art

Capturing nature in photos

Micah Groberman with his son, Evan. (photo by Micah Groberman)

The current photography exhibit at the Zack Gallery, Discoveries: A New Way Forward, allows visitors a peek into the wilderness of British Columbia. A bird serenades the sunset. A bear crosses a road. A coyote glares into the camera. Even a Whistler bridge seems to lead to an adventure in the forests and mountains of our province. The photographer, Micah Groberman, talked to the Independent about his art and how the pandemic set him on his new creative course.

“Before the pandemic, I had a business with a partner, Ivan Solomon. We did many different things, but mostly we designed wall murals for children’s stores, hospitals and private clinics,” said Groberman. “After the pandemic hit, we couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t stay inside the enclosed spaces for the long time it takes to create a large mural. Many places closed. School was canceled. I had to stay at home and take care of my sons.”

photo - Micah Groberman’s photo of a hummingbird feeding her babies was featured on CBC — Micah Groberman’s photo of a hummingbird feeding her babies was featured on CBC.

For Groberman, instructing his elementary school sons from a set curriculum was frustrating. “I’m not good at math,” he joked. So he found something else to do with his boys. He shared his passion for nature with them. They went for walks in local parks. And they took photographs.

“I started taking photos when I was about 9,” Groberman recalled. “It was with a simple camera, the point-and-shoot kind. I enjoyed it and did it for a long time, simply for myself and my family. During COVID, my photography took a more serious turn. I wanted to do it well. I wanted to learn. I watched videos on YouTube. You can find all sorts of useful tips online. I got myself some professional gear, a large camera. And I took photos. Many, many photos. I learned by doing.”

Groberman classifies his images into three categories: landscape, wildlife (which includes all his animal and bird shots) and fine art. The last category is the most inclusive. It overlaps with landscape and boasts some unusual shots, like a PNE ride from a rare angle or an old pickup surrounded by flowers that displays an uplifting message in its cargo bed.

photo - Micah Groberman took this photograph last year at the Richmond Sunflower Festival — Micah Groberman took this photograph last year at the Richmond Sunflower Festival.

“I took it last year at the Richmond Sunflower Festival,” Groberman explained. “The organizers put the old truck among the flowers, and I thought it looked interesting.”

Many of his images, especially of wildlife, are fascinating because he has sought them out. In addition to artistic skill and adequate hardware, nature photography requires a great deal of perseverance and patience. Groberman has both.

“The bear that crosses the road – I took this picture from my car,” he said. “We were in Whistler, driving around, looking for bears. It took us three hours, until one walked out of the woods.”

Another of his amazing wildlife shots is a coyote on a piece of driftwood. “I noticed him hiding in the bushes on the other side of a stream in Richmond. I followed him for about five minutes, with only glimpses, until he came out and stared at me. I took the shot, but I was glad there was water between us.”

While taking his own photos, Groberman tried to share his knowledge with his sons. “My younger son wasn’t that interested,” he said, “but my older son, Evan, took to photography. I taught him, and he inspired me. Many of my photos in this show I took when I was with him. I think teaching him made me a better photographer.”

Groberman hadn’t ever exhibited his photos prior to the pandemic. He had never even thought about doing so. “It was just a hobby,” he said. “But, in 2020, I participated in a group show at the Zack. A couple of my son Evan’s photos were also on display. That’s how I first met Hope [Forstenzer], the gallery director.”

photo - It took a few hours of searching before Micah Groberman came across this bear and took its picture — It took a few hours of searching before Micah Groberman came across this bear and took its picture.

According to Groberman, the current show was supposed to be a double feature, including a sculptor as well. “But the sculptor didn’t happen,” he said, “so it became my solo photography show. There are 37 images in the show: 30 are mine, seven are Evan’s. We have a show together.”

The name of the show – Discovery – came from the experiences shared between father and son. “Our walks together were bonding,” said Groberman. “We discovered things together. Evan discovered new skills. I discovered a new way to move forward and I discovered teaching. That’s where the name of the show came from.”

Groberman hopes that his wall mural business will recover once the pandemic ends, but he also sees several new avenues for his creativity.

“I want to do more with my photography,” he said. “I’m exploring different options, trying to establish myself locally. I went to stores to offer them prints of my photos and postcards. I rented a bunch of my prints to a movie set. I entered local contests. One of my photos – a mama hummingbird feeding her babies – was featured on CBC. Another – a photo of a heron – won the Richmond banner contest last year in the nature category. You will see my heron on the streetlights in Richmond. I have an Instagram account. I’m just starting with photography, but I want to see where I can end up.”

Discover opened on Oct 4 and runs until Nov. 7. Learn more about Groberman’s work at micahgphotography.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Nature-inspired artist

Two of artist Monica Gewurz’s paintings – “Silver Marsh” (above) and “Dawn II” – are featured in the exhibition of the Nature Trust of British Columbia’s Artist of the Year Award. “Silver Marsh” was inspired by a sunset at Addington Point Marsh, one of NTBC’s properties, which aims to conserve waterfowl and fish habitat, and “Dawn II” by a visit to Vaseux Lake in the Okanagan, an NTBC property that protects habitat for bighorn sheep and other threatened species.

