Judith Joseph Solo Exhibit in New York

The Jewish Art Salon and the Kraft Center present:  Get Lucky:  Amulets and Ketubah Art by Judith Joseph.

 Art Exhibit curated by organized by the Jewish Art Salon.

Contact: Yona Verwer jewishartsalon@gmail.com  917-447-8567

Location: The Columbia / Barnard Kraft Center, 606 West 115th Street, New York, NY 10025

Date: Thursday April 18, 2013

6 – 7 PM Opening Reception, Free & Open to the Public

7 – 8 PM Panel Discussion Still, Small Voice in a Noisy World: Jewish Heritage and Contemporary Art. Panelists: Judith Joseph, Alison Kruvant and Isaac Peterson, moderated by Buzz Slutzky.

Exhibit Hours: April 18 – May 20, Sunday – Thursday 9-8, Friday 9-1.

The art of Judith Joseph springs from illuminated manuscripts:  decorated, hand-written texts.  She loves miniature medieval illustrations with their quirky, often bizarre imagery that ranges from holy inspiration to bawdy violence.  Her love of letters encompasses both their calligraphic form and the story they tell.

She started making ketubahs (hand-written, decorated Jewish marriage contracts) at the age of 17, beginning a journey with this art form that has lasted decades and produced some 500 commissioned, original works.  She has grown up with the ketubah, and it has grown with her.

Judith’s paintings often contain Hebrew lettering.  Her series of hamsa (amulet) paintings began when she painted one for each of her three adult sons, when they moved far from home. She used unstretched canvas, so the paintings could be easily rolled and transported from place to place. She used thehamsa symbol: a hand blocking the evil eye, an ancient image found in Mediterranean countries.  The hamsa is often worn during childbirth. 

Judith believes in the power of images as a way to focus our intent and will, and the power of words to guide us. Each hamsa image is encircled with a ribbon containing Hebrew inscriptions of the names of archangels (Michael, Raphael, Yuriel, Uzziel, Ezriel, etc.) The letters create a dynamic, dancing border, stand-ins for human beings, as we are expected to create a “fence around the Torah.” (Pirke Avot, 1.1)

More project info:

Jewish Art Salon (with web images): 
http://www.jewishartsalon.com/2013/03/get-lucky-amulets-and-ketubah-art-by.html

Directions: #1 Train to 116 St, Buses M4, M5, M104 to 116 St. M60 Bus from 125 St Metro-North.

606 West 115th Street, just west off Broadway.

The Jewish Art Salon is a global community of artists and art professionals. It organizes exhibitions, panel discussions and programming with leading international artists and scholars, in order to create an appreciation for innovative Jewish art in the contemporary art world.

http://jewishartsalon.com

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Yona VerwerPresident, Jewish ART Salon

http://jewishartsalon.com

Seasoned Painters Step Outside Their Comfort Zone

… and try painting with egg tempera, instead of their usual media (oil, acrylic).  It was a joy to share my favorite medium with my critique group (Ellen Holtzblatt, Monica Sageman, Gabriella Boros, Colleen Cox and Jackie Eddy.)  We enjoyed the hospitality of Cindy Jevon’s PerficalSense Studio and Art Salon.

My critique group tries egg tempera painting. From left: Ellen Holtzblatt, Monica Sageman, Gabriella Boros, Colleen Cox, Jackie Eddy. Jackie Eddy (right) used egg tempera in a delicate, watercolor style– beautiful!

Colleen usually paints in oil– she likes the quick drying time of egg tempera and the purity of the colors. She quickly figuring out ways to blend and layer her colors in a different way than she does in oil..

Gabi, a detail-loving, narrative artist, said “ooh” and “aah” a lot. It’s a match made in heaven. She quickly made a wonderful portrait of Ellen.

Monica finds the planning required for egg tempera is a little off-putting, but she is able to create a lovely, Matisse-like sketch of the room.

Ellen paints lusciously in oils… and in egg tempera, too, we found out.

