The written word is specific, concrete and rational, yet it's also elusive, abstract and mysterious. From the balance sheets of merchants to the lilting verse of poets, words are integral to daily existence.

	At Diane Samuels' Mexican War Streets studio, Nancy Lips polishes one of the glass and stone panels that will make up "Luminous Manuscript."

Yet there was a time, before what might be seen as the agriculturalization of knowledge, when significant information survived exclusively as memory and was maintained within the intimate confines of oral tradition. In the present Information Age, knowledge has become a commodity that flies around the world via the Internet faster than a scream.

These are some of the thoughts inspired by "Luminous Manuscript," a major artwork by Pittsburgh artist Diane Samuels that was commissioned by the Center for Jewish History in New York City as a centerpiece for its six-story, $4 million expansion.

The artist assembled the 22-foot-by-22-foot glass and Jerusalem stone work in her Mexican War Streets studio on the North Side and is now in New York installing it. "Manuscript" will be unveiled during a gala April 1 building dedication ceremony.

Samuels says she was surprised when she learned she'd been chosen for the commission from a field of 80 nominated international artists and eight distinguished fellow finalists.

But anyone familiar with her oeuvre would realize that the artist's experience and interests would make her the perfect fit for the center.

Words, and more specifically the alphabets from which they arise, have long held fascination for Samuels, who's represented them, invented them and collected hundreds of samples of handwriting. Her investigations surpass formal concerns and explore tangential metaphysical, cognitive and mnemonic considerations.

In a 2001 solo exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Art, "Inscription," Samuels employed words to address the intangibility of memory. Her 1994 exhibition at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art was titled "Figures of Speech and Golem Projects." As 2003 Artist of the Year at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Samuels emphasized the ritualistic aspect of markings that become meditative devices.

The themes of Samuels' intellectual and visual investigations found fertile ground in the huge archival collections of the Center for Jewish History's partner organizations, totaling more than 100 million documents. Located in Manhattan's Chelsea district, the center, self-described as "the largest repository of Jewish history and culture outside of Israel," comprises the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

"Manuscript" will reside in the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall, a two-story central space that links the center's buildings, sharing prominence with "Biblical Species," an inlaid terrazzo floor artwork by Michele Oka Doner.

Serendipity

Samuels started on the path to the commission, unknowingly, in 1996. On the recommendation of an archivist she met while working on a commission for a memorial garden in Grafeneck, Germany, she went to the Baeck and YIVO institutes, then housed in separate buildings, to look at their archives. At the former, she met curator and artist Renata Stein and they became friends. In the fall of 2001, Stein submitted Samuels' name to the commission competition.

In February 2002, Samuels was in the Philippines when she received word that she was one of the finalists. A month later, she was taken through the collections and archives, where she was most impressed, she says, with the way everything, "from the mundane to the spectacular ... was cataloged and cared for."

She had six weeks to make a proposal, including the visual and conceptual content and a ballpark budget, and decided upon a book format, an alphabet component, to use stone and glass, and that there would be "lots of parts, and lots of elements, cared for and organized in some way."

In May 2002, each artist gave a brief presentation to the selection committee, and she left the room thinking "there was no way I was going to get it. I thought I flubbed it completely."

The next day, Samuels stopped by the Kim Foster Gallery, which represents her, and Foster suggested that she check her answering machine. Commission curator Dara Meyers-Kingsley had left a message asking Samuels to call, and when she did, the curator asked, "Are you ready to start? You won."

Samuels, who still seems a bit in awe when recalling the conversation, says she was so elated that she sang along with soprano Montserrat Caballe's zarzuelas (a form of Spanish operatic songs) CD during the entire 7^{1*_{2-hour drive back to Pittsburgh.}}

^{_{But winning was just the beginning.}}

^{_{The center began to make preparations, including engineering studies to ensure that the wall could support the piece, doing a dry run fit of its substrate aluminum panels and later hiring Brandston Associates of New York, the same firm that lit the Statue of Liberty, to design and install "Manuscript's" lighting.}}

^{_{Children and Einstein}}

^{_{The final contract was signed in December 2002 and final design presented four months later. Samuels spent May 2003 in the archives "collecting the subtext" for the work, making difficult choices.}}

^{_{What she decided upon included pages from a children's math notebook and Einstein's scrap paper, to be juxtaposed low on the wall so children can see them; letters written by immigrants in the early 20th century; and Emma Lazarus' 1883 sonnet "The New Colossus," which is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. At the top of the work, 22 feet above the viewer, are a piece of Yiddish music and a recipe from a cookbook. "I just loved starting with music and food," she says.}}

^{_{In September 2003, Samuels began hands-on work on the project. "It's been really intense since then," she says, with unintended understatement.}}

^{_{The laborious process would eventually involve cutting 80,500 pieces of glass, 20,700 of which were frosted (via water jet cutting) with an alphabetic character, 33,500 frosted with a numeral (acknowledging the significance we assign dates) and 3,100 frosted with the (reduced) image of a child's hand (representing prehistory and the future).}}

^{_{The characters were culled from 57 languages -- including Hebrew, hieroglyphic, Hindi and Hungarian -- collected from people who passed through the Great Hall and from center members, who were invited to submit "letters from the alphabets of different languages that you are familiar with, that you recall, and that have special meaning to your life."}}

^{_{Meyers-Kingsley estimates that by the time the glass was masked, blasted, cleaned, peeled, scrubbed, dusted, brushed and placed, each piece had been handled at least 10 times.}}

^{_{The glass tesserae are mounted on top of 440 stone panels, each of which has had 256 alphabetic characters sandblasted into it, a total of 112,640.}}

^{_{The completed artwork will weigh about 4,800 pounds.}}

^{_{Samuels has nothing but praise for those who've been involved in her process, including eight studio assistants, and Dave Passarelli of Hydro-Lazer in Freeport, Armstrong County. While "eyes glazed over" when she described her project to representatives of other companies, "Dave says, 'Well, OK, sounds interesting. I think we can figure that out.' "}}

^{_{The resultant work is nothing short of monumental, and yet it harbors intimate recesses. Samuels has synthesized the experience of a people into an essence that centers "Luminous Manuscript's" ethereal floating symbols, and she invites members of each new generation to engage and to make of it what they may.}}

^{_{On a recent afternoon in Pittsburgh, Samuels mused that one generally thinks of history as being "a fixed thing," but actually what's considered significant is, at a given time, undergoing embellishment and re-interpretation. "Maybe it's that core of something that keeps sparking the discussion and the debate," she says. "As long as that discussion keeps going, [it remains] essential information."}}