Category: Visual Arts

Dream into reality

Artist Lori-ann Latremouille at the opening of her solo show at the Zack Gallery on Nov. 6. (photo from Lori-ann Latremouille)

Fairy tales do happen in real life. Take, for example, the story of local artist Lori-ann Latremouille. In her case, it was not Prince Charming who changed her life, but rather an art agent, by offering representation to the then 21-year-old unknown artist.

Latremouille left home at 16 to escape an unfortunate family situation. Although she liked painting and drawing at school, she was never exposed to the art world as a child. Later, to make a living, she had to take a job that had nothing to do with the arts. Still, art resided in her heart and wouldn’t be denied. “I knew even then I wanted to be creative, not answer the phones for the rest of my life,” she said in an interview with the Independent. “After a couple years, I quit my job and went to the local library.”

She taught herself art history by reading library books and copying masterpieces from illustrations in those books. She even had a show of her reproductions at that library when she was 18. “I kept asking my friends to pose for me but I couldn’t pay them,” she recalled with a smile. “They soon got tired of it, and so did I.”

Despite the tight budget, she continued teaching herself. “I took a class at Emily Carr once and loved it. At about the same time, I went to an art show opening. I had never been to an art show before. I loved it. I wanted to be involved in an art exhibition.”

After a few setbacks and gallons of perseverance, she managed to open her first solo show when she was 20. “There was another gallery show next door. It opened on the same day as mine, and I got lots of traffic from them,” she recalled. “I even sold a few pieces. Then an agent came to my show. She introduced me to the Heffel Gallery.”

One of the most prominent galleries in Vancouver, Heffel represented Latremouille for several years. Soon after this lucky break, she got an offer from an American dealer: he would buy several of her paintings at once and pay her as much as she needed for her monthly rent and bills so she could paint without financial worries. “He asked me how much I needed a month. I gave him a very modest estimate. I was used to economizing, had lots of practise since I was 16.” She was 21 then and she is still represented by that gallery in Portland. “I was blessed,” she said. “I met the right person at the right time.”

Of course, her talent had something to do with it. Her distinctive style – black and white palette, expressive lines and an occasional splash of solid color – emerged in the very beginning of her artistic career. “One color is like one note in music,” she said. “Black and white make the colors sing.”

Visitors to the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver can enjoy Latremouille’s visual songs this month, as her solo show Dreaming of Chagall is at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery until Nov. 30.

“When I started painting,” she said, “I didn’t see any of the great artists [and their work]. I simply liked black and white. Later, one of the prominent collectors of Chagall’s art in San Francisco mentioned the similarities of my works and Chagall’s. She even bought one of my pieces for her collection. I feel honored.… When I first saw Chagall’s paintings and drawings, I fell in love. There is magic in his works. He also liked black and white. One of my favorite quotes of his is, ‘If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.’ That’s how I feel, too. My art comes from the heart. There is so much heart in Chagall.”

Latremouille considers herself an apprentice to Chagall, and several of her pictures reflect that self-assessment. Her drawing “Passing the Egg” is a metaphor for such an apprenticeship, a passing of the torch of art. The theme is also apparent in “Master and Apprentice,” while the bride and groom painting “Blue Orchid” clearly drew its inspiration from Chagall’s soaring brides.

Another theme of the show is the unity of human beings with the natural world. In many paintings, the shapes of people and creatures intertwine. There is no border but skin between them. “I always loved nature, loved animals,” she said. “Most forms of animals, birds and fish fit into the shapes of human bodies. We are intrinsically the same. I know that humanity is capable of doing great harm to nature but we are also capable of healing it. People do it all the time, work on restoring the environment, streams and forests. Maybe I’m a bit naïve but I believe it.”

One other pervading theme, running through almost every painting and drawing, is music. Instruments have a place of honor in most images. “I always loved listening to music when I drew. I also wrote poetry. Still do. I wanted to write songs, so I learned to play guitar in my late 20s. I’m an artist first, of course, but I love music and songwriting. I love drawing musical instruments. I think visual art foreshadowed my interest in music.”

Music often feeds her creativity, but anything can give a spark to an idea: a song, a painting by another artist, something she encountered on an outdoor trip. “I sketch all the time,” she said. “Then I look through my sketchbooks, pick a sketch I like, and start a painting. It grows organically, like a visual conversation with the emerging image. I love the creative process, when I see things falling into place, popping up from the two-dimensional lines of the sketch. When people buy a piece, it’s just icing on the cake.”

