Of Mice and Mazel: Asian and Jewish Papercut Wedding Traditions

Mice hold a special place in the human imagination: they are both friend and foe, symbols of cleverness, generosity, and survival, as well as pests associated with damaged harvests. In the familiar fable, a mouse frees a lion from a net, setting the stage for an unlikely friendship. In this workshop, artist Jerise Fogel explores the “Mouse’s Wedding” as both folklore and inspiration for multicultural papercut art, drawing on Jewish ketubah traditions and Asian mouse-wedding motifs.

Stories of mouse weddings appear in many cultures and are shared during Lunar New Year celebrations. In some communities, families symbolically “marry off” the mice at the start of the year, offering sesame candy, sweet buns, rice, or flatbread—perhaps in the hope that the mice will spare their food stores. Papercut depictions of these weddings are plentiful and joyful. Fogel will share close-up photographs of a monumental “Mouse Wedding” papercut gifted to the Guild of American Papercutters by a visiting Chinese Kirigami Guild about 15 years ago, highlighting its details alongside other interpretations of the story.

After a brief slide presentation, and possibly a walk to explore artworks in the museum, participants will create their own mouse-wedding papercuts. Fogel will introduce techniques she has developed over nearly 20 years as a ketubah artist. Templates and stylized mouse designs will be available, and participants are also encouraged to create their own. Chinese and Hebrew lettering—including “double happiness” and “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”—will be provided as inspiration for the designs.

This program is part of the Cutting East to West exhibition. Presented in collaboration with members of the Guild of American Papercutters (GAP), Cutting East to West invites visitors to discover the precision, imagination, and cultural stories held within a single sheet of paper.

About the artist:

I am a sketcher, paper artist, calligrapher, and teacher based in Washington Heights. I have been working professionally as an artist for over 25 years, and have collaborated with public school students on murals, taught perspective and figure drawing, created comics about my time as a Census taker, and shown my work across NYC, the US and internationally. https://sandbox.jerise.com