
FEYGELE, 2020.
a sheyd (Jewish demon) inspired by two major stylistic influences, Leonard Baskin & Aubrey Beardsley, and also by the #AugustAdiPOSE & #FatArt hashtags on Twitter. the title/text “feygele” is a Yiddish word meaning “little bird” often used as pejorative slang for a queer person – here also playing off the figure’s size & the bird-like attributes of sheydim in folklore. a queer/trans fat Jewish aspiration!
Pages from mini zines about Jewish folklore (the series includes zines on golems, dybbuk, malachim and sheydim) by illustrator / zinester, Ezra Rose. Buy them here and pay what you like.
figure i oughta reblog this now that i’m back on the site. the number of notes on this is a little overwhelming, honestly - thanks for all the interest! & thank you @fanzines for the spotlight.
just a note for folks in the tags insisting that it’s somehow “forbidden” to write out the word “sheyd” or “sheydim” (in English transliteration, no less!) & cautioning non-Jews to avoid writing or speaking it: please don’t spread nonsense around my work, which is intended to be educational & available to everyone. i’m not sure where this idea came from (a misunderstanding of the fact that we often don’t write out divine names?), but i’ve been studying Jewish demonology via the writings of many respected rabbis & scholars for years & this has absolutely never come up. so much of our historical information on customs & beliefs about sheydim comes from the many explicit references to them in the Talmud, not to mention all the text on the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls! we write the word out all the time, in Hebrew, in Aramaic, English, etc. it’s fine.
Text: after half a year of work, my academic zine on the history of antisemitism & appropriation in western occult movements is done 🖤 a 22-page PDF full of citations, illustrated with historic & public domain images, pay-what-you-want (or FREE!): https://ezrarose.itch.io/fyma-a-lesser-key
the thing i missed most about this place was collecting art & inspiration (“aesthetic blogging”) so i’ve set up a little sideblog for reblogs & maybe posting occasionally. trying to keep this one just my own work!
a purple, starry, six-armed & multi-eyed worm creature with a letter shin crown floats against a black background with gold star of David borders
three gold foil prints of the shamir worm artwork on a light grey background
Shamir Worm, 2021.
the shamir worm is one of Jewish folklore’s “miracles of creation,” made at twilight on the sixth day (along with things like the rainbow and Moses’ staff): a tiny creature that could cut stone - either by its piercing gaze or with its mouth - it was used by King Solomon to build the first temple, due to the fact that no iron tools or other potential instruments of bloodshed could be used to build a holy monument to peace. some say it was also used to engrave the tablets with the 10 commandments, and to engrave the names of the 12 tribes of Israel on the stones in the priestly breastplate. the mystical shamir is a symbol of creative destruction and a reminder that powerful things can come in tiny forms.
Hi! Just glad to see that you're on Tumblr too (I followed you over from Twitter) and hope all continues to be well.
hey! thanks so much for following me over! it’s wild to be back here (Tumblr was my main social media from 2012-2017), hoping i’ll be able to manage multiple platforms & keep this one going.
two miniature clay golems holding scrolls on a burlap background. in the foreground is a glass vial mezuzah.
three miniature clay golems holding scrolls in front of a book of Jewish folklore open to a section on the golem of Prague.
a miniature clay golem holding a scroll in a box, next to a golem mini-zine & description card.
Pocket Golems, 2019 - present
each golem is a one-of-a-kind, hand-sculpted figurine based on the Jewish legend of the golem (גולם), a mythic monster made of clay or stone and given life in order to act as a protector. ranging in size from approximately 1-2" tall, these golems (the Hebrew plural is “glamim”) are made of polymer clay mixed with wood ash to replicate stone. they were created to be portable, personal guardians: a reminder of our connections to the mystical side of Judaism and to the stories of our past, or a symbol of Jewish resilience and resistance in a difficult present. each golem holds a blank scroll that can be customized by the owner with any of the following: the name of something or someone you want to protect, a quotation from scripture, an intention for your future, a secret, or a wish.
hi! i was wondering if you're going to do a golem zine restock on etsy soon? i just followed and love your content so far 💓
thanks so much! i have an in-person market coming up on the 20th but after that i’ll be listing whatever’s left of my zines, and probably reprinting/restocking everything in early December. in the meantime, all my zines are available digitally (for free/pay-what-you-want) at ezrarose.itch.io, and the mini-zines there are formatted for print so you can print one off yourself if you want!
a black & white circular design featuring a Star of David made of bones with a weeping eye in the center. English text reads "GOTH JEW" with smaller Hebrew text to either side
a black & white circular design featuring demonic hands giving the "horns" symbol and half of the Jewish priestly blessing, with the text "HAIL SHEYDIM"
three holographic stickers on a grey background: a clawed hamsa, a pomegranate with an eye, and the GOTH JEW design
ALTERNATIVE JUDAICA: GOTH JEW, HAIL SHEYDIM, Death Hamsa & Life Pomegranate
don’t let Catholic goths have all the fun - Jewish children of the night deserve our own black roses! the Hebrew text featured on GOTH JEW includes a quote from Lamentations, “he has made me dwell in darkness, like those long dead,” & from the Talmud tractate Berachot 32b, “the gates of tears were not locked.” the Hebrew on the hamsa sticker says “death” & the pomegranate reads “life.”