Even pain and illness have been an inspiration for her art. In 2012, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After the diagnosis, depression hit her hard, but she fought it. Several of the best pieces in the Zack Gallery show were painted after her recovery from both cancer and depression. “Rescue from Blue” is a visual tale of escaping fear and pain, of flying into the light, while “Dreaming of Chagall” marks a new direction in the artist’s development. The painting is full of joy and more colorful than any other in the exhibition.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Lifelong art student

Toby Nadler (photo from Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation)

On Thursday, Oct. 23, Louis Brier Home and Hospital hosted an exhibit of accomplished artist and resident Toby Nadler’s work. The exhibit was open to all residents.

In 1970, Nadler began to study oil painting at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art with the late Arthur Lismer, one of Canada’s Group of Seven. After completing a teacher’s certificate at Macdonald College in Montreal, she spent four years teaching children at elementary schools in Montreal’s inner city, where art was one of the subjects, and took evening art courses at Concordia University. She graduated from Concordia in 1980 with a bachelor of fine arts degree, majoring in studio art.

Later, she studied watercolor and multimedia art with Judy Garfin, a Vancouver artist, at McGill University. After a few years, Nadler became interested in Chinese watercolors and calligraphy, and studied privately with a group of other Westerners. The teacher was Virginia Chang, who exhibited her students’ work.

In 1984, Nadler and her late husband Moe moved to Vancouver. Nadler wished to continue studying Chinese art in her new city. She also studied Mandarin at the Chinese library and watercolors with Nigel Szeto at the Chinese Cultural Centre. He was impressed with her work but, after seeing her Western paintings, recommended she continue with her own style, as her personality did not come across in the Chinese paintings to the same degree.

Nadler joined the English Bay Arts Club and the University Women’s Club, where she studied watercolor with various artists, as well as exhibiting there. After a few years, she became an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. She volunteered and took courses with their artists and exhibited her own work around the city, including at the Vancouver Public Library. During an exhibit at Oakridge Shopping Centre, an art dealer from Hong Kong admired her work and wanted to know if she had unframed paintings, so that he could roll them up and ship them to his two galleries in Hong Kong. He bought 10 works.

Studying with Lone Tratt, Nadler took watercolor and acrylic courses at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, where she also exhibited. Upon request, she donated six of her paintings to decorate their seniors lounge. Her home was decorated with many of her paintings.

A resident of Louis Brier since August 2014, Nadler still occasionally paints at her leisure. The Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation accepted her donation of more than 10 paintings as part of their collection to decorate the halls of the home. They also have another few pieces, which they will use to decorate the interior of residents’ and staff rooms. It is hoped that her unique style will bring pleasure to all who see them.

At the Oct. 23 exhibit, Nadler’s son, Peter Nadler, spoke, giving a history of his mother as an artist, and Dvori Balshine thanked Nadler for all of her artwork donations. Music therapist Megan Goudreau and recreational therapist Ginger Lerner composed and performed an original song in Nadler’s honor about her contributions to the art world.

Joyce Ozier’s explosive colorful expression

Joyce Ozier’s exhibit, Making Panels panels panels panels, is at Zack Gallery until Nov. 2. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Splashes of colors hit you as you walk into the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery’s latest show, Marked Panels panels panels panels, by Joyce Ozier. The green panels smile. The dark purple growl, “Notice us!” The blue looks like wings in the sky, soaring in joy.

Ozier is fascinated by color. In all of her creative pursuits, color has played a prominent role. With an education in art and theatre, she has always been drawn towards the unusual, the colorful and the non-standard. “I was interested in experimental things, in visual theatre,” she told the Jewish Independent.

She arrived with her husband to Vancouver in 1970, and subsequently co-founded Royal Canadian Aerial Theatre, an experimental theatrical enterprise. “We did outdoor events with audience involvement,” she said. “Our performances didn’t usually have a story, but they often had a message. We employed lots of imagination in our shows. One of our pieces had hundreds of colorful balloons. We created a moving sculpture out of them…. It was about beauty and pollution.”

The theatre was a step towards her current show, but it took many more years before the full connection would materialize. After a decade of producing shows, Aerial Theatre dissolved, and Ozier was ready for a new direction, although she wasn’t sure what that would be. She tried her hands at theatre administration, was one of the founders of what is now known as the Scotiabank Dance Centre, but her creativity demanded a more visual outlet.

“In the late 1990s, I founded WOW! Windows,” she said. “It was a display and design company, and we built it into an award-winning firm. We had many retail clients in the Pacific Northwest, but it started by accident. Of course, starting your own business is risky, but I’ve always had courage.”

Her son was a student at the University of British Columbia then. “He knew I was searching,” Ozier recalled. “One day, he came home and said, ‘The Royal Bank at the corner has terrible window displays. Why don’t you offer them to make their windows for free?’ I did. Later, I made photos of the windows, created a brochure and sent it to the other stores in town. I got my first offer the next day: to design windows for Wear Else. Their designer just left, and they liked my brochure.”

