Set in Stone

Photos: Avi Gass

The first time it happened, Arin Jéda was in the Bobover beis medrash in Boro Park. As he waited for the next Minchah minyan to come together, the teenager noticed how the marble swirling veins on the wall looked like a tiger leaping over a pile of stones.  But when Jéda tried pointing out the image to his fellow mispallelim, they told him he was crazy.

Over the next 28 years, Jéda, a pseudonym for an artist who prefers to remain anonymous, found more images that no one else seemed to be able to see.  He finally found a kindred spirit in his wife’s father, who also had an artistic flair and was intrigued by the concept.  Propelled by his father-in-law’s enthusiasm, Jéda made numerous trips to various tile stores in search of a promising specimen, and he struck pay dirt with a stone whose veining depicted the image of an elderly man holding a skull in his hands.

“It was profound,” says Jéda.  “It was out of the box. It was art.  My father-in-law loved it and he encouraged me to find a way to share it with the world.”

Jéda began fine-tuning the concept, painting and drawing the images he saw and experimenting with projectors and e-art. In time he partnered up with Jay Zelingold, a marketing strategist who appreciated that the idea had serious potential if it could be developed professionally, replicated and systemized.