Two of artist Monica Gewurz’s paintings have been selected by a jury to be included in the exhibition of the Nature Trust of British Columbia’s Artist of the Year Award. The joint show of the Federation of Canadian Artists and the Nature Trust opens on Oct. 18 at the Federation Gallery on Granville Island.

Before turning her focus to art in the past several years, Gewurz had worked in both the public and private sectors, in areas from commercial real estate to tourism to aboriginal issues. However, art was an integral part of her upbringing in Peru.

photo - Monica Gewurz — Monica Gewurz *(photo from Monica Gewurz)*

“For my parents, art was as important as science,” Gewurz told the Independent. “My mother was also an artist, and she exposed me to art at an early age – not just Judaica and Peruvian art but also art from different cultures. We traveled a lot. I always enjoyed visiting museums and art galleries. And I always had my camera with me, always took pictures. Landscapes and close-ups, textures and patterns always fascinated me.”

Upon graduating high school, however, she chose a different path.

“In the early 1970s, I was studying to become a veterinarian in Peru. At that time, South America went through some economic and political unrest,” she said. “Peru had a military government, and antisemitism was on the rise. My university was hit repeatedly with strikes and class closures. Getting an education was becoming difficult and dangerous. That was when I decided to move to Canada. With my parents’ financial support, I came alone to continue my studies at the University of Guelph. My parents immigrated later, in 1985.”

After university, Gewurz worked for the Canadian government, but she couldn’t abandon her art. “My photography, jewelry and painting all started as hobbies. I needed an outlet to balance my hectic and stressful full-time job…. In 2000, I started making tribal and sculptural jewelry. I was successful enough to showcase my pieces in national craft shows and then commercially in some galleries, here in Vancouver and in the U.S.”

She knew that most professional artists had formal art education, so she enrolled at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2011. “I could study there part-time while working,” she said. “It would also allow me the opportunity to meet other artists.”

She finished her studies at Emily Carr in 2016. Coincidentally, she couldn’t continue at her government job for much longer. “Due to a life-threatening autoimmune illness, in 2017, I had to retire,” she explained. “That gave me the opportunity to embark on a new career as a professional artist.”

Gewurz’s paintings are mostly abstracts, reflecting the landscapes of the West Coast. “The force and energy of water and its associated reflective light, the interplay of shadows and colours in a landscape, have always drawn me in as a scientist and an artist,” she said. “The endlessly changing skies and the patinas of precious minerals mesmerize me. I am fascinated with the contrasting nature of life. I paint it all to provide an escape to a dream-like place.”

Fractals in nature and stylized figures frequently populate her paintings. She doesn’t strive for photographic correctness. “Painting in abstract challenges me to represent reality in a veiled, mysterious and intriguing way,” she said. “Abstraction and the use of texture allow me the freedom to change what I see and feel into my own expression. The artistic process is, for me, one of constant discovery and conversation. The painting speaks to me, tells me what it needs, and I respond.”

Although initially she used brushes, she said, “Lately, I transitioned to using mainly a palette knife and other unconventional tools. As a result, my art became more abstracted and complex.”

She bases her paintings on her own photographs and on her memory; she never paints on location. “I paint from the heart and intuitively,” she said. “I don’t paint anything specific in a landscape and that’s what I love about it – the process of being able to use the paint any way I want. I leave out a lot of visual information. That allows the viewers to use their imagination, to see and describe every painting in their own way.”

Gewurz gifts much of her art to charities and friends. “It is exciting for me to witness the connection some of my ethereal-looking paintings elicit in viewers,” she said. “It humbles me, when people I’ve never met immerse themselves in the layers, shades and textures of my paintings and then share with me how they are seduced into a visual, tactile and emotional response. When such a connection is made, I feel that I accomplished my mission. Of course, the cherry on the cake is when somebody buys a painting and becomes a collector and, many times, a friend.”

She shared one such a case. In 2014, an interior designer from Singapore saw one of her mixed media paintings at an exhibit and contacted her for a commission. The painting was two by two feet, said Gewurz, “but she wanted a much larger one, measuring seven by four feet, for her client, a new five-star hotel in Hong Kong. That was a turning point in my career and a huge jump in scale for me. That painting still hangs in their lobby.”

Mixed media seems to be Gewurz’s preferred style. She incorporates in her pieces ancient and modern materials, such as textiles, sand, rust, aluminum foil, copper and silver. She paints in multiple layers to seduce viewers in visual and visceral encounters. But, whatever the materials, her theme remains predominantly nature.

image - “Dawn II” by Monica Gewurz — “Dawn II” by Monica Gewurz

Gewurz’s love of nature led to her involvement with the Nature Trust of British Columbia (NTBC). “I am a donor and volunteer,” she said.

She is also an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA).

“One of the main FCA missions is to outreach and raise awareness about conserving the environment and natural spaces,” she said. “Every year, FCA asks their membership to submit a proposal for a show that deals with social and environmental issues. I submitted the idea to have a joint show with NTBC, as they had a common vision, and also to take the opportunity to celebrate their respective anniversaries. Both director boards reviewed and accepted my proposal.”