Ozier used her creativity to the max with her new company but she had to learn a lot. “You just take one step after another,” she said. “One of the lessons I learned was that retail display is not fine art. It’s a sales tool. The artist must make use of what the company is selling. But I used lots of colors in my windows.”

In 2009, she retired from WOW! Windows, but she still had a passion for colors and looked for a new way to find her expression. “I started painting. I never painted before, but I had an art education.” Never having been interested in realistic figurative art, she immersed herself in abstract painting.

“I wanted to paint large canvases, to work big, but there was a problem. To move such paintings, you need a truck. Then I thought: if I do it by several panels, I could fit a panel in my car.” That was how her current show at the Zack Gallery came into being.

“I always start with four panels,” she explained of her process. “I paint all the panels at once, trying to get them to balance. After awhile, I move the panels, shuffle them around, change arrangements, turn them sideways or upside down, and a new composition emerges. I paint some more. I never know where I [will] end up with each piece. It’s an adventure.

“Sometimes, I have to take one panel out – three panels work, but four don’t. I always know when the piece is finished. There is energy there I don’t control. It sweeps me along.”

Anything could be inspiration for a piece, a starting point. One piece, “Chefchaouen,” is inspired by a real place, the eponymous village in Morocco. The four panels of the painting form a mosaic of blue and white, of sky and snow.

“There is a story there,” said Ozier. “Everything is blue in that village, the houses, the streets. That village in the mountains was discovered in the 1930s by a group of European Jews escaping Nazism. They thought they found safe haven. They didn’t, but they didn’t know it then. They settled there and painted everything blue. Blue has a special meaning in Judaism, divinity and equilibrium. Later on, they found out that blue stucco also repelled mosquitoes. There are no Jews there now, but the color remains.”

Some of her other paintings have more poetic titles, like a symphony of grey called “Cloud Thoughts” or a smaller one-panel painting, “Summer Wind,” a quaint green explosion. “Coming up with titles is difficult. I have to think about them a lot,” Ozier said.

Her first solo exhibition opened at the Zack Gallery on Oct. 2 and continues until Nov. 2. To learn more, visit joyceozier.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Barrable-Segal brings printmaking to life

Jocelyn Barrable-Segal (photo by Olga Livshin)

Jocelyn Barrable-Segal was raised by parents with two vastly different professional backgrounds: her mother was an architect and her father was a pilot. Following her own path, Barrable-Segal managed to combine the two in her own career. For 35 years, she has been a flight attendant with Air Canada. Several days each month, she flies around the world. The days she is not in the air, she is an artist, and you can find her at Malaspina Printmakers, a printmakers’ workshop on Granville Island, where she creates unique lithographs.

“Malaspina is an artist-run centre,” Barrable-Segal told the Jewish Independent on a recent visit. “It started in the early ’70s with three or four artists. Now there are about 60 of us.” She went on to explain that Malaspina is equipped for a dozen different systems used in printmaking, but she uses only one process, the ancient technique of stone lithography. “I love to draw,” she said, “and lithography is the only technique that requires drawing.”

Barrable-Segal does that drawing on stone. The technicalities of embedding an image into stone and later transferring it from stone to paper are not for this short article, but it’s important to point out that each image can have many layers, each layer introducing one additional color plus whatever details the artist wants to add or alter. The process is time consuming and labor intensive, but Barrable-Segal said she doesn’t conceive of working in any other art form.

“With lithographs, you can change the image if you change your mind, have layers of drawing and colors,” she said, “while in painting, as soon as you’re done, that’s it.” She also likes to be able to have several copies of the same print, although she never mass-produces them. “I make limited editions, no more than seven copies of one print.”

Her prints are mostly flowers or landscapes but they are never life-like. They hover between abstract and impressionism. “I’m attracted to metaphors,” she said. She uses multiple sources for her pictures, including photographs from her travels, but she transforms the imagery through the creative filter of her imagination, enriches reality with emotional and esthetic folds. Her artistic touch converts memory into art.

That’s why she keeps flying, to bring back more visual mementos, more nutrients for her lithographs, she explained. “I see different countries, and each happy place finds its way into my images. Of course, no photocopies.”

Frequently, she draws flowers and floral compositions. “I buy live flowers at the public market and look at them,” she said. “That’s how it starts.” Flowers are the predominant theme for her work in the In Wait show that recently opened at Burnaby Art Gallery.

“In Wait is a collaborative project of the Full Circle Art Collective,” she said. “There are seven of us in the collective, seven women: Heather Aston, Hannamari Jalovaara, Julie McIntyre, Milos Jones, Wendy Morosoff Smith, Rina Pita and me. We all met at Malaspina, but then some of us drifted apart. We reunited for this show.”