all designs are available on Redbubble, holo stickers via Etsy
two miniature Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowl pendants on beaded necklaces against a parchment paper background
a miniature Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowl pendant on a silver chain, against a backdrop of cloth and text about incantation/demon bowls
Miniature Incantation Bowl Pendants
these necklaces feature tiny, hand-painted polymer clay reproductions of ancient Jewish magic incantation bowls (sometimes called “demon bowls”). these bowls were created during the period of 300-600 CE by several cultures in the Levant area, though many of the examples that have been recovered are written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. they often depict demons bound & chained at the center, surrounded by a spell to “trap” or ward off harmful spirits, and were usually buried under doorways to protect homes.
the clay pendants (around 1.5" in diameter) are colored and textured with natural pigments, then painted with acrylic - the “text” on these miniature reproductions, due to size constraints, is impressionistic rather than a copy of the real spells.
covers & interior illustrations (left, Forest Angel for Candlelight; right, Nest for Token)
some of my favorite illustration work from the past few years has been for TTRPGs with Gabriel Robinson - Candlelight in 2020 was really my first foray back into ink painting after a long time, & now i can’t get enough of it. very excited for an upcoming project with Gabriel that we can’t quite talk about yet, but i can promise more of this mood.
just a quick note of apology: i’ve been trying to add image descriptions to my work via the “caption” function & it’s now apparent that doesn’t actually help / it isn’t designed for that much text. i don’t seem to be able to access the “alt text” option via the desktop version of Tumblr, which is unfortunately what i mostly use! if anyone knows how to get around this please let me know. should i just do image descriptions under a “read more” in the body of the posts?
Hi! I absolutely love your work, as a goth Jew I’ve considered making my own Etsy shop for Jewish goth jewelry someday! I noticed on your Etsy shop that you’re based not far from me, I am very interested in purchasing one of your pocket golems, not to dox you but if you feel comfortable sharing what market you’ll be selling them at, I would absolutely take a bit of a drive to come buy one from you! Anyways, I wish you much success and I look forward to seeing what else you make, I will always support Jewish art, our culture is beautiful 🖤💙💜
thank you so much! that’s exciting, the world absolutely needs more goth Judaica.
haha no worries, i’m pretty open about where i live & as long as folks aren’t handing out my private address or phone number i’m good. the Pushcart Hanukkah Craft Market (which i’m also co-organizing - this is a busy busy month for me) will be at the Northampton Center for the Arts, there’s a Facebook event here that you can respond to if you’re interested in coming! do let me know & i’ll be happy to set aside a golem for you.
a short zine illustrating a chapter of the Hechalot Rabbati, an ancient Jewish mystical text which describes—in gory detail—the dangers of listening to the angels singing around the merkavah (holy chariot). it features detailed pen & ink artwork drawing from both Jewish symbolic tradition (including panel borders inspired by antique Ashkenazi gravestone carvings) and a modern macabre visionary style.
incredible to look back at this one 5 years later! my first Jewish zine. folks’ response to this really changed my whole creative practice & it helped me find my voice after almost a decade of artistic burnout.
still available as a free/pay-what-you-want digital download at itch.io, physical copies occasionally in my Etsy shop
i keep meaning to do more in this vein of collage-with-pen! i was invited to contribute to this anthology & remembered that i had saved the head & arms of a vintage doll ad (“Minerva” was the company, the new metal head was the selling point). it turned into a piece about feminist & specifically anti-fascist black metal, playing on Minerva as the goddess of wisdom, the arts & war. the book the owls are holding is open to images from the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, attributed to a foundational woman alchemist from 3rd or 4th century Greece.
also, sometimes you’re out doing errands & you run into a neo-Nazi with an SS bolt facial tattoo, so you come home & draw that on a head on a pike.
reblogs appreciated, it helps new folks find my work!
love to meet new people, usually happy to chat a bit about subjects near & dear to my heart, but this is not my first rodeo: no anon asks, i block nonsense ♥
still one of my favorite portraits i’ve ever done! a friend & former student of mine who is now an incredible fashion designer. from her Design Museum profile:
Today, Noèl is a Mexico City-based artist interested in shifting perceptions of intimacy and revitalizing a sense of fantasy through the dissection of queer and Afro-Latinx identity through clothing construction, mixed media installations, fiber practices, and video. Her work centers the power of physical touch and moves through a romanticized reality of the discarded. She poeticizes the relationships of her Dominican elders and her own stories of existing as a queer, fat, femme, racially ambiguous, trans person.
she’s currently raising money to build a foundation for her clothing brand & you can help out here!
