Upon the death of congregant Irving Slotnick, his wife Miriam and friends donated in Irving’s memory an aluminum sculpture, To Life, by Joseph Ferguson.

Artist Joseph Ferguson reflects on the process of creating “To Life”:

“I began as a stained glass artist using soldered metal, lead, to fabricate glass windows. I’ve always enjoyed working with tools, making things. While a student at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland, I experimented with three dimensional structures in glass and metals. I saw clearly that stained glass had been overlooked by the Modern movement because of its association with religious art. A lovely medium, it offered vast potential for creative expression. Stained glass requires mechanical ability that appeared to me and I could see it, outside its architectural setting, in the landscape as large colorful sculptures. During a long lifetime I have been fortunate to realize that vision. I have also become aware of the unique language of art to direct my creative path. Hopefully what remains will be an inspiration to other artists. Some of the forms my work has taken resemble ancient literary scripts. Syrillic, Hebrew and Chinese.

At the time I was exploring a softer kind of aluminum sheet, called “dead soft.” Increasingly with age and experience I have allowed the sculptures to speak to me. I have come to rely on the creative process to allow me to make something I could not have envisioned. Again I believe the forms I like have something to do with calligraphy.”