The inspiration for the show came from the story of Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, she said, and it took the artists three years from the idea to the vernissage.

“Penelope was waiting for her husband to return, but her suitors were insistent that he was dead and she should choose one of them. She said she would weave a shroud before she married again. All day long she wove and then, in the night, her ladies-in-wait would unweave what she had done. The shroud was never completed. She waited. We all wait for something in our lives. It’s a universal theme for women.”

For her, another sad theme overlaid the waiting – the theme of grief. Her parents passed away recently, and working on the show helped her deal with her sadness. “For me, grief associated with poppies. I needed to find solace. I drew lots of poppies for the show.”

Women friends and their collaboration and support were another aspect of the show that came from the story of Penelope and her faithful maids. “Each one of us would make a piece and pass it on to the others. The others would add something, change. They would say: what does it need? Perhaps this detail or line or color should be added.”

Sometimes three or four people would contribute to the image before it returned to the original artist. “When you get your image back with someone else’s input, you think: what do I do now? It’s different. How to keep the integrity of the image? How to bring our combined visions together? This way, you’re always creating.”

Art making is ingrained in Barrable-Segal’s life. “I started flying because I didn’t want to be a full-time artist. It’s not realistic, even though I have a master’s degree in fine arts. But I would never abandon art. I do it for myself. I would continue even if I didn’t sell anything. I always have my sketchbook with me. When I play golf with my husband, I’m not interested in the ball. I look at my shadow on the grass and think how it would look in a lithograph.”

In Wait is at Burnaby Art Gallery until Nov. 9. For more on Barrable-Segal, visit jmbs.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Schiffer photograph on display for first time since 1999

Arthur Erickson, circa 1970, Vancouver. (photo by Fred Schiffer; JMABC)

photo - Mirtha Legrand, circa 1953, Argentina. Legrand was the stage name of Rosa María Juana Martínez Suárez
Mirtha Legrand, circa 1953, Argentina. Legrand was the stage name of Rosa María Juana Martínez Suárez. (photo by Fred Schiffer; JMABC L.23933)

Thanks to the B.C. History Digitization Program and the Young Canada Works program, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia (JMABC) now has more than 1,700 photographs from the Fred Schiffer Photography collection available for viewing on the Yosef Wosk Online Photo Library (flickr.com/photos/jewishmuseum). This is only the first of many phases in the processing and digitization of this collection. The JMABC is also in the beginning stages of developing both a physical and online exhibit of Schiffer’s work.

The Fred Schiffer Photography collection (circa 1940s-1999) contains approximately 80,000 photographs and four metres of textual records and artifacts. Most of the digitized material is from the Vancouver series (1958-1999), which documents family groups, weddings, news celebrities, judiciary, film, stage and music personalities, and many more. Portraits digitized include Vancouver citizens of all walks of life juxtaposed with prominent B.C. personalities (both Jewish and non-Jewish). A smaller portion of the digitized photographs represent his work from when he lived in Buenos Aires.

photo - Chief Dan George, May 3, 1971, Vancouver
Chief Dan George, May 3, 1971, Vancouver. (photo by Fred Schiffer; JMABC L.24421)

Fred Siegfried Schiffer was born in Vienna on April 1, 1917. A law student at the University of Vienna until 1938, he reached England as a refugee shortly before war broke out. He was the sole survivor of his family of five, all of whom perished in the Holocaust. In England, he met his wife Olive, whom he married in 1942, and began his distinguished career as a photographer. Olive and Fred had two children, Jennifer and Roger.

In 1948, the family set off to Argentina. In Buenos Aires, Schiffer became a respected artistic and commercial photographer. In 1958, when political unrest in Argentina became unbearable, the Schiffer family moved to Vancouver. Schiffer opened his studio on Seymour Street, where he quickly became Vancouver’s top portrait photographer.

Schiffer had an impeccable eye and a gift for revealing portraiture, as is evidenced in these selections from his collection.

Vote Cooper for RBC award

Artist Jess Riva Cooper’s work for the Gardiner Museum competition is entitled Viral Series. You can vote for her at gardinermuseum.on.ca. (photo by Sophia Wallace)

Canadian artist Jess Riva Cooper is currently vying for the RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Award, taking place at the Gardiner Museum. You can vote online at the Gardiner site until Oct. 12, 2014. The winner, selected by your votes, will receive $10,000.

