Shalom!

Original art by Todd Goodman, 24"x36" acrylic paint on canvas. Prints are available matted on photo paper or framed canvas. Original painting is for sale.

Shalom! This word encapsulates my being, my mantra. It is hello and good bye, it is beginning and ending, it is the path upon which we walk between our beginning and ending. It is our birth, our life based in peace, and ultimately our death. It is truth, justice, wholeness. It is tranquility, prosperity, and security. It is a verb and a noun, both an action and a state of being and value system. It is divine grace, a constant challenge to live a life of fulfillment and peace. 

For the non-Hebrew literate, the bold black sections of the painting depict, in a relatively abstract fashion, the Hebrew characters Shin, Lamed, Vav and Mem, which spell the word shalom. The Shin, the three prong character at the head of the painting, the Lamed is the curved character laying horizontally across the canvas as the upper torso and arms, the Vav is the single perpendicular character on the lower right, acting as a stabilizing force, and the Mem is formed as the legs of the design, what look like bowed-legs or a diamond.