Worshippers at one Providence synagogue are getting a big spiritual boost this fall, thanks to Walter Feldman, a professor of visual arts at Brown since 1953. Feldman designed and built a mosaic mural made up of nine 200-pound panels covering 156 square feet of wall space in Temple Beth El, a Reform synagogue on Providence's East Side.

Ask Feldman about the work, and he is happy to tell you that it's thirteen feet tall, twelve feet wide, and made up of thousands of pieces of Venitian glass. He'll happily go on to explain that the mosaic's imagery comes from the fall Jewish holidays. Feldman is less garrulous when asked about the Beth El community's response to his work, however. "They've been far too nice," he says. When pressed, he adds: "Okay, some people have told me it's very, very moving...It's a pretty big size. I think that overwhelms them a little bit."