“It’s an honor to be nominated as one of five Canadian emerging artists, and the only woman, for this award,” Cooper said.

photo - from Gardiner Museum
(photo from Gardiner Museum)

A ceramic artist and educator, Cooper has participated in residencies across Canada and the United States, including a stint as artist in residence at Medalta in Medicine Hat, Alta., and Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

She cites Yiddish folklore among her most meaningful influences, particularly the foundation myths of the golem and dybbuk spirits, which she reinterprets through a female lens. Her artist statement expands on this point: “I see a direct parallel between my interest in insidious plant life and a malevolent dybbuk spirit, which takes over the human body. In both situations, a loss of control is suffered as the parasitic entity subsumes the host.”

Cooper’s work for the Gardiner competition, entitled Viral Series, is a continued exploration into the death and regeneration taking place in deteriorating communities. Places and things, once bustling and animated, have succumbed to nature’s mercy. Without intervention, nature takes over and breathes new life into objects, as it does in her sculptures. The busts, once plain, are hardly recognizable. They become tattooed with nature. Their heads grow leaves instead of hair. The faces scream out in pain – or perhaps pleasure – in the midst of transformation. Often used to represent life, nature instead becomes a parable for an alternative state, one where life and death intersect.

Supported by the RBC Emerging Artists Project, the $10,000 award honors a Canadian artist who has been out of school and practising professionally with clay as part of his/her artistry for seven years or less. A national panel of artists, curators and arts educators nominated the five exceptional artists.

 

 

 

Artist via camera lens

Michael Seelig is donating the proceeds of his photography exhibit to the Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Every one of Michael Seelig’s photographs reflects a place, its character, its soul. He doesn’t enhance the images in any way. Photoshop’s magic is not for him. He even scoffs at cropping. “I might crop a tiny bit for the printing, just the edges,” he said in an interview with the Independent. “That’s my real challenge – to get every frame right.”

His approach to photography is that of an artist. And, he also paints, although unlike his photos, Seelig doesn’t sell his paintings. “They are for family and friends. I never exhibited them,” he said. “My paintings are mostly watercolors. The compositions are similar to my photographs – urban, for the most part – but they are different, too, depending on my mood, often architectural but less precise than photos, less angular. You have to allow the paints to run, to find their own way.”

Seelig’s solo exhibit Traces opened on Sept. 4 at the Zack Gallery. It is a fundraiser for the gallery. “I’m lucky to be able to donate this show to the gallery and the JCC [Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver],” he said. “My wife and I have been supporters of this important institution in Vancouver for many years. We donated time and money, worked as volunteers at various points. I think maybe some people will buy prints of my photographs because the proceeds would benefit the JCC.”

Seelig took most of the photographs during his travels, and he has traveled extensively, especially after he retired. “We live part of every year in Israel,” he explained. “Everything is close there – Europe and Asia.”

Many people travel and take photos, but not everybody can produce a body of photography worthy of an exhibition. Arriving on location is just a matter of buying a plane ticket, but finding uncommon angles and perspectives takes inspiration and a creative eye.

“I took the photo of the historical buildings in Budapest from the opposite roof,” he said about one of the images. “The view from there was outstanding, but I had to find the perfect spot for this shot. I’m interested in details and, for this shot, I wanted to align the lamp post with the border between the two buildings.”

Another of his images, a majestic panorama of Turkish mountains with an air balloon as a focal point, he took from an ascending balloon. “The view was spectacular, the juxtaposition of a thousands-year-old landscape and the bright modern balloon.” He couldn’t have gotten such an impressive shot any other way.

“That’s what I like about photography,” he said. “I’m always looking for things to photograph but, as a rule, panoramas don’t interest me.” Instead, he admitted his fascination with urban details.

As a professional architect, he taught urban planning and design at the University of British Columbia for 30 years and he frequently used his city photos for his lectures. “When I travel, I always have a camera with me, but not in Vancouver, not now. Before I retired, though, I photographed Vancouver for my PowerPoint presentations. I had a lecture on benches in the city, another one on traffic lights. Signs in Vancouver – the images were fantastic. None of those signs exists anymore, which is a pity. I have those photos somewhere.”

None of his Vancouver photos are on display in the gallery. Some pictures, however, represent highly unusual urban elements, like a stairway on a blank wall in India or wall paintings in Italy, which look like abstract canvasses. Others, Seelig took in nature, but the lines and correlations of light and shadow evoke man-made formations. Boulders, for example, pile haphazardly against a blindingly blue sky in Israel, like a modernist sculpture, although no human arranged them. The eerie composition was created by sun, sand and wind.

In one image, trees strain up in parallel lines in the forests of America or Turkey, lovely pastel patterns in yellow and green.

“I love trees,” said Seelig. “In this show, there are four different kinds of trees.” One tree in particular, an ancient terebinth growing in an Israeli desert among the rocks, seems surreal, almost sentient. The colors of the photo are muted silver and gold, bleached by the relentless sun, as the old gnarled tree contemplates the mysteries of the universe. It doesn’t feel like people should exist anywhere near it.

“I have been taking photos for many years,” said Seelig. “Before, they were either for my paintings, although I never copied them, not directly, just to remember something I saw, or I took photos for my teaching. In the last 15 years, I do a lot more photography.”

Seelig’s photos are available in limited editions of five only. Each one will last a long time, as he produces his prints not on photo paper but on archival metallic paper and mounted to aluminum.

Traces runs until Sept. 28.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Hundreds unite to stitch Torah

Sisters Brenda Silver, Susan Rubin and Mimi Wolch are among the hundreds who will contribute to the Torah Stitch by Stitch project. (photo by Phillip Silver)

A new Torah scroll is in the making. The brainchild of Temma Gentles, Holy Blossom Temple’s artist-in-residence in Toronto, the project originated from a chance encounter Gentles had with Marilynne Cass a year ago.

Gentles, an award-winning Judaic textile artist, is the artistic director of Torah Stitch by Stitch (TSBS), while Cass is the project’s executive coordinator.

“I fell in love with the concept and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing this dream turn into a reality,” said Cass about accepting Gentles’ invitation to join the team when the project was just beginning.

Gentles came up with the idea while on sabbatical in Israel several years ago, when seeking a way to help people engage in the words of Torah. As a textile artist, she envisioned creating a cross-stitched Torah.

“Temma chose cross-stitch because it’s a universally known craft that has been traditionally taught to young girls around the world for adorning clothing and household items,” said Cass. “It was also often the way in which girls learned their letters and numbers. While it’s a simple skill to master, it can still produce amazingly beautiful pieces of work. Using cross-stitch for TSBS has been an inspired choice, as it has allowed people from around the world to work together on a single project.”

Gentles designed a new font for Hebrew letters and divided the entire Torah into 1,463 four-verse segments for people to work on. TSBS participants range from men and women in their teens to those well into their 90s, from skilled stitchers to novices.

“There is no skill test to pass,” said Cass. “The only requirement is that each person commits to following the stitching graph correctly, complete their canvas in a timely manner and treat the work with respect.”

TSBS stitchers come from many different religions – from Judaism to Christianity, Buddhism to Islam. “Even though we’re doing the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), this isn’t an exclusively Jewish project,” said Cass.

“The Torah is the basis of three of the world’s major religions and TSBS has universal appeal,” she added, noting the project includes avowed atheists and the mother superior of a convent. “Everyone is welcome,” said Cass. “In fact, we’re actively looking for more Muslim stitchers.”

While many TSBS stitchers are from the Toronto area, the project has spread throughout Canada.

“I found out about this project from my sister, Brenda Silver, who met the artist through her synagogue in Toronto,” said Susan Rubin, chief financial officer of a downtown Vancouver junior mining company, who resides on the North Shore. “Both of my sisters volunteered to do panels, so I decided to sign up for a panel, too.”

Rubin paid $18 to cover the kit cost and received the template for the verses, the fabric and the embroidery threads in the mail. “At first, it was difficult to figure out how to start, but soon I got the hang of it,” she said. “I hadn’t done any cross-stitching for about 40 years, but it’s not that difficult. I worked on the cross-stitching at night, doing an hour here and an hour there. After about six months, it was done. It was very satisfying work and fun to do.”

Gentles asked Rubin to be more involved in the project and asked whether she would like to be a coach. “I was pleased to take a position,” said Rubin. “I’m one of many volunteers assisting Temma. Some volunteers are helping people with the stitching, while others are helping to compile the finished panels.”

image - The display for the Torah scroll has been designed by Phillip Silver
The display for the Torah scroll has been designed by Phillip Silver. (illustration by Phillip Silver)

Rubin is helping keep track of the 700 stitchers. “I assign each stitcher a coach, so they have someone to contact if they run into trouble,” she said. “I also follow up with the stitchers who’ve had their panel for over six months and haven’t yet completed it. If someone cannot complete their panel, we try and find out why and offer help or, if need be, find a volunteer to adopt the panel. It’s important that all panels are complete, so the finished project is the entire Torah.

“It’s been interesting to hear feedback and personal stories from the volunteers. Even though this is a folk art project, there is a spiritual overtone and the stitchers receive great satisfaction in working with the words of the Torah.”

TSBS now has nearly 900 participants in 13 countries, with more applications coming in each week.

“Our ultimate goal is to have all 1,463 panels completed,” said Cass. “We’re more than halfway there.” The books of Genesis and Exodus have been finished, and stitchers are now working on Leviticus.

