In my first days at Yale, my midwestern roommates asked if I would handle negotiations with an upperclassman for some used furniture. 'Jew him down,' they encouraged, delighted with their unexpected resource. -John P. Engel"

In this selection from the large-scale installation A Postcolonial Kinderhood, Elaine Reichek uses domestic objects to evoke memories of childhood and home. In her hand-embroidered samplers, she employs the craft of sewing while incorporating terse and sometimes humorous quotations that confront her complex Jewish identity. Reichek imbues this historically female practice with a critical voice that such articles of domesticity traditionally suppressed.