Courtesy of Myriad Editions
Sarah Lightman’s gorgeously constructed memoir features shaded images with stunning pops of color. These images and her quiet but honest captions show a life’s journey reckoning with religion, love, failure, and relationships. The question of motherhood comes up again and again, asking readers to consider their own perceptions of and relationships with parents.
“Ethics of the Mothers:
My mother, Naomi, daughter of Daphne, used to say:
‘Life is just swings and roundabouts.’ ”
“I’d draw myself. I could have been anywhere.”
“Ethics of the (Grand) Mothers:
Daphne, daughter of Esther, would say:
‘You’ll pine for us if you go to New York.’ ”
Sarah Lightman is a London-based artist, curator and writer. She completed an Art Foundation course at Central St Martins, attended The Slade School of Art for her BA and MFA, where she won The Slade Prize and The Slade Life Drawing Prize, and has a PhD from University of Glasgow in women’s autobiographical comics. She has extensively published her research. Her artwork has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally.
Sarah co-curated Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, an internationally touring exhibition of 18 comic artists, that opened at 9 museums over 6 years. She edited Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews (McFarland 2014), that was awarded The Susan Koppelman Prize for Best Feminist Anthology (2015) and The Will Eisner Award for Best Scholarly Publication (2015), an Association of Jewish Studies/Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for Jews and The Arts (2016).
Sarah has experience teaching and lecturing at undergraduate and graduate level including at the Universities of Glasgow (2018 and 2011-12), Roehampton (2011, 2012, 2018) and London College of Communications (2017). She has acted as an External Examiner for an MA at California College of the Arts. In addition, Sarah has led comics workshops at the Jewish Museum, London (2018), Glasgow Jewish Book Week (2018), JW3, the Jewish Community Centre for London (2012, 2013) and Koffler Centre for the Arts, Toronto (2011). She has also convened a Comics Study Day at The Slade School of Art (2014) and will be teaching at The Art Academy, London, in 2019.
Sarah also chaired the Women in Comics Conferences in 2009 and 2010, and, in 2009, co-founded Laydeez do Comics with Nicola Streeten, the most influential comics forum in the UK.