Egg tempera can be purchased in tubes, but the traditional (and most rewarding) way to use it is by mixing pure pigments (the color ingredient in all paints) with the yolk of an egg on a glass palette.  A little water is added to thin the paint, and the result is a brilliantly vivid, water-soluble paint that allows for transparent glazes and layers, opaque paint when desired and incredibly fine lines for detail.

Pure, dry pigments, the yolk of an egg, and a painting knife: making egg tempera

Expulsion from Paradise, Master of Jean de Mandeville, 1360

Portrait Of Simonetta Vespucci, 1480′s

Study for fresco: Prayer, by Kazimir Malevich, 1907

Oknonadache, Marc Chagall, 1915

Reginald Marsh, Mr. Broe on the Deck, 1936

Persephone, Thomas Hart Benton, 1938-39

Andrew Wyeth, Pennsylvania Landscape, 1942

Ben Shahn, Vanity, 1949

Peter Hurd, Bonfire, 1950

Carpenters, by Jacob Lawrence, 1977

Tim Lowly, Beloved, 2004

Fred Wessel, Star Gazer, 2000′s (?)

Doug Safranek, Diving In, 2006. Doug Safranek used to share a studio in New York with Colleen Cox (see critique group, above)

Andrea Deszo, Candyland WY, 2000′s (?)

Sarah McEneany, Family Portrait, 2007

Here are some examples of how I have used egg tempera:

Commissioned Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract), 2012. Egg tempera and india ink calligraphy

Commissioned Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract), 2012. Egg tempera and india ink calligraphy

Ocean Crossing II (My Grandma Crossing The Ocean), 2012. Egg tempera on panel; frame embellished with hand-tooled copper and brass foil

Commissioned Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract), 2012. Egg tempera and india ink calligraphy

Freedom Riders, 2011. Commissioned for Oprah Winfrey by group of Freedom Riders on the 50th Anniversary, 1961-2011

Commissioned Award, presented to architect Edward Anders Sovik by N. Am. Academy of Liturgy, 2003

… more can be seen on my website.

Re-Drawing the Map of the Art World

In her NY Times review of Saul Steinberg:  A Biography, by Deirdre Bair, Deborah Solomon reminds us that Steinberg was most famous for his “View of the World From 9th Avenue”, a Manhattan-centric remapping of the world.

Steinberg was a prolific cartoonist for The New Yorker.  In addition, his drawings and sculptures were shown in high-brow galleries and museums, and prized by art collectors.

Solomon, who authored a forthcoming biography of Norman Rockwell, has good reason to be well-versed on the topic of “fine art” vs. “illustration”.  About Steinberg, she comments:  ”In his heyday, art critics butted heads over whether his drawings should be considered cartooning, illustration or museum-worthy art.  By now such attempts at classification seem beside the point.  Most of us do not believe that an invisible velvet rope separates museum art from magazine art, or that a painting hanging at the Museum of Modern Art is automatically superior in aesthetic terms to a children’s book illustration.  The truth is that any genre can produce works of enduring power” (italics mine.)

Solomon cites an anecdote from the biography that mirrors this pedestal-busting view of art:  ”(Steinberg) once described Picasso, after visiting him at his villa outside Cannes, as ‘an old Jewish man in the Florida sun– all torso and shorts.’”

What do you think?  Is there an important distinction between illustration and fine art?  Does it matter?

Artists: What Do You Think About The Art World Today?

critiquing art work by a group member

In a review of the Frieze Art Show in New York, Holland Cotter of the New York Times describes Frieze show artists as “worker bees in an art-industrial hive.  Directed by dealers and collectors who dress like stylish accountants, they turn out predictable product for high-profile, high-volume fairs like Frieze.”  He distinguishes between the art he saw at Frieze and art one would find in “studios, or going to offbeat spaces…   where all kinds of serious, in-touch-with-life work is going on.”

I asked the members of my monthly artists’ critique group what they thought about the hive metaphor for the art world.