Of course, she longed to participate in the show as well, since its underlying purpose – the conservation of British Columbia’s endangered habitats – is close to her heart.

“FCA holds several juried shows every year,” said Gewurz. “I regularly submit and often get juried in to showcase in them. This time, I applied as well. I was thrilled and honoured that two of my paintings were admitted. There was a lot of competition.”

Gewurz’s commitment to environmental issues extends beyond her participation in such shows and groups.

“I use upcycled materials in some of my mixed media art,” she explained. “There is beauty in repurposing materials because of their distinctive uniqueness and imperfect textures. Also, the fact of my using them conveys the message to the viewer about the importance of decreasing waste and minimizing our carbon footprint.”

She added, “Art can certainly open people’s eyes to how much our lifestyles imperil the planet. Art could encourage all of us to make positive changes.”

See more on Gewurz’s website, mgdesigns.org.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Highlighting social goodness

The Nov. 1 online event Finding Grounds for Goodness includes the première presentation of Finding Grounds for Goodness in the Downtown Eastside, which was created during last year’s Heart of the City Festival. (photo from Jumblies Theatre)

This year’s Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, which runs Oct. 27-Nov. 7, includes the screening of short videos from Jumblies Theatre and partners on the theme of “social goodness.”

Jumblies’ multi-year Grounds for Goodness project is an artful exploration of why and how people sometimes act in good ways towards each other. As it has adapted to community-engaged art-making during pandemic times, this project has generated a varied and whimsical collection of short videos with communities and artists from around Canada.

At the Nov. 1, 4 p.m., online event Finding Grounds for Goodness, hosted from Toronto by Jumblies staff, a sampling of these short films will be shared, including the première presentation of Finding Grounds for Goodness in the Downtown Eastside, which was created during last year’s Heart of the City Festival with DTES creative community members and Vancouver and Toronto artists.

Jewish community member Ruth Howard is the founder and artistic director of Jumblies Theatre, which makes art in everyday and extraordinary places with, for and about the people and stories found there. The Jumblies project was originally inspired by the history about the rescue of Albanian Jews during the Second World War by Albanian Muslim people.

Composer Martin van de Ven, an expert in klezmer and Jewish music, who has been involved in many Jumblies projects, told the Independent, in an interview last year about the DTES’s Grounds for Goodness, about besa, “an Albanian Islamic concept about hospitality and the need to help and protect guests and those in need within and beyond your community.

“In Albania,” he explained, “during the Second World War (and Italian and then Nazi occupation), this meant that almost all Jewish people living and finding refuge in Albania were sheltered and hidden, and Albania ended up with a larger Jewish population at the end of the war than at the beginning.” (See jewishindependent.ca/highlighting-goodness.)

The festival at large

The 18th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival is presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre in association with Carnegie Community Centre, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and a host of community partners. It will feature more than 100 events throughout the DTES and online.

This year’s festival theme, “Stories We Need to Hear,” resonates today as people grapple with the dramatic impact of the pandemic, ongoing displacement, the fentanyl crisis, and the reality of bigotry and systemic racism.

In the words of late DTES poet Sandy Cameron, “When we tell our stories we draw our own maps, and question the maps of the powerful. Each of us has something to tell, something to teach.”

The 12-day festival includes music, stories, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, art talks, history talks and visual art exhibitions. The Art in the Streets program features surprise pop-up music and spoken word activities on sidewalks and small plazas throughout the historic district.

A few highlights of this year’s festival are We Live Here, a large-scale outdoor project projecting hyper-speed videos of Downtown Eastside artists’ artwork, produced by Radix Theatre; Honouring Our Grandmothers’ Healing Journey Launch, three days of ceremony, teachings and storytelling honouring grandmothers who traveled to the DTES (with Further We Rise Collective and Wild Salmon Caravan); and Indigenous Journeys: Solos by Three Woman, which profiles local artists Priscillia Mays Tait (Gitxsan/Wet’suwet’en), Kat Zu’comulwat Norris (Lyackson First Nation) and Gunargie O’Sullivan aka ga’axstasalas (Kwakuilth Nation).

Elder and activist Grace Eiko Thomson reads from and talks about her book Chiru Sakura (Falling Cherry Blossoms), which chronicles her and her mother’s journey through racism, and Eiko Thomson’s advocacy for the rights of Canadians of Japanese ancestry. In My Art Is Activism: Part III, DTES resident Sid Chow Tan shares videos from his archival collection that highlight Chinese Canadian social movements and direct action in Chinatown, particularly redress for Chinese head tax and exclusion. And the ensemble Illicit Projects presents Incarcerated: Truth in Shadows, three shadow plays dedicated to people who have faced unjust treatment in Canada’s incarceration system.

Other events honour various DTES performing artists and shared cultures. The festival involves professional, community, emerging and student artists, and lovers of the arts.

For tickets and more information, visit heartofthecityfestival.com.

– Courtesy Heart of the City Festival

Creating life in face of death

A still from the feature film Charlotte, about artist Charlotte Salomon.