“We expect it to take another year before all the remaining canvases have been assigned,” she added. “Meanwhile, we’re working on the final details for the display format.”

The display has been designed by Phillip Silver, one of Canada’s foremost stage designers. It will be about 2.5 metres high and nearly 100 metres long. “The finished work will be museum quality and we hope it will be exhibited in several museums,” said Cass. “The goal is to allow people to feel as if they’re wrapped in the Torah.”

The project’s registration form, more information and helpful tips are available at torahstitchbystitch.temmagentles.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Mordechai Edel exhibits tapestries of light on canvas

Mordechai Edel at work in the studio. (photo from the artist)

Mordechai Edel is not a stranger to grief and pain. His parents escaped Austria in 1939. His uncle spent years in the Nazi concentration camps. His father died when he was 16 years old. Edel has been aware of the darkness in the world since he was a child, but he has never succumbed to it. The art he creates is light fantastic, bursting with colors, suffused with gladness. “Bringing joy to the world,” is his artistic motto.

Edel’s solo art show at the Unitarian Church on West 49th Avenue opened on Aug. 1. The artist talked to the Independent about his life and his paintings. His involvement with the arts started in his early childhood.

“My mom baked cakes for a coffee shop in Birmingham. It was also a gallery, and the owner,

Andre Drucker, was my first art teacher. When I was about 8, I won a BBC art competition with my self-portrait. It must’ve been my bright red hair,” he joked.

Even more than painting, he said, he wanted to sing, but for a child of a working immigrant family in post-war Birmingham, it wasn’t an easy or even a realistic dream, especially after his father fell sick and young Edel had to leave school at 14 to help his mother.

“I listened to the radio when they played classical music and opera,” he said. “We also had a very good cantor in our synagogue, and I wanted to sound like him. I sang in the choir.”

He frequently bought classical opera records at the local flea market but couldn’t listen to them at home – the family didn’t own a record player. When someone at the flea market suggested playing them on his player, the music was a revelation to the boy. “I wanted to sing like Caruso,” he remembered. “I wanted to study classical music and opera.”

Instead, he followed a much more practical route and apprenticed to a hairdresser. “My uncle was an opera singer before the war. It saved his life in the Nazi camp – he sang there. After the war, he immigrated to Canada and became a hairdresser. Nobody needed an opera singer.”

Edel followed in his uncle’s footsteps. He moved to Canada in 1969, when he was 20, and worked as a hairdresser, while spending all his money on music and singing lessons. He sang in concerts. At some points in his life, he was a cantor in Victoria and a soloist for the Tel Aviv opera.

But visual art was always an intrinsic part of his life, always casting light onto the shadows. When he opened his own hairdressing salon, he played classical music there and decorated the room with his paintings. His patrons loved the ambience, and the word of mouth spread about the hairdresser artist and his paintings.

It is no wonder that one of the recurring themes in Edel’s paintings is music. The picture “Spinner of Light” looks like a tapestry of colors and notes, where fantastic creatures sway to the unearthly melodies in an imaginary landscape. Flowers dance in several of his paintings, and Chassidic bands indulge in merry klezmer tunes. “O Sole Leone” is more grounded but just as whimsical, a song of Vancouver at night, while “Transparent Emet” reminds the viewer of the spiritual theatre of life. The musicians play in the pit, but the conductor exalts above, a part of a mystical pomegranate.

Symbolism plays a huge part in Edel’s artistic vision. Combined with his colorful esthetics, it leads him the way of impressionists, where emotions get embedded in pictures, entangled with floral and abstract motifs.

“I listen to classical records when I paint. Sometimes I listen to my wife Annie playing her violin. She is my muse. She inspires me.” Married for four decades, he is as much in love with his wife now as ever, he said, and their mutual devotion helped them five years ago, when darkness struck the family.

Someone they had trusted conned them out of their life savings. After working hard for more than 40 years, the family lost everything, about half a million dollars.

“People don’t like to hear others crying,” Edel said, “but frankly, it’s played havoc with our lives. We had intended to make aliyah to Israel for the ‘last and best’ retirement years – even though artists never retire – but we had to recoil into a one-bedroom rented apartment these past few years. And yet, in order to combat our tragedy and adversity, I came up with my ‘artidote.’… So many people need to be uplifted with light and laughter.”

“I don’t dwell on darkness. I try to stay positive, although it’s a challenge to be happy in the face of darkness,” 

Currently, the couple lives on a small government pension, and he paints in the living room – his studio. Like in all other areas of their life, however, his wife is his source of happiness and stability. “My wife says we go forward. And we do. I don’t dwell on darkness. I try to stay positive, although it’s a challenge to be happy in the face of darkness,” he admitted.

