{"id":37020,"date":"2021-06-11T01:52:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T08:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37020"},"modified":"2021-06-10T17:41:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T00:41:10","slug":"artwork-flies-returns-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/06\/11\/artwork-flies-returns-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Artwork flies, returns home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suzy Birstein in her studio, with works featured in her solo exhibit Tsipora, now at the Zack Gallery.\u00a0<\/strong>(photo from Suzy Birstein)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Suzy Birstein\u2019s Hebrew name \u2013 Tsipora<\/em> \u2013 means bird. The artist\u2019s new show, Tsipora: A Place to Land, which opened at the Zack Gallery on May 20, expatiates on her name\u2019s meaning and its connection to the winged creatures of the sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love feeling like an exotic bird,\u201d Birstein told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI like bringing colour and joy to the people who visit my shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birstein\u2019s art is bursting with bright hues and glitter. Both her sculptures and her paintings seem to aspire to one purpose only: to instil gladness in people\u2019s hearts, which feels especially important during COVID and all its associated hardships and anxieties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show\u2019s idea was born out of a personal tragedy,\u201d said Birstein. \u201cA few years ago, one of my close friends passed away. I grieved but I knew I didn\u2019t really lose her. She stayed right there, always with me, like a bird on my shoulder, and I thought: what a wonderful concept. I decided to create a series of sculptures of women, with birds incorporated into the whole in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost every sculpture in the show has a bird. Sometimes, it is a tiny golden bird peeking from behind a woman\u2019s shoulder or hiding in her skirt. Sometimes, it is an elaborate hair ornament. And, sometimes, it is implied rather than shown. But the idea of a bird is always there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started this series in 2017, my thoughts were all about freedom and travels \u2013 flying like a bird,\u201d Birstein said. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked to travel and visited many countries: Europe, Asia, Mexico. I like seeing something new every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accordingly, the first few sculptures of her new series were reminiscent of her travels, their dark texture a reference to the ancient sacred sites she had visited. Their diaphanous tutus a playful metaphor of dance and flight, a symbol of the weightless grace of a ballerina.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2020, I was planning to travel to the south of France, with a show scheduled in Cannes, when the pandemic hit, and all travel stopped,\u201d Birstein said. After that, the focus of her art changed, becoming more home-oriented.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of flight, my sculptures became about nesting,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t teach anymore because of the pandemic, didn\u2019t teach for a year due to the school closures, so I took the opportunity and the time to indulge in self-exploration. I asked myself: what is beautiful? And my answer was: birth. And rebirth. Each sculpture I made during that time was of a pregnant woman. Not flights anymore but home and harmony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many sculptures also have mirror fragments embedded in them, making them festive, shining. \u201cThe mirror shards help me bridge the inner world of a woman, her home and soul, with the outer world of traveling and flying,\u201d Birstein said.<\/p>\n

The show includes not only sculptures but several paintings as well. \u201cThe sculptures always come first,\u201d she explained. \u201cThey are inspirations for my paintings. After a sculpture is ready, I sometimes paint it: like another version of the sculpture, an exploration of a unique perspective. It is a different experience \u2013 working on a flat surface with no fear of breaking the fragile pottery. I don\u2019t use a brush. I paint with a tiny palette and my fingers. It feels almost like working with liquid clay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clay was the medium that catapulted her into the art world, and she feels a deep affinity for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a child,\u201d she recalled, \u201cI couldn\u2019t draw realistically. I thought I couldn\u2019t be an artist. I danced and I modeled for artists. I was about 22 when I started working as an artist model full-time for an art school in Toronto. The administration of the school offered me any art classes I wanted for free, and I decided to try pottery. Clay spoke to me. I also took up weaving and fibre art and liked it. Later, when we moved to Vancouver because of my husband\u2019s work, I wanted to take more art classes. There was no fibre art school at the time, but I enrolled in Emily Carr as a sculptor. They accepted me on the basis of my portfolio \u2013 the pieces I created in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birstein uses white clay for her pieces and paints them before she fires them. \u201cSometimes, this process has several iterations,\u201d she mused. \u201cI paint the sculpture. Then I fire it, but firing is unpredictable. Colours might burn out or melt into each other in unexpected ways. Then I paint the piece again, maybe add some elements. Fire again. Some pieces take five or six times in the kiln before I know they are ready, but I don\u2019t do perfect. I make mistakes sometimes and then play with my mistakes. I love quirkiness and imperfections.\u201d<\/p>\n

It helps that she owns her own kiln. \u201cMy kiln is in my basement,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a wedding present from my parents. They knew pottery made me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is significant that the most important tool of her art was a gift to celebrate her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel free like a bird in my art, but only because I have such strong support from my husband,\u201d said Birstein. \u201cI have stability in my life, a safe place to return, a secure home, and that allows me my freedom of artistic flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the only image in the show with a man in it is her husband\u2019s portrait.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking at all those sculptures and paintings of pregnant women in this series and thought: who made them pregnant? There must have been a man,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depicts my husband and my art,\u201d said Birstein of the portrait painting, which features a man standing beside a sculpture of a pregnant woman.<\/p>\n

The show Tsipora runs until June 27. In addition to being able to book a walk-through of the exhibit with the gallery, people can arrange a personalized tour with the artist via her website, suzybirstein.com<\/a>, or by calling her at 778-877-7943.<\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suzy Birstein in her studio, with works featured in her solo exhibit Tsipora, now at the Zack Gallery.\u00a0(photo from Suzy Birstein) Suzy Birstein\u2019s Hebrew name \u2013 Tsipora \u2013 means bird. The artist\u2019s new show, Tsipora: A Place to Land, which opened at the Zack Gallery on May 20, expatiates on her name\u2019s meaning and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[8204,6691,8801,9017,1633],"class_list":["post-37020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-birds","tag-painting","tag-paintings","tag-sculpture","tag-suzy-birstein"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}