The creative drive that some people have astounds me. In about a year-and-a-half, as the Holocaust closed in on her – and her family’s history of depression became known to her – Charlotte Salomon painted hundreds of works, telling her life story in images and words, in what is considered by many, apparently, as the first graphic novel.

Somehow, despite the artist having inspired a live action film, a documentary feature, an opera, a novel, a ballet and several plays, I’d never heard of her, or of her masterpiece, Life? Or Theatre? That is, until I watched the animated feature film Charlotte, a Canada-France-Belgium collaboration that was just released. Featured at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, Charlotte has two screenings at the Vancouver International Film Festival: Oct. 3, 3 p.m., and Oct. 6, 9:15 p.m., at Vancouver Playhouse.

Based on the story and the cast, the Jewish Independent chose to be a media sponsor of the local screenings. And, on these points, the film scores high. Led by Oscar nominee Keira Knightley as the voice of Charlotte, the actors do a formidable job with dialogue that is, at times, stilted and animation that is pretty basic, with the exception of the scenes and transitional pieces that depict Salomon’s artwork. These parts of the film are sumptuous and give the most sense of Salomon as a person and artist.

The film begins near the end of Salomon’s life, as she is handing over her paintings to a man, who we find out later is a local doctor and friend, in what we later find out is the south of France. She asks him to guard the paintings for her, as they are her life, almost literally, given their content. The narrative then jumps to Berlin, to a young Charlotte trying to comfort a woman who is ill and sad. The woman turns out to be Charlotte’s mother, who dies, the young girl is told, of influenza.

Jumping ahead, still in Berlin, Charlotte’s father, Albert, has married Paula Lindberg, an opera singer, through whom, incidentally, a teenage Charlotte meets her first love, Alfred Wolfsohn, who is a singing teacher. He is also a veteran of the First World War.

Wolfsohn has a lot of personal issues, to say the least, and he ultimately betrays Charlotte, but he is also strongly supportive of her being an artist. While she gains entrance to Berlin’s art academy, despite being Jewish – it is 1933 and the Nazis are now in power – she is expelled pretty soon thereafter, though whether that’s because of her nonconformity to the artistic norms taught at the school, her Jewishness or both, is not clear.

What is certain is that, after Kristallnacht, the violence against Jews in Berlin has become unavoidable and Charlotte’s parents send her to the south of France to take refuge, and care for her maternal grandparents. Her grandmother is a troubled woman and her grandfather is, in a word, an asshole, but Charlotte finds beauty in her friendship with a wealthy American, Ottilie Moore, who owns a villa in Villefranche, and in her relationship with fellow refugee Alexander Nagler, whom she marries eventually.

image - In a scene from the film, Charlotte stares into the water, thinking about her aunt, who had drowned — In a scene from the film, Charlotte stares into the water, thinking about her aunt, who had drowned.

When Moore returns to the United States, she offers to try and take Charlotte and Alexander with her, but they stay in France – Charlotte because of her sense of duty to her grandparents. It is in caring for them that she witnesses the tragedy of her grandmother’s suicide and finds out from her grandfather that mental illness runs in the family, having claimed the lives of Charlotte’s mother, aunt and several other relatives.

Spurred on by the potential that she, too, will fall ill, as well as by the Nazis’ proximity, Charlotte turns her focus to creating the almost 800 paintings that comprise Life? or Theatre? She manages to give them (and other works, it seems) to Dr. Georges Moridis, who she had consulted about her own health and who had tried to help her grandparents, before she and Alexander are seized by the Nazis. Both Charlotte and Alexander are killed at Auschwitz; Charlotte five months pregnant.

The film, which isn’t shy about showing some of the brutality of the Holocaust, does step back from showing the deaths in Auschwitz, leaving viewers instead with an image of the idyllic setting in which they lived in France, as we hear the noises of their arrest, then silence.

Before the credits, the filmmakers tell us what happened to Charlotte, Alexander and Ottolie, and show us clips of a real-life archival interview with Charlotte’s father and stepmother, who survived the Holocaust, as well as a sampling of Charlotte’s paintings.

As depressing as Charlotte’s story is, it is not a depressing movie. That she anticipated her demise and created an artistic legacy in the face of death is somehow uplifting. As producer Julia Rosenberg states in the film’s production notes, “… hope isn’t rainbows and unicorns. It’s finding the courage to see beauty despite suffering.

“Charlotte Salomon’s ability to do just that is exceptional and inspiring.”

Indeed, it is.

Charlotte is a worthy introduction to a person we all should know.

For the full Vancouver International Film Festival schedule and tickets, visit viff.org. To potentially get free tickets to the Oct. 6 screening of Charlotte, email [email protected]. Tickets will be available as supplies last (there are 10 to giveaway).

Chosen Family now at Zack

JQT Vancouver executive director Carmel Tanaka at the Zack Gallery, where the Chosen Family exhibit is on display until Sept. 30. (photo from Carmel Tanaka)

In a Simon Fraser University survey of more than 4,000 elderly Canadians (55+), conducted from August to October 2020, to see how people were coping with the pandemic, about 10% of respondents identified themselves as part of the LGBTQ+ community. These respondents were more likely to follow COVID protocols and to have said they “feel they have been here before” – they were 10 times more likely to report experience with HIV/AIDS than heterosexual persons. Among the many other findings, LGBTQ+ respondents were less likely to ask relatives for help, but more likely to call upon close friends.

