Sarah Dobbs

Both personal & cosmic

Eric Goldstein and Jenny Judge are different in their backgrounds and creative philosophies, in their media and techniques, but they have two characteristics in common: their images are abstract, and strings drive their artistic perceptions. (photo by Jenny Judge)

A string is a simple, utilitarian object. Usually, it connects things, but rarely is it associated with beauty. However, String Theory, the current two-artist exhibition at the Zack Gallery, definitely brings beauty to gallery patrons.

The artists participating in the show – Jenny Judge and Eric Goldstein – are different in their backgrounds and creative philosophies, in their media and techniques, but they have two characteristics in common: their images are abstract, and strings drive their artistic perceptions.

Judge has been an installation artist for decades.

“I received a BFA in sculpture and printmaking in 1983 and completed an MFA in sculpture in 1991,” she told the Independent. “I often integrate a variety of craft-based material and processes in my installations, and I have exhibited them in Canada and abroad, but I have never exhibited my drawings before this show. I’ve been drawing for a long time, but my drawings were never the focus of my art. They were for clearing my head, as was my writing, which is also essential to my practice. Both helped me understand my own concepts better. I guess it is time for my drawings to be in the foreground of a show.”

photo - Jenny Judge — Jenny Judge (photo by Mads Colvin)

Like her installations, Judge’s drawings have depth, displaying multiple layers of texture and meaning.

“The heart of these drawings is transition, the two different sides coming together, connected by lines or strings,” she explained. “Light versus dark. Old age versus youth. Northern hemisphere versus southern. Sky versus water. My family lives in Canada and New Zealand, and I’m often traveling from there to here and back. My drawings help me to make sense of these transitions.”

All her pieces in the show are a wash of muted paint in the background overlaid by a network of strings and nodes in faintly contrasting colours. The web of strings and their junctions is complex and delicate, the lines gossamer-thin, reflecting the artist’s contemplation of belonging to the emotional and physical landscape of both Canada and New Zealand.

“My drawing are like landscapes,” she said. “There is even a horizon line in most of them, the line where two different worlds meet, the areas of constant shifting and negotiations. But there is much more to the story I want to tell. That’s why I paint in the abstract style. A simple landscape is just that – a landscape, a forest or a mountain. But an abstract picture always leaves room for interpretation. Everyone can come up with their own story.”

Like her images, Judge’s titles are also open to interpretation: “Crossing,” “Striations,” “Pass Through,” for example.

“They underscore my feelings of not always knowing where I am in time and space, of always seeking connections,” she said.

Inspired by the concepts of meeting points, of confluence and repetition, Judge also sees parallels between her compositions and knitting.

“I learned to knit from my mother when I was 10. I remember sitting with her as we talked, knitted and counted stitches. I still enjoy knitting. When you knit, you have one string of yarn and you repeat the same pattern over and over again. And, suddenly, you have something else: a scarf or a sweater. That’s what I do when I draw. I repeat endless variations of the same pattern until something meaningful emerges,” she said.

Another link between her drawings and her knitting is the tool she employs. She draws with a bamboo skewer (very like a knitting needle), dipped in acrylic ink. “It is a very domestic item,” she said. “But it has a sharp point, sharper than any brush. It allows me to draw very thin lines. I build those webs of lines over one another, rows and layers, until I’m satisfied with the result. Sometimes, it takes several layers until the whole starts making sense. Of course, it takes a long time to draw all the lines I visualize for even one painting.”

Perhaps the length of time it takes her to create her pieces contributes to the fact that she doesn’t take commissions. “I tried,” she said. “But I didn’t like the clients’ constant demands. I don’t create art for the money.”

Goldstein, however, does take commissions and he relishes seeing his pieces in people’s homes.

“I create mixed media collages,” he said. “I use coloured fibres, gold foil, glass, paint, plaster.”

While Judge’s web-like pictures imply multiple dimensions, Goldstein’s fibre string collages tend to one-directional geometries, either horizontal or vertical, their colour patterns cheerful and dazzlingly bright. The gold foil and the glass fragments provide even more pizzazz to his deceptively simple compositions. “I build my canvasses like an architect builds a building,” he said.

Goldstein came to the visual art from the movie industry. Over the past three decades, he has been the director of photography for more than 75 film projects, from Hollywood features to documentaries. Creating gorgeous, highly decorative fibre collages for the last 15 years has provided him with a different outlet for his artistic vision.

“I’m inspired by nature, by the West Coast landscape,” he said. “Not as it appears on the surface. Instead, I want to capture how it feels to experience it – often chaotic, often incomprehensible. I try to convey feelings. As a mixed-media artist, I delve into the intricate, visual storytelling of people and the world around us.”