Q:  What factors are contributing to the “art-industrial hive”, as described by Cotter?

E:   Art has become an industry that starts in art school now, manufacturing art.  Before, artists were told, “Express yourself” to the extent that the teachers didn’t actually teach anything.  People tended to grab onto their “gimmick” in order to show they had an artistic identity.

Now, there’s a move away from hands-on connection with art; it’s  all about where’s the next big thing.

J:  I think it’s very natural to have shifts in technology over time.  Whoever’s got the resources decides what people see.

G:  Art schools now think in terms of involving the engineering school [in creative projects, just so they can get grants] for funding.

C:  But, painting is looked at as quaint and not serious.

Q:  What do you think about what Holland Cotter’s description of the Frieze show?

E:  Art fairs are like a big box store for art.

C:   I get the impression art is marketed, packaged [and designed to] pull in investors.  I have heard some people who are running galleries now have financial backgrounds, not art backgrounds; it’s all part of this set up to sell the art work as another type of commodity.  Small dealers have been driven out of business.  Galleries in Connecticut [for example,] became an art destination where people would go when they got out of New York in the summer.  The dealers all knew the artists, they were friends; they had a real dialogue and relationship.  These galleries have been closing.  People with a genuine passion for art have been driven out.

Years and years of stripping art out of the schools has the result that people aren’t educated about art.  Their art choices are based on decorative or financial considerations.  People aren’t culturally sophisticated.  There used to be a respect for the humanities, no longer.

Architects and designers have become involved in designing interior spaces, to the extent of what people put up on their walls.  I have been stunned to learn people have a lot of money, yet they have blank walls, and they have to hire somebody to decide what goes on the walls.  Their choices are driven by status or decoration.  They’re either afraid to make choices of art or they have no opinion, no taste.  It’s cowardly, but also ignorant–  out of not having education, not having exposure to art and experience with it.  For people who don’t have lots of money, museums are often too expensive.

An alternative to the bee-hive: E and I attended an opening reception June 15 for “Facemask”, a juried group show, curated by Sergio Gomez, at the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago, which fits Cotter’s description as one of those “ offbeat spaces…   where all kinds of serious, in-touch-with-life work is going on.”  (One of our critique group members, Gabriella Boros, has a work in the show.)

critiquing art work by a group member

The work was fresh, provocative and varied, and the energy and dialogue among the artists/attendees was palpable.   E and I left feeling inspired and energized, eager to get our hands dirty in our studios.

Artists:  what do you think of the art-industrial hive?  How do you want to reach the public with your art?

Free Yourself: It’s Passover!

May this Passover bring freedom and redemption to all who are enslaved.  May we find ways to free ourselves from the constricts of mind and attitude that bind us.  May we be open to new ways of solving the problems that face our world.

Sunrise Ketubah

Sunrise Ketubah

I just finished this ketubah.  It makes me yearn for little spring buds and new green leaves.

Who’s In Charge Here?

"Interior With Cubist Chair," by Susan Chertkow

There has been much debate lately in the advanced painting class I teach at the Art Center, Highland Park, over whether or not an artist should explain “what she meant” when she created a work of art.  Stephanie looked at Susan’s series of paintings and asked her, “What were you thinking about?  What does this mean to you?”  Susan replied, “It doesn’t matter what it means to me, what matters is what it means to you, to the viewer.”  Stephanie made the case that it is interesting to know what the artist’s intention or story is.

I weighed in to say that, as the creator of a work, I don’t feel that my version of what it “means” is any more significant than anyone else’s.  In fact, once I finish a painting, what it means for me usually changes.  I’ve been painting long enough to have people show me works they bought from me decades ago, and not only do I not remember what I was thinking when I made it, occasionally I don’t exactly remember the piece!  (This is a rather disorienting feeling, since I remember selling it to them, and I can easily recognize my style, as familiar as looking at the shape of my own fingers.)