In the context of the pandemic, then, the focus of the new exhibit at the Zack Gallery has added significance. The show, called Chosen Family, is a multimedia partnership between the gallery and JQT Vancouver in honour of Vancouver Pride. It opened officially on Aug. 26, with the artists in attendance.

JQT (Jewish, Queer and Trans) is an arts, culture and education nonprofit organization. It is dedicated to creating connections and seeking space to celebrate the intersectional identities of Jews of diverse sexual orientations and genders. The organization’s executive director, Carmel Tanaka, said JQT’s members are accomplishing their goals “by queering Jewish space and ‘Jewifying’ queer space in Vancouver.”

“We started JQT in Vancouver four years ago, as a grassroots movement, everyone was a volunteer,” Tanaka told the Independent. “We incorporated as a nonprofit in 2020. This show feels like a milestone. It is probably the first exhibition here, at the Zack Gallery, that features exclusively queer Jewish artists.”

The theme of the show, Chosen Family, reflects that some LGBTQ+ individuals face rejection by their immediate family and must look elsewhere for understanding and acceptance. “I’m lucky,” said Tanaka. “I didn’t have to look for another family; my family was supportive. Unfortunately, that’s not true for everyone.”

image - One of the images in a series of six by Ari Fremder — One of the images in a series of six by Ari Fremder.

Only a few artists are featured in the exhibit. “We invited more artists from the JQT community, plus their families, to submit art for the show, but not everyone was easy with the invitation,” Tanaka said. “Some didn’t feel ‘artistic’ enough. Others didn’t feel Jewish enough. Still others – the older people mostly – didn’t feel entirely safe to identify themselves as queer to the wider community. It is an ongoing vulnerability issue with many of us.”

Another reason might lie in the location of the gallery. “The Zack Gallery is inside the Jewish Community Centre, so the art must be family friendly. That might be a limiting factor for some artists,” Tanaka mused. “We might look at another venue next time.”

The show includes art in a variety of media: paintings, prints, textiles, cinematography, sculpture. A series of six pictures by Ari Fremder all have the same size and structure – a human face surrounded by flowers – but they centre on different faces, representing different friends or family members, and have varied arrangements of flowers. Nonetheless, they all have one thing in common – they are all beautiful and upbeat.

Two of Fremder’s paintings are self-portraits. One looks like a face in repose; the other an angel with black wings. The angel soars in the dark sky and, unlike the six-photo series, this image is moody and contemplative.

image - A collage by artist Holly Steele — A collage by artist Holly Steele.

On another wall, there are several paintings by Holly Steele. In one, a multimedia print, hands clasp together in various combinations: hands of friends and hands of family, interspaced with positive, trust-affirming words. The image, done in a muted greenish-yellow palette, screams of the yearning for acceptance.

In the centre of the gallery resides a sculptural composition by Morgan Strug. A dinner table with chairs around it shows us what a family meal means to the artist. There is understanding and affection there, benign teasing and fierce joy in the others’ fulfilments. Is it wishful thinking? Is it the artist’s reality? Everyone can decide for themselves.

Strug is the director of the short movie Enby, which screened at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival earlier this month, and the film is part of the Zack exhibit. The gallery planned three screening dates, the first being for the exhibit opening Aug. 26, as well as Sept. 9 and Sept. 30. Those who want to see it should contact the gallery first.

“This is a very eclectic show,” Tanaka said. “It is the first art show for several of the participating artists. Some of them celebrate both their identities: as a queer and as a Jew. We would love this show to become an annual tradition.”

Chosen Family continues until Sept. 30. To learn more, visit jqtvancouver.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Caring for cemetery

In the Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View, a shroud was erected to protect the Kravitz family headstones. (photo from Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board)

Responsible for three Jewish cemeteries in the Lower Mainland, the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board recently completed several projects.

Unable to restore two of the most interesting headstones at the Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View, a large metal shroud was erected for protection over the Kravitz family headstones. Designed by Bill Pechet and donated by the City of Vancouver and Saul Goldberg, a cousin of the family, this has added a unique decorative feature in the cemetery, as well as essential protection from the elements.

photo - A translation of the Kravitz family headstones has been added — A translation of the Kravitz family headstones has been added. *(photo from STCB)*

The Kravitz/Goldberg family has been traced back to the 1800s and has four members buried in this pioneer cemetery. Leah Deslauriers, Saul Goldberg’s daughter, provided a family history that completed missing pieces of information about the family. Translation of the poetry on the headstones was completed by Daniella Givon and mounted in weatherproof panels inside the shroud.

With the protection in place for these headstones, this site already has become a highlight for visitors on their walking tours.

Inside the new Schara Tzedeck Funeral Chapel in Surrey is a beautiful Memorial Giving Tree. Designed and created by Eclipse Awards, this tree made of maple, cherry and walnut woods is prominently displayed at the entrance to the new chapel. It will contain engravings that members of the community may purchase to memorialize their loved ones buried in Surrey. The tree can contain up to 100 elements to be inscribed, ranging from small leaves to birds.

photo - Memorial Giving Tree at Schara Tzedeck Funeral Chapel in Surrey — Memorial Giving Tree at Schara Tzedeck Funeral Chapel in Surrey. *(photo from STCB)*

Years ago, the elders of the community were asked to place headstones on unmarked graves. Today, the Chesed Shel Emet Fund, fulfils that mandate. This past year, more than 50 headstones were placed on gravesites where there were no headstones. In some cases, there were no families to do so and, in many cases, there was a financial inability to have a marker.

The Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board, under the executive director Howard Jampolsky, board chairs Jack Kowarsky and Arnold Silber, and funeral director Joseph Marciano, works to ensure that all members of the community not only have a dignified burial, no matter what their financial situation is, but also works to initiate projects that serve the community and help maintain the beauty of its cemeteries.

This past year, other projects have included a new irrigation system, the establishment of a water/well in New Westminster and the ability to manufacture burial caskets on-site. The cemetery board and the Chevra Kadisha also produced an informative video on tahara (the process of preparing people for burial), which may be seen on the website cemeteryboard.com.

For more information on these and other projects, contact Jampolsky at 604-733-2277, ext. 204.

– Courtesy Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board

About the Rosh Hashanah cover art

Deborah Shapiro is a self-taught, award-winning artist from Akron, Ohio, who creates collages from bits of magazine paper – no paint is used. Her subjects include nature scenes, animals and still life images. Many of her pieces have words and added meaning, as with the apple collage that graces the cover of this special issue of the Jewish Independent. You will find parts of apple pie recipes within the cut part of the apple. Apples, of course, are one of the symbols of Rosh Hashanah, representing, as we dip them in honey, our wishes for a sweet new year.

Shapiro began her art career later in life, after the age of 50, following a jaw surgery. Her mother gave her magazines as she recovered and Shapiro used them as paint to create paper paintings. Prior to that, she was a videographer for more than 35 years. To see more of her creations, visit deborahshapiroart.com or facebook.com/deborahshapiroart.

Communicating with visuals

“Hanging Out” by Derry Lubell.

Derry Lubell’s photography captures the motion of dance, the ephemeral magic of the art form that generally only exists at the moment of performance. Unless, of course, it is recorded by a talented photographer.

Lubell’s solo exhibition The Body Speaks: Dance • Movement • Emotion opened on July 2 at the Zack Gallery. The official opening on July 8 was in person, as the long months of COVID restrictions started to ease. The gallery’s latest email to its patrons joyously states: “Appointments are no longer needed to see the show in person. Come on in!”

photo - “The Dichotomy” by Derry Lubell — “The Dichotomy” by Derry Lubell.

When you do go in, you’re surrounded by dance and dancers, their beautiful faces, and their astounding bodies. The gallery is a quiet place, but you can almost hear the music floating in the air, while the graceful ballerinas leap and pirouette around you. Most images are black and white or rendered in muted colours. “I think you can see the lines better in black and white,” said Lubell in an interview with the Independent. “The colour is often distracting, and I don’t want that. I don’t like fussy. I want clean shots.”

Lubell has been an artistic photographer for about five years. “Before that, I had a career as a psychotherapist. I had a family to raise,” she mused. “I always had a small camera with me, since I was young, to photograph my family or places I visited, but it was casual, like memory shots. After I retired, I started thinking: what else do I want to do? I always enjoyed talking to people, understanding their emotions. I wanted to do something similar but without the responsibility. Photography allows that. Using photography, I can still communicate with people, discern their emotions, reach their hearts, but on a visual level, without words.”

photo - Derry Lubell — Derry Lubell *(photo from Derry Lubell)*

The former psychotherapist reinvented herself as a photographer, and it led her on a long road of self-exploration, especially because the technology had progressed so much. “I had to learn computers,” she said. “I work harder now than before I retired. Shooting. Editing my pictures. Studying. Taking classes. Looking at other photographers’ images to see what works and what doesn’t. I put up my pictures on my website and Instagram, so others can see me, too.”

The dancing series is her latest, and it came about almost by accident. “I always enjoyed working with people who are comfortable with their bodies,” she said. “Even as a psychotherapist, I paid attention not only to words but to body language. Many people speak with their bodies. Dancers are the best at that.”

Her admiration of dancers prompted her a few years ago to enrol in dance lessons. “It was incredible,” she remembered. “The instructor was wonderful. I asked her: could I take your photograph? She agreed. After that, I photographed her and some of her students, and some other dancers.”

Lubell prefers taking pictures in people’s natural milieu. Some of the photos in the exhibit she took during rehearsals in the dancers’ studio spaces around the city. For others, she arranged meetings with the dancers outside, in urban surroundings, parks or the beach.

“Each session is an hour or two hours long. Each one is a collaboration between a photographer and a dancer,” she explained. “Together, we choose a location. I would ask her to bring half of her dancing wardrobe, and we try different costumes to see what works for the camera. I often select the background, and then the dancer would start dancing, and I would walk around and take shots. I might suggest a position or a prop, like ‘play against that log’ or ‘turn this way,’ but they are the performers. They like to perform. It is up to me to capture the perfect moment.”

One of those moments resulted in a unique picture. Only the legs of the dancer are showing. One wears a point shoe, posing like a coquette on a staircase. The other is still wearing a stiletto. The photo, titled “The Dichotomy,” emphasizes the dual nature of the subject: a woman and a dancer.

“It was sold before the show started,” Lubell said. “I brought pictures to the gallery to hang on the walls. Everything was still on the floor, in boxes. I left the gallery for a few minutes. When I came back, Hope [Forstenzer, the gallery director] said: ‘You know, this one just sold.’ Before it was even displayed.”

photo - “Form in Flight” by Derry Lubell — “Form in Flight” by Derry Lubell.

Another interesting image, “Form in Flight,” is of a young dancer in street clothing jumping in front of a brick wall. Lubell took the photo in Chinatown. “It is one of the oldest walls in the city,” she said. “I walked around Chinatown with that dancer. She is a student, but she loves dancing. When I saw that wall bordering a parking lot, I asked her to dance against it.” The dancer’s flight in the image is airy and joyful.

Several pictures display more than one dancer. One of those photos, called “Hanging Out,” is imbued with humour: one dancer is hanging from a wall with her hands, while the other is hanging upside down by her feet. “They are best friends,” Lubell said. “They met years ago as gymnasts. One does stunts for the movies now – she is the one who is upside down. I asked them to dance against the wall, and they started playing together, having fun. That mutual pose was a surprise to me.”

Lubell considers her dancers as partners in her art. “They have the right of veto. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes they would say: ‘Don’t use this picture, my leg is in the wrong position.’ And I won’t. I honour their requests. After all, they honour me by allowing me to shoot their photos.”

The Body Speaks is on display until Aug. 16. For more information, visit the photographer’s website, derrylubell.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Honouring women’s courage

Anne Petrie (photo from Maurice Yacowar)

The University of Calgary has organized a virtual exhibition to honour the efforts of Jewish women in the Canadian Armed Forces during the Second World War. Called She Also Served, it comprises a series of nine banners by various artists.

Originally scheduled to be displayed at the Military Museums in Calgary during Jewish Heritage Month in May, it has been made available online throughout 2021 and will be physically hung in May 2022. Of the 17,000 Jews who served in the Canadian armed services, more than 275 were women.

Among those selected to display their work is Anne Petrie of Victoria. For her banner, a digital print called “In the Tradition of Service,” Petrie chose to list all the known names of the Jewish Canadian servicewomen. She used a font that is reminiscent of the typewriters of the 1940s. Another layer of the banner has the names of 12 biblical heroines, confirming the tradition of Jewish women’s courage and dedication to serving their communities.

“I was immediately struck by knowing that, although they would not have had to hide their Jewish identity, it was still in those days not something that you would be comfortable being completely open about,” Petrie told the Independent. “Even if it was, at best, very casual antisemitism, it was a reality when they would have signed up. So, there you are fighting (even if it’s only at a desk) for something – a religion, a people, a culture – that you can’t really be openly passionate about.”

image - Anne Petrie’s “In the Tradition of Service,” 2021. Part of the She Also Served exhibit, now online — Anne Petrie’s “In the Tradition of Service,” 2021. Part of the She Also Served exhibit, now online.

For Petrie, She Also Served is an opportunity to reveal and contextualize the “Jewishness” of that other “them, the unsung and – worse – unidentified Jewish-Canadian women soldiers.” She said she is honouring them by naming them in “their doubly suppressed identities, as women and Jews.”

Petrie’s intention was to present the full names and rank (where available) of all the Jewish women known to have served. The collection of names fills the background layer of the 75-by-165-centimetre banner. Each name is in the colour of their respective services: olive green for army, dark navy for the navy and a lighter “air force blue” for the Women’s Army Corps. Emerging from the background in a larger, translucent Hebrew script, and in a camouflage pattern, are the names of Judaism’s biblical heroines, “themselves often subordinated by patriarchal tradition to the male heroes,” said Petrie.

“In making the banner itself, I was struck by how powerful it was to actually write out all the 279 names of the Jewish servicewomen that have so far been identified. I knew none of them personally, of course, but I felt that typing each name was a kind of acknowledgement and, strange as it sounds, I did feel a kind spirit or presence as I typed each of the names. I only wish we did know more about them, but I understand that research is continuing and, hopefully, there will eventually be stories attached to each of these women’s names,” she said.

Petrie thanked Janice Shulman and Rabbi Lynn Greenhough for their assistance with the project.

Prior to beginning her work as an artist, Petrie’s career spanned more than 30 years in radio and television, where she worked as a researcher, producer, documentary-maker, columnist and commentator in news and current affairs. She is also the author of several non-fiction books: Ethnic Vancouver, Vancouver Secrets and Gone to an Aunt’s: Remembering Canada’s Homes for Unwed Mothers.

After retiring from the CBC, she returned to school and obtained a bachelor of fine arts from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2008. Since then, she has had a number of exhibitions. Her next exhibit, said/unsaid, is a two-person show with Jane Coomb – it opens at the errant artSpace gallery in Victoria (975 Alston St.) on July 9.