The pieces Goldstein presents in this show have rather mundane titles, in contrast to the elaborate poetry of the images themselves. “I call my paintings ‘Poetic narratives with kinetic energy,’” he said.

One of the paintings, “View of the Bay,” is a symphony of blue, where glass tiles twinkle among the strings like windows on the far shore. “No Curtains Needed,” on the other hand, is a subtler image, hinting at an open window and a playful light. The artist offers a short description for every canvas, and this one reads: “The absence of curtains allows for unfiltered light to dance freely upon the walls. It creates a sense of freedom and awe. Reminding us to let go of our barriers, both physical and cerebral, so we can.”

One of his most notable pieces in the exhibit – the white and blue “What Remains” – feels like a scream of the artist’s soul.

“The colours are the deconstructed Israeli flag,” he said. And his description of the image reads like a part of a poem: “This is my way of bearing witness to the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza. It expresses my profound sense of conflict and loss of a meaningful identity. This piece isn’t about right or wrong or even resolution; it’s about holding space for complexity, for grief and empathy, and hope that something sacred remains.”

Goldstein exhibits a lot, and his works are in demand. “Next month, I’ll have a show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre,” he said. “I’ll have 12 paintings there.”

Judge and Goldstein didn’t know each other before Sarah Dobbs, the gallery curator, decided that their works were complementary. “Together,” she said, “Judge and Goldstein show that both our lives and the universe are shaped by invisible threads – of memory, matter and meaning. String Theory is … about the poetic links between the personal and the cosmic, reminding us that everything is connected.” Both artists agree.

String Theory is at the Zack Gallery until Sept. 22. To learn more, check the artists’ websites: ericgoldsteinart.com and jennyjudge.com.

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

Two visions that complement

Kim Rosin, left, and Alejandra Morales’s shared exhibit, Parallel Visions, is at the Zack Gallery until July 21. (photo from the artists)

The double exhibit Parallel Visions opened at the Zack Gallery on June 25. It introduces two artists – Kim Rosin and Alejandra Morales – who have different backgrounds, are different ages and had never met before. But their art is amazingly compatible.

“When Alejandra submitted the photos of her pieces, they were mostly of fruit, along with a fruit stand. I thought that it would be interesting to pair her with Kim’s allotments,” said gallery curator Sarah Dobbs about why she combined both artists in one show. “However, when I saw Alejandra’s work at her studio, there was so much more, so I had to rethink.

“Upon reflection, I realized that both Kim and Alejandra turn to the natural world as more than just subjects of beauty. For Kim, painting from a community garden in West Vancouver becomes a way to reflect on growth, nourishment and the fragility of food systems in times of scarcity. Alejandra, working from northern Mexico, uses natural imagery as well, but in a dreamier way – exploring how Latin America is romanticized by outsiders. Though grounded in different geographies and experiences, both artists explore how abundance can hold layers of tension between beauty and critique, comfort and resistance. Hence the title, Parallel Visions.”

Rosin’s paintings are of her plot in a community garden. “I have always been interested in growing food,” she said. “From nothing, just a little seed, wonderful, nourishing plants grow. It feels almost magical. It makes me happy but also a little sad, because not everybody can grow their own food. Some people have to go without, when they don’t have a garden and can’t buy their vegetables because of high prices. When I look at my plot, I think of the food chain on our planet.”

Her paintings are full of edible green things: kale and lettuce, beets and carrots. One can imagine the labour that went into growing such a lush garden and the tasty dishes after the harvest. The images reflect the artist’s love for the plants she grows, as well as her longing to share her cornucopia with everyone. Her painting of red poppies is a worthy companion to the vegetable plots, adding beauty to the nutritional component. “Many people grow poppies in our plots,” she said.

photo - “Plot 5: Poppies and Pollinators” by Kim Rosin — “Plot 5: Poppies and Pollinators” by Kim Rosin. *(photo from the artist)*

Rosin also enjoys painting still life. “It is like a recording of a moment in time,” she said. “And the decorative element is there, too. People often appreciate such paintings, especially if they could ask me to include their favourite objects in the image.”

She likes working on commissions, which she describes as “collaborations with the clients.”

“Commissions take a different mindset from making art of my own, less creative freedom,” she acknowledged. “Some clients have a certain vision, and my job is to bring that vision to life. One example is dog portraits. Dog owners want them realistic, almost photographic. I don’t have to interpret anything, as I do in my own paintings. It is easier in some way, like a mechanical exercise. My creativity is not as important as my skills as a painter. Of course, it is not that simple. When I paint, the image occasionally changes on its own, it has its own demands. Then I worry. What if the client doesn’t like the end result? What if they won’t buy this painting? Fortunately, that has never happened to me.”

