Friday, July 11, 2008

Get, Ketubah, Mikvah...and the Divorce Collage


Nothing says "moving on" like the divorce collage.

Actually, these here doubled as housewarming projects. After having an awful experience (not a big surprise) with a Jewish divorce ceremony some years back, I decided to refill the frame that had held my marriage certificate or ketubah (left) with ad-hoc art work by my dearest friends. So I invited them over and we had a party.

That party will be part of a Page 6 story in this Sunday's New York Post. And the timing couldn't be more perfect. Because on Monday, Marco and I will be going down to City Hall to pick up our marriage license and officially change our names! We are becoming the Siegel-Acevedos. How's that for a mouthful of fusion. I'm staying Siegel in print. Hey, do people still hyphenate these days, or has that already become outre? (Our thanks to the Wallace-Segalls for the inspiration...!)

And on Thursday, I will make my first ever visit to a modern Mikvah with a friend, which, from the pictures, looks more like a spa. Here's to ritual new and old, tossed out and reclaimed and reinspired, updated and reinvented, I say.

5 comments:

Marjorie said...

Hi, Deborah!

I've been hyphenating professionally (Marjorie Asturias-Lochlaer), but my legal name is still Marjorie R. Asturias. Never legally changed it.

I'm actually going to drop the Lochlaer. Not for personal reasons, but rather it was causing too much confusion among both vendors and friends/family. I'd get checks made out to my hyphenated name, or someone would forget and just make it out to Marjorie Lochlaer. My mom paid for an airline ticket for me a few months ago, and the name listed on it was Marjorie Lochlaer. No one can seem to remember that I never changed my name legally!

So anyway, to make a long story even longer, I'm going back to just Marjorie R. Asturias both professionally and legally.

Besides, my name is long enough without having to add another 9 characters to it. ;-)

Cheers,
Marjorie

Alison Piepmeier said...

Marjorie and Debbie,

Biffle and I are actually considering hyphenating now, nine years into our marriage--and let me tell you, names don't get much more cumbersome than Biffle-Piepmeier! But we're thinking of doing this so that our soon-to-be-arriving baby can also have the last name Biffle-Piepmeier (obviously the baby could have that name anyway, but it would be neat for all three of us to have the same last name).

We still haven't completely decided, and I would definitely just be Alison Piepmeier professionally.

Deborah Siegel said...

thank you so much marjorie and alison for these words of wisdom! i had last minute cold feet after another friend had the same advise as marjorie...but ultimately decided to go for it! marco and i went to city hall this morning and got our license. and signed up to change our names: siegel-acevedo. oy!

Tricia said...

I think this is a great idea! Nothing like making the plunge together...even I would be willing to do so!!

smilla's simple life said...

i love the collages. love them. i collage almost every major transition in my life: finishing the diss, giving birth ... and I try to make a "fear and loathing" collage of the event, then a transformative one. collage is my knitting :)

happy marriage!!!!!!!!! -renee (didn't hypenate, didn't take his .. now our child has 5 names and social security gets frequently confused.)

--renee