The other artists whose work is featured in She Also Served are Razieh Alba, Sophia Borowska, Alysa-Beth Engel, Lily Rosenberg, Talie Shalmon, Jules Schacter, Bev Tosh and Susan Turner. The representations exploring the servicewomen’s experiences range from naturalistic to abstract. Some works use archival photographs, while others use media include oil painting and paper-cutting.

The stories of 41 Jewish servicewomen are also featured on the website. These accounts were an impetus for the call for submissions for the exhibition, which was curated by the University of Calgary’s Prof. Jennifer Eiserman and librarian emerita Saundra Lipton. They ask for help in “completing the story” from anyone who has more information about the featured servicewomen and any of those identified in the list of names collected.

To view the exhibition, visit live-ucalgary.ucalgary.ca/she-also-serves/exhibition.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Crackin’ Out online exhibit

A still from the documentary Crackin’ Out: The Ronnie Tessler Rodeo Collection, showing photographer Ronnie Tessler. The documentary was directed by Sarah Genge and produced by the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia.

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia is currently hosting Crackin’ Out, an online exhibit of photographs of rural Western Canadian rodeo from 1976 to 1980 by Ronnie Tessler, along with a short documentary by director Sarah Genge. In rodeo, the term “crackin’ out” means “the beginning of the new season, breaking out of the chute, or even breaking out new chaps.”

“These explosive words epitomize for me the spirit of rodeo and the cowboy way of life,” Tessler explained.

The idea to shoot the images began as a “fun photo expedition” to Williams Lake Rodeo in 1976 by four friends who were members of a photography group, the Vancouver Image Exhibition Workshop, which is known for bringing in acclaimed guest artists.

The group worked together for a year and, with the permission of the Canadian Cowboys Association, produced an exhibit at the Finals Rodeo in Edmonton in 1977. Tessler worked independently for the next two years, documenting life at rodeos throughout the west, from British Columbia to Manitoba and into the northwest corner of the United States. Aspiring for objectivity, she realized it was not attainable.

“I wanted to know more about the cowboys, what went on behind the chutes and on the road and what motivated them to take on the challenges they did unsupported by a team or steady income,” Tessler said.

The exhibit takes the viewer not only to the action, the cowboys riding – and falling – but also to the personal and the life surrounding the event: the preparations, the traditions, the camaraderie and the love. The photos evoke an emblematic sense of a particular era in Western Canadian life.

Grouped into three chapters – “Before the Rodeo,” “The Rodeo” and “After the Rodeo” – each photograph is accompanied by stories, observations and explanations from Tessler that encapsulate the feeling that existed the moment each image was taken.

photo - A novice rider at the John Quintana Bull-riding School in Oregon, 1978. Photo taken by Ronnie Tessler. Part of the Crackin’ Out online exhibit — A novice rider at the John Quintana Bull-riding School in Oregon, 1978. Photo taken by Ronnie Tessler. Part of the Crackin’ Out online exhibit.

These images are what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is referred to in the exhibit, called “the decisive moment.” Or, as scholar John Suler, also quoted in the exhibit, described as “the moment when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real-life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation.”

Rodeo was the first large, thematic body of work that Tessler did. Every project she undertook, she said, began when she “noticed themes coming out on my contact sheets and felt there was something I wanted to pursue. Each took about three years.”

Tessler’s Crackin’ Out was followed by her next major work, Israeli Suite, which was photographed over several visits to Israel. There was no similarity between these bodies of work and her last large project was different still – Jewish life in the West Kootenays.

As for the Jewish connections to the rodeo exhibit, Tessler observed, “I didn’t meet another Jew the entire time and did not encounter or make use of any specific Jewish values while doing the work. Many cowboys knew I was Jewish, and one asked what I was doing photographing a bull-riding school instead of watching Shoah on TV every night. I did enjoy the uniqueness of being an urban, Jewish woman with a family ‘goin’ down the road,’ putting myself on the line to record another way of life.”

Genge’s documentary Crackin’ Out: The Ronnie Tessler Rodeo Collection is part of the exhibit. It expands on the legacy of Tessler’s photography by exploring a multitude of perspectives on rodeo from such people as a stock contractor, a curator, a child of rodeo, a cowboy, an artist and a professor, as well as the archives intern who processed the collection.

“One photograph does not illustrate one idea. By speaking with eight different people, my aim was to bring their collection of voices together to elucidate an ever-shifting narrative of an image,” Genge said. “This film offers a brief glance at some of the distinct and disparate angles that create a multifaceted and, at times, conflicted understanding of Western Canadian rodeo.

“I endeavoured with this film to present aspects of rodeo frequently left untold, specifically its importance to Indigenous people, women and LGBTQ+ communities. It should be noted that, much like Tessler’s inherent presence in capturing these photographs, my subjectivity in curating them is unavoidable,” she added. “I am an unreliable witness who, six months ago, had never set foot at a rodeo, so my bias as an outsider is present throughout.”

The exhibit, which can be found at jewishmuseum.ca/exhibit/crackin-out, also features an hour-long video of its April 21 launch, which includes discussions with Tessler and Genge.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.