People’s stories have always served as an inspiration for her art. “I’m curious about everything – traveling, music, nature. Before I moved to Vancouver, I lived in Seattle,” she said. “I worked on theatre sets for several fringe theatres there…. After I moved here, I created a set for a musical on Granville Island. Teaming up with theatre companies was always a fabulous experience, despite the low budgets.”

Like Rosin, Morales also likes working on commissions. “Some people are very relaxed. ‘You’re the artist. You know what to do.’ Other people are very involved. They want exactly what they envision and you, the artist, need to give them what they want,” she said.

On the other hand, unlike the serene greenery in Rosin’s paintings, Morales’s paintings emphasize her unease with society’s contradictions and paradoxes. Her flowers are colourful and gorgeous, but unrealistic. “I wanted them too beautiful for this world, almost uncomfortable,” she said. “And the animals in my paintings – they fight, like humans do. There are conflicts there.”

In her self-portrait, which is on display, the dichotomy between the pastel tones, the elaborate, narcissistic flowers, the birds in the middle of an angry confrontation and the pensive woman facing the painting echoes the artist’s contemplation on the incongruities of life.

The self-portrait is titled “Will Happiness Find Me?” Many of Morales’s other paintings also sport titles that add a verbal facet to the art’s visual impact. “My titles come from books or songs. Or, I remember someone saying something, and it is relevant for this painting. Or a title could be a quote from an old show,” she said. Her tranquil landscape of a Vancouver shoreline is called “Nothing Mattered More Than Anything Else.”

photo - “Will Happiness Find Me?” by Alejandra Morales — “Will Happiness Find Me?” by Alejandra Morales. (photo from the artist)

Morales moved to Vancouver four years ago from Mexico. “I received my BA from McGill University in 2016 and studied for my master’s degree in visual arts at UBC.”

Besides Canada, she studied art in Spain and in her native Mexico. “When I took art classes in Mexico, many students were housewives,” she recalled. “North Mexican culture is different than here. Women are supposed to follow a traditional path of a wife and a mother. The women that took art classes were anxious because they deviated from that path. I wanted to show their anxiety, their inner struggle in my paintings.”

According to Morales, women are freer here in Canada, the entire society more relaxed, and her art reflects the difference. “I painted a jungle in Mexico – and it was very bright and colourful. But when I painted a jungle here, the colours became less vivid, more muted. Maybe because it was raining outside,” she said.

Morales taught fine art as a teacher’s assistant, while she studied at UBC. “I liked teaching. I would like to do more of that,” she said.

Her latest artistic project is rather unusual. She painted a series of cityscapes featuring dumpsters around Vancouver. “Some of them have amazing graffiti. It was such fun,” she said.

Parallel Visions is on until July 21. Rosin’s website is kimthings.com; Morales’s is moralesalejandra.com.

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

Chim’s photos at the Zack

A photograph by David Seymour (Chim) of children in Normandy, in 1947. Part of the exhibit Chim’s Photojournalism: From War to Hope, at the Zack Gallery until June 15. (photo from Ben Shneiderman)

The new show at the Zack Gallery, Chim’s Photojournalism: From War to Hope, features one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century – David Seymour (known as Chim). Chim was killed in 1956, a few days before his 45th birthday, while photographing the Suez Crisis in Egypt, but his legacy lives on even now, almost 70 years after his tragic death.

Gallery manager Sarah Dobbs told the Independent that Ben Shneiderman, Chim’s nephew and the manager of his estate, approached her about the show.

“I was immediately intrigued,” she said. “I met with him and asked if we could host the exhibition. I recognized its importance to the community at the JCC and also to the city of Vancouver. It is a rare opportunity to showcase such an amazing photojournalist. It made sense to host it during the Festival of Jewish Culture in May. I met with the art committee here, and they agreed.… This is the first time these works will be shown together in Canada.”

According to Dobbs, the exhibit was initiated by Cynthia Young, a curator at the New York International Centre of Photography, using vintage prints in their collection.

“Then, the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Centre produced the 51 modern prints for their showing,” Dobbs said. “Later, they were presented in Portland, Ore., at their Jewish museum and Holocaust education centre. I flew down to Portland to see the exhibition while it was there and chatted with the curators.”

To package and ship the display to Vancouver, Dobbs needed funds. “I applied for grants and approached individuals,” she said. “In addition to the shipping cost, we also had a special wall built inside the gallery. It will serve us for other exhibitions, moving forward.”

The show preview on April 22 was a joyful event, presided by Shneiderman, who shared with guests his intimate knowledge of his uncle’s work and life.

David Seymour was born in 1911 in Warsaw. His father, Benjamin Szymin, was a respected publisher of Yiddