This series of leaf talismans is inspired by O Henry’s short story "The Last Leaf". I created this project for the Free Art Friday event that took place in Tel Aviv on January 18th 2013. In the story, a dying woman watches the leaves falling off the tree outside her window. She believes that when the last leaf falls,she would die.

After a stormy night, she wakes up to discover that one leaf has survived. She sees that as a positive sign, that encourages her to get better. It turns out, though, that her neighbor, a painter who never became famous, went out on the night of the storm, and painted a leaf on the adjacent wall.

The woman recovers, but the painter dies of pneumonia.

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The story inspired me to think of the healing power of art and faith. I created a tree of 30 talisman-leaves, each with its own special quality, made out of different materials, and in various techniques. There was a bay leaf for winning, a fig leaf for covering up and more. Each leaf was put in an audio cassette box, and they were hung on sycamore trees at the Ya’acov Garden in Tel Aviv. People that received clues to the location of the talisman-tree on Facebook, arrived to take the talismans with the qualities they needed. Later on they've sent photos of the leaves in their new homes.

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Two things made this project special to me. The first was that about half of the leaves were taken by people who had already taken popsicles at the previous event, which meant continuity and long term involvement. The second was that a lot of the leaves were created by the staff members of a psychiatric inpatient unit - healing leaves made by healers. I’m currently working on continuing this artistic cooporation project with different organizations.

* Please be sure to read the article by Mati Ale, a street art photographer and curator (written in Hebrew) - ilovemytelaviv.com/2013/01/ראיון-אינטראקטיבי-יפעה-רז.html