A Huppa for My Daughter's Wedding      2005

The triangle is the strongest of all geometries. Buckminster Fuller taught me that. Try to squeeze and collapse a triangle made of three sticks tied together at their 3 corners. The triangle is rigid and strong. The Jewish Star is constructed of two triangles; one faces up toward the sky and the other down toward the earth. The triangle up is a house. The triangle down is a boat. The triangle up sheds water. The triangle down collects water. 

The square is complete, rotate in any direction it is the same. There is no up and down. The square is fragile, it is unstable; it collapses when four sticks are fastened at its corners.

Four triangles arranged in a square produce a tetrahedron. The form of the Huppah is a tetrahedron. This Huppah represents the balance of the stable and the unstable; permanence and impermanence.

The Huppah is the primeval home, it is Laugier’s primitive hut. Each of its four columns connects a triangular roof element to the earth. One or two roof elements have no ability to support and to protect. Three elements leaning into each other almost support. However with a gust of wind the house collapses. The fourth element is placed into position, with its column leaning inward, and the house gains strength. 

This house is open and it is closed.

Four parents grasp a column leaving their hands pressed permanently into the structure as they build a house for their children. The Wexler roof and the Schwartz roof lean against the Gutman and the Roed roof. The Gutman and the Roed roof lean against the Wexler and the Schwartz roof.

Four parents build two children who are united together below this roof. Open on all sides the marriage of Bethany and Aaron are witnessed by family and friends.

The meeting sides of the roof elements are optimistic and sunshine yellow. The pressure of the individual roof elements against each other causes drops of yellow to ooze, triangles of hope and good wishes.