Briggin Scharf lives and plays along the Mohicanituk Watershed on unceded Mohican land (currently known as the Hudson River Valley, NY). They are a queer, Ashkenazi Jew of Russian, Hungarian and Italian lineages, passionate about practicing place-based Judaism ethically in Diaspora. Briggin is a lifelong lover of extended camping adventures, team sports, community singing, and delighting in the wonders of the natural world. Briggin has a BA in art history and printmaking from Oberlin College, and has spent the last decade as a farm worker, food justice organizer, and outdoor educator in NY, CA and overseas. Briggin’s creative practice highlights their curiosity and reverence for sacred ritual, storytelling, ecology, collaboration, and the artistic tradition of functional Judaica.
The name FROM FIRE JUDAICA emerged from the Jewish mystical teachings of the Sepher Yetzirah (The Book of Creation), and refers to the three Mother letters of the Hebrew alphabet - aleph א, mem מ, and shin ש. These three letters embody the three major elements - breath-air, water and fire, respectively - which are the foundation of all earthly creation, as well as the defining elements of the divine realm. By rearranging the order of the three Mother letters into מאש, they translate into the English phrase “from fire” (pronounced mmm aish); when sounded out in Hebrew, the phrase refers directly to the creation process outlined in the Sepher Yetzirah: the belief that making a sound (like the vibrating melody of mmm) is an essential precursor to the existence of any form in space. The sacred process of creation becomes a blending of the maker's actions and parts into a unified force, consisting of body, breath, voice, song, ideas, mindheart, hand, materials, design, existence...