Serena Kovalosky, in her blog “365 Days Of Everything I Love About Being An Artist,” addressed the idea of interpreting art by saying:  ”I’m not particularly attached to my translation of a piece and I find it fascinating to learn how my work affects others.  I’ll offer my version, discuss my influences as I was creating it, and I’ll gladly share the technicals.  But what people will remember most is how my work made them feel.”

I go a little further than Serena.  Not only do I enjoy hearing what other people bring to my work, I have found that sharing my version seems to quash their creative response.  Once they hear my “version,” they no longer feel theirs is valid.  I always hope that the engaged viewer actually has a creative experience when reacting to art, whether it’s visual, music or literary.

The great literary critic William Gass explores the notion of the “self” in art in his new book, Life Sentences.  As discussed by reviewer Adam Kirsch in the New York Times, Gass says:  ”‘What works of art testify to is the presence in this world of consciousness, consciousness of many extraordinary kinds,’ he writes…  But this is ‘not that of the artists themselves, for theirs are often much the same as any other person’s…  It is not the writer’s awareness I am speaking of but the awareness he or she makes.  For that is what fine writing does:  it creates a unique verbal consciousness.’”

This is a fascinating idea:  that art creates a unique consciousness in the viewer’s experience of it.  This goes beyond what I tell my students, that the art should always “speak for itself.”  What do you think:  do you prefer to know the artist’s story behind his/her work, or would you rather experience it without explanation?

Sailing Ketubah

Sailing Anniversary Ketubah

I just finished this ketubah for an anniversary celebration.  (See my preliminary sketch here.  The original sketch included their Briard dogs, but we decided to leave them out. )  It was commissioned by a couple who spend much of their time sailing on Lake Michigan.

Working on it brought me back to my sailing days.  I learned to sail at Camp Ramah in Canada, and worked there as a sailing instructor.  I went on to teach sailing lessons at the Hoofers Sailing  Club at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I tried to capture the power of the wind in the sails, the rhythm and rocking of the waves and the freshness and energy of being out on the lake on a sail-boat.  (See more of my ketubahs here.)

The Bridge Between Health and Disease

Please come and see my Bridge Between Health and Disease.   It was commissioned by the Art Center, Highland Park, for the Voices and Visions Exhibit, an uplifting and inspiring juried show (opening reception tomorrow, 9-30-11.)

The Bridge Between Health and Disease, The Art Center, Highland Park, Illinois

From ABC- Channel 7 News blog:

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, The Art Center in Highland Park holds an art exhibit that honors women and their families impacted by breast or ovarian cancers.

In addition to 50 works of art on display, there is also a wall of statements written by women from across the country who have been affected by cancer. Caren Helene Rudman, an artist and curator of the exhibit, says the purpose of the exhibit is to empower people who live on the bridge between health and disease.

The Art Center (TAC) in Highland Park is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to education in the contemporary visual arts through its teaching, outreach, events and gallery exhibitions. TAC brings the benefits of visual expression to all sectors of the community.

Voices and Visions: Standing on the Bridge between Health and Disease
September 30 – October 30, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, September 30th from 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Free Admission to Exhibit

The Art Center Highland Park
1957 Sheridan Rd.
Highland Park, IL
(847) 432-1888
theartcenterhp.org/voices-and-visions

“Knittivists” Repairing The World

There is a wonderful project called “Tikkun Tree”, which is organizing fiber artists to contribute knitted, crocheted, embroidered and sewn leaves and doves to a fiber olive tree.  The tree will be a symbol of peace and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.  It is inspired by  ”the courageous and remarkable efforts of Jewish and Palestinian citizens and activists in Israel and Diaspora who have been working toward peaceful coexistence” and also by “the many recent knittivist community needlework projects, including the pink tank, knitnotwar 1,0o0 Project , Knit a River, and the Red Sweater Project“.

I can embroider and sew, I think it will be fun to foliate!  If you want to participate, send your leaves to:

The TikkunTree Project
P.O. Box 2088
Philadelphia, PA 19103

I love to paint olive trees.  Here are some works which include olive trees from my portfolio:

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