The Samsara Ketubah by Daniel Sroka

The Aurora Ketubah by Daniel Sroka

The Resonance Ketubah by Daniel Sroka

These are just a few – be sure to see all of the new ketubah designs I have created.

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New modern ketubah designs for 2012

The Petals Ketubah is available in ivory (the original), black and white, and pink.

The idea came from a groom’s mother, who called inquiring about the design. Her son’s wedding flower is the pink gerber daisy, so she wondered if it was available in that color. I decided that it made a lot of sense, and quickly created these new variations. Remember that if you don’t see exactly what you are hoping for, it always pays to ask!

To learn more about the design options available, visit The Petals Ketubah.

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New color variations for The Petals Ketubah

This regular sort of inspiration comes at me all the time. And if I let it, it can quickly become overwhelming. When I open myself up to inspiration, I get bombarded: ideas, plans, brainstorms come at me from every angle… to the point that I get nothing started. I spent years of my life wanting to be an artist, yet going nowhere because I could never settle on one thing. Drawing? Writing? Sculpting? Animation? I dabbled with it all and never got off the ground.

The word “inspiration” comes from the Latin meaning “the act of breathing in”. And I found that the act of breathing in can often lead to hyperventilation — too much intake with no benefit. I have learned that if I want to accomplish anything, I need to quiet those voices of inspiration. I need to focus, limit myself, and slow my “breathing”. This is why for the past decade, I have created so many pictures of one seemingly limited subject: simple objects from nature. This simple, “limited” subject has allowed me to quiet the flood of ideas that normally pour in. Focusing myself on one creative task, ignoring inspiration, has allowed me to settle down. To stop dreaming about being an artist, and to get to work and actually become one.

Now I have to admit, working this way is not as fun. It’s slow, hard work, often with little progress. You miss this thrill that comes from blindly following a burst of inspiration. But I know from experience that that thrill evaporates quickly, often leaving me stranded. So while ignoring those flushes of passion and just plugging away isn’t as romantic… my god, the results! The results may be slower to come by, but when they do, they are so much deeper and more real.

This is when the real inspiration hits. I’ll be working on a new leaf, plugging away for days or weeks, getting sick and tired of staring at this dried, decayed thing, when suddenly…. I notice some tiny thing. I feel a hit of adrenaline and look closer, barely breathing to not disturb anything. Yes, there it is! The adrenaline changes to excitement, and the excitement generates a flood of ideas. And, by working slow and being patient, I have found the real inspiration I was looking for.

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the inspiration behind my art

The original version of the Autumn Gold Ketubah

The new horizontal version of the Autumn Gold Ketubah

I am very happy how this turned out, and am pleased to be able to offer this ketubah in both designs. It was also wonderful to be able to help Iris and her fiancé find the perfect ketubah for their home.

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new design option for Autumn Gold ketubah

I created the Evergreen Ketubah from an abstract photograph I took of the needles on a pine branch. The soft green colors and patterns makes for a wonderfully modern, yet natural design, perfect for fall or winter weddings.

I created the Sun Daisy Ketubah from a macro photograph I took of a gerbera daisy. This photograph was one of my first experiments in macro floral photography, and is still one of my favorites. The petals of the flower gracefully open upwards, catching the light.

Sometimes, my best designs are directly inspired by my customers. Marissa and Robert were browsing my fine art photography website, and had fallen in love with this photograph. Marissa really wanted it for her ketubah: “I absolutely love it and those are actually going to be the colors of our wedding,” she told me. That was all the inspiration I needed! I was glad to be able to create a very special ketubah for her, and also have a new design I could offer everyone else.

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Introducing the Evergreen Ketubah and the Sun Daisy Ketubah

My future husband has a thing for roses. He has about 12 different rose bushes growing at our house in Denver. So when we saw your rose ketubahs, we knew we had to get it!

I love this! First of all, it’s an honor to have one of my photographs of a rose selected by a true rosarian. But their story also reminded me of my own:

The rose in the ketubah they chose is actually the same rose that I photographed for my own ketubah that I made for my (then) fiancée and I. We had just moved into an old bungalow in the suburbs of San Francisco. Most of the landscaping was a mess, but on the side of the house was this craggy, ancient rose bush. It had definitely seen better days, and was looking rather bedraggled. But we thought we’d give it a shot. We cleaned up the garden around it, pruned it way back, and hoped for the best. The next spring, we were amazed. The old bush began sprouting the largest and most fragrant roses we had ever seen! The flowers were gorgeous, picture-perfect roses. The biggest blooms could fill your hand, as my fiancée is demonstrating in this photo. For the next week, I would bring out my camera and photograph many of these flowers, preserving them, exploring them, getting to know them.

Shortly afterwards, we were doing research for our ketubah. As you might already know, we weren’t happy with the ones we found, so I had decided to make one myself. After exploring a number of options, I chose a photograph of this exact rose, and created my first ketubah from it. We loved the living symbolism of this flower: how a tough and resilient vine, tended with a little care, could create flowers of such beauty and grace. This said more to us about what it means to be married than any of the more traditional ketubahs we had seen.

Once I started Modern Ketubah, I went on to make a couple more ketubah designs, Center Ketubah and Opening Ketubah, from photographs I took of that same rose. These designs have become some of my most popular. And every time I make a new ketubah from one of them, I smile and think of that old vine by our old house, still blooming, still growing.

The Center Ketubah by Daniel Sroka

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The rose that inspired my ketubahs

It was a lot of text to work with, and at first we weren’t sure it would work! The challenge with putting a lot of text in a ketubah is that it can quickly feel overly crowded, more like a legal document than a work of art. But Lori and I worked closely together, trading emails and phone calls, and I was able to create a ketubah for them that is very personal while still being classy and beautiful.

Lori and Seth customized the Horizon Ketubah

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when you have a lot for your ketubah to say

Here are two of the seven new ketubah designs: Horizon Ketubah and Wildflower Ketubah.

You can find all of my new ketubah designs here.

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New ketubah designs for 2008

If you are having a Reform or an interfaith ceremony, you have many more options. A Reform ketubah just needs to contain the text: “On the ___ day of the ___ month of the year ___ in the community of ___, the groom ___ son of ___ and the bride ___ daughter of ___ were wed according to the laws of Moses and Israel.” Beyond that, you could add anything you want. An interfaith ceremony often includes the same text, just leaving off the part about “according to the laws of Moses and Israel”, since technically speaking, an interfaith ceremony doesn’t adhere to those laws.

Beyond that basic text, a Reform or interfaith couple can add as much Hebrew as they like. Some people prefer to have little to no Hebrew. The idea is that since the ketubah is a contract between the bride and the groom, and they want the language to be something they can read and understand. Other people like to have a balance between the Hebrew and the English. For them, I offer what I call the “Egalitarian Hebrew”. This is a full translation of my Standard English text, creating a ketubah that is truly bilingual.

What ever you choose, I always recommend that you have your rabbi review the proof of your ketubah. Since he is the official signer of the ketubah, its important that he sees and approves what it says.

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How much Hebrew should my ketubah have?

It’s a wonderful concept, and one that I find very compelling as an artist. It reinforces what many of us artists already feel at a gut level — that our work can serve a greater purpose than simply making “pretty things”. That making beautiful things can itself be a spiritual act. I think of this a lot as I make ketubot. My goal is to make this cermonial object as beautiful as possible, so that the couple who receives it will think of it not only as a wedding document, but a work of art that they will treasure.

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Hiddur mitzvah