I was just looking around in the yiddish tag and somehow saw that you also have a tumblr, which is extremly cool! Glad to see your work on here as well :) (not a question but maybe compliments count too lol)
thank you!! i’m freshly back to Tumblr after several years away, and really appreciating the warm welcome!
i just got my copy of token by gabriel robinson (trollhands on twitter) and it’s STUNNING!! everyone go get yourself a copy from glowing roots press! (gorgeous cover art by @sheydgarden)
thank you so much! it’s such a thrill to see these out in the world (and what a beautiful photo to show it off!)
earlier this year i was honored to be asked to do the cover for issue #1 of Golem Zine, a series showcasing voices from lesser-known Jewish communities around the world. this first issue celebrated Jewish life & culture in Glasgow, and creating this cover involved a deep dive into the history of Glaswegian Jewish art & architecture.
will there potentially be more copies of glasgolem?? i wld love to buy one but also no worries if not <33 your art rules
thank you! i’m not involved in the production of the zine at all (i just did the cover!) so unfortunately i can’t answer this. you can try using the contact form on their page here to ask?
title pages & interior illustrations for Dream Askew (in green) & Dream Apart (in sepia), 2018, Buried Without Ceremony
DA/DA was my first real TTRPG job & remains one of my favorite projects ever - two beautiful games about survival (queer communities in the near-future apocalypse, Jewish communities in a historic/fantastical shtetl) that truly live inside you once you’ve played them. this was the beginning of the Belonging Outside Belonging system/style (built on the frameworks of Powered by the Apocalypse), which has gone on to inspire many other incredible games!
a collection of trans affirmations (text provided by friends & strangers online) made into sigils. this zine is always free & can be downloaded, printed & freely shared here. the pins are occasionally available through my Etsy shop.
this little zine has traveled much farther & gotten more love than i could have ever anticipated in the 5 years it’s been circulating. i have a folder on my computer of photos that folks have sent me after they got one or more of these images tattooed (i’ve given standing permission for anyone to use them that way) - one person even has the whole set all down their spine.
some thoughts on sigils below the cut
i’ve been making sigils for years - for me that means images that amplify intent, whose encryption of text into abstract symbols almost paradoxically allows you to hold the words closer to you. the process i use is partially derived from the work of Austin Osman Spare, a 19th-20th century artist & occultist who was himself obviously influenced by earlier western esoteric traditions that violently appropriated (mainly) Jewish written magic (you can read my whole zine on this history here), so as a Jewish artist i try to be intentional about acknowledging that lineage - you can find a bunch of tutorials on “how to make sigils” that will give you the Spare method without any context or connection to anything that came before it - & also being clear that i approach them from my own conceptual frameworks. i believe images only have the power we give them, that the power in these sigils is community care & self-affirmation, that they don’t need to be “supernatural” to be “magic” (in the way that art & connections between people are magic).
i’ve also done a number of personal sigil commissions by donation to causes that are important to me - in 2020 i used sigil-making to raise over 1K for bail funds to free protesters & support mutual aid for communities impacted by police violence. that’s the kind of magic they are to me - they help us do what we need to do.
of course everyone can engage with them on their own terms, but that’s where i’m coming from as the creator!
When I first heard about malignant Jewish beings I heard the term Mazzik. Are these the same thing as Sheydim or different creatures?
also I love your blog so much its so cool
thank you! so of course it depends on who you ask (like everything in Judaism, haha) but mazzikin/mazzikim are generally considered to be nastier kinds of sheydim. a sheyd MIGHT be dangerous but a mazzik DEFINITELY is, especially to people who need to do some kind of teshuvah. there are stories of mazzikin chasing the souls of wicked people from body to body (so the souls become dybbukim who don’t exactly want to possess people, they’re just hiding from these demons, and exorcising them involves dealing with the demon too).
the Jewish horror film The Vigil (2019) features a mazzik as the main antagonist!
and yes, the character from The Sandman & Lucifer named Mazikeen literally just has the Aramaic plural form of demon for a name.
each golem is a one-of-a-kind, hand-sculpted figurine based on the Jewish legend of the golem (גולם), a mythic monster made of clay or stone and given life in order to act as a protector. ranging in size from approximately 1-2" tall, these golems (the Hebrew plural is “glamim”) are made of polymer clay mixed with wood ash to replicate stone. they were created to be portable, personal guardians: a reminder of our connections to the mystical side of Judaism and to the stories of our past, or a symbol of Jewish resilience and resistance in a difficult present. each golem holds a blank scroll that can be customized by the owner with any of the following: the name of something or someone you want to protect, a quotation from scripture, an intention for your future, a secret, or a wish.
😷 I’m sorry to be he who points this out – after all the beautiful copy about these glamim – visually, as shown though, I see blunts and bongs, folks. 😂