The current show emphasizes Edel’s drive towards the light. His paintings vibrate with joyful energy. “I wanted to reach out with my art, to show my paintings to Jews and non-Jews alike,” he said, explaining the placing of his deeply Jewish art in a Christian church.

The show runs until Aug. 31 and viewing is by appointment. On Aug. 27, at 7 p.m., there will be a guided tour by the artist and a complimentary concert. To register, call the Unitarian Church, 604-261-7204, or contact the artist, 604-875-9949.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Monsters at the Zack

Claudia Segovia’s creations are colorful, whimsical monsters. (photo from Claudia Segovia)

It took Claudia Segovia a long time to find her niche. “I always liked art,” she said in an interview with the Jewish Independent, “but I’ve been primarily a dancer, drawing on the sideline. When I got pregnant 17 years ago, I couldn’t dance, so I started drawing much more. I also always liked sewing, so I experimented with textile art, tried different techniques: finger puppets, smaller pictures, drawings, collages, sewn little monsters. Nothing seemed to fit, until I began painting. I have only been painting for a few years but I know that’s my direction, that’s what I want to do.”

Segovia’s solo show, Intuitive Mythology, opened at the Zack Gallery on Aug. 17. It is awash with colorful, whimsical monsters. Painted as large pictures or crafted as fabric dolls, the artist’s monsters are full of contradictions. They are childish and philosophical, ugly and charming, spout big ideas or cavort like spoiled brats.

photo - Claudia Segovia
Claudia Segovia (photo from the artist)

“I don’t decide what I paint,” Segovia said. “First, I let my intuition flow and play with colors and figures on canvas for the background. Then, when it’s done, I try to see what shapes are there, what creature emerges from within. Once the creature is realized, I work to fulfil its life. Only then, I try to understand its meaning. For me, it is the most important part. Sometimes I see my siblings there, sometimes a timepiece, sometimes a totem pole. It is as amazing to me as it is to the viewers. Each piece is a surprise. What does this creature mean? What words come up? What questions does it answer?”

For this show, Segovia doubled each of her painted monsters as a hand-made fabric doll. “After I finished the painting, I worked on a 3D textile sculpture. I try to match the fabrics to the texture and colors of the painting. I display my sewn creatures in front of the paintings, as if they are coming out of the canvases, into life.”

Each of her monsters has a story to tell, if only the viewers would listen. All of them are unique, sweet and tart fruits of Segovia’s imagination.

“I have a passion for little monsters, the ones that are funny and different. I don’t like realistic art,” she admitted. “Sometimes, I write words on my monsters. My intuition guides me.… I’m inspired by the Mexican folk art, especially Alebrije – painted wooden sculpture from Oaxaca. I visited the town once, when I was younger, and talked to the artists. I do similar things with my monsters. It’s not on purpose, it just happened.”

Segovia started selling her little sewn beasties long before she started painting them. “My son was about five,” she recalled. “I wasn’t painting yet but I was making the fabric creatures. I emailed all my friends and they emailed their friends and, eventually, a couple of gift shops expressed interest. Now, three stores in B.C. carry my monsters and my smaller pictures and collages. One is on Granville Island, one on Main and one in Victoria.”

She feels excited when someone buys her art – and it’s not about the money. “People buy it because they love my piece so much they want to take it home,” she explained. “It feels wonderful.”

Unfortunately, like many artists, Segovia can’t make a living with her art. “It helps,” she said, laughing, “but to pay the bills, I teach. I teach art and I teach dancing. I love teaching.”

“I don’t teach computers anymore. Now, I only teach what I love: dancing and art. And I concentrate on my painting.”

Before she immigrated to Canada from Mexico, Segovia taught computers. Her educational background includes training in computers, as well as in art and dancing. “I did it in Canada, too, for a few years,” she noted, “before the high-tech crash in 2001. Then, when no job in the computer industry was available, I started teaching dance and art, choreographed a few pieces. I don’t teach computers anymore. Now, I only teach what I love: dancing and art. And I concentrate on my painting.”

As with her own work, in her art lessons, Segovia lets intuition take the reins. “I’m interested in the creative process, not the technique,” she said. “When I come to a school to teach, my lessons depend on the supplies. Scraps of fabrics? We’ll make aprons. Snippets of paper and old magazines? We’ll make collages. I look at what they have and think, What can we make of it?… My favorite art student’s age is from 6 to 9. Such kids engage easily. I think that must be my real age inside, too, about 8 years old.”

Segovia is a respected teacher in Vancouver, teaching art and dancing at Arts Umbrella, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. For more information about her, visit claudiasegoviaart.blogspot.com. Intuitive Mythology runs until Aug 31.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.