So before visiting his mother in London, he rented a costume that could have come from Fiddler on the Roof and a kossak hat. He told her she couldn’t kiss him (negiyah), he couldn’t sit on the sofa (it may have shaatnez), and then he went to sit on the window ledge and every time a cloud went by, he’d wave his hat three times as part of a religious ritual honoring creation. Before his mother could sustain any permanent damage from the shock, he went into the bathroom, changed his clothes and showed her the receipt from the costume shop. After he let her hug him, the thought of her Jeremy keeping Shabbos and kosher seemed much less formidable.
Although Langford didn’t follow his musical forebears, he does play the flute and, interestingly enough, gets his inspiration not from classical art but from music. Beethoven, Pacabel and even Led Zeppelin have inspired the artist. “But,” he says, “for many years now inspiration comes from within.”
When the Western Wall Heritage Foundation commissioned him to do what became The Chain of Generations Center, he was humbled by the task. “I got weak in the knees; it seemed so daunting to me. I’m not easily scared. But this was 100 feet away from Kodesh HaKodashim,” he says. “I didn’t know how to approach it. I got the keys to that part of the Kotel, and lived there for 3-4 days, sleeping there at night and communing with the spirit of the site. After the third night, I suddenly saw it; I realized what I needed to do. I used the site itself as a canvas that I would paint on. I saw the site itself as a dynamic work of art, a constantly changing kinetic 3,000-year-old sculpture in its own way. What restored my sanity was that I realized I was adding my own layer. I had to find a way of making my own statement while respecting the sanctity and history of the site.” When the site was finished, some people came out in tears. “One VIP visiting said Kleenex should be the sponsor here.” Langford’s work is a spiritual, emotional experience, not just an intellectual one. It truly touches the soul.
Although he’s worked with other materials, the medium Langford most favors is glass. “Glass begins as sand and goes through a process of heat and pressure, becoming a translucent elastic substance. Glass is a spiritual metaphor in the way it came into being. It not only reflects light but also transmits light, changing it in certain ways. This is the story of the Jewish people and, by extension, humanity as a whole. The process of transforming glass, a raw material, into a transparent prism that emanates and mirrors light is a metaphor for our own transformation as we use the tools of the Torah to connect with God.”
