I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest child of a well-known sculptor. From an early age, I was surrounded by art. Some of my earliest memories are of spending time in my dad’s studio creating small pieces of art in wax, which my dad then cast into bronze. When I was thirteen years old, my whole family spent a year in Rome, Italy. The beautiful warm glow of the setting sun on Roman architecture influenced my color palette for years to come. I attended Michigan colleges earning my M.A. then M.F.A. from Wayne State University in Detroit. I taught Drawing and Relief Printmaking at Henry Ford College for seven years before moving to the Boston area where I taught at Kehillath Israel Nursery School in the morning and at Solomon Schechter Day School’s middle school in the afternoon for four years. I moved to Berkeley in the mid 1980s.
Although I did not come from a traditionally observant family, as I grew older, my interest in Judaism deepened. I learned to read Hebrew and became an adult Bat Mitzvah in my forties. I was an early member of Netivot Shalom. As a single mother, I adopted my daughter Batya and when she was two weeks old, she came with me to Netivot Shalom. She was often held by Rabbi Stuart, Vicki Kelman, and other adults to give me a much-needed break.
Throughout my whole life, I have been an active producing painter. For many years my focus was still life painting using gouache paint on paper such as “Ode to Autumn Sunflowers” which brings happy sunny days to mind.
As I became more immersed in Judaism, I created many Judaic papercuts, holiday cards, mandalas and mixed media pieces. I created the mixed media piece, “Miriam” to honor my Bat Mitzvah (Parashat Beshalach). The Miriam piece was later featured on a book cover of collected essays about Miriam.
One of my paintings, “Ode of California Fires,” features eucalyptus branches, which became living torches in the fires, as well as irises for rebirth.
For the past year I have been working abstractly, painting in acrylic on canvas. I have featured two of the paintings from this recent series here. The one entitled “Floating” reminds me of drifting, ever changing clouds, as well as swimming. The other entitled “Joy” is filled with the movement of warm shapes.
I don’t know what form my next piece of art will take, but I have in mind to create a piece that honors the warm community I am blessed to be part of at Netivot Shalom.