Farvos is a Yiddish word that literally means “for what” or simply asks why. Each of the pieces in this body of work begins with the phrase “In the manner of a man”. The phrase is a reference to the case of a Russian woman Rabbi in the early part of the 19th century who was stopped by Rabbinical authorities for “acting in the manner of a man.” They were addressing the practice of excluding women from specific Jewish rituals, such as the wrapping of the tefilin (phylacteries) on one’s body. In this work I use sheets of black rubber. This material is a metaphor for my disconnection from the actual objects that inspired these pieces, both as a non-observant Jew and as a woman. The black rubber speaks to me of the forbidden, in a psychosexual context. It seemed an appropriate medium for exploring my relationship to these objects traditionally-worn exclusively on the bodies of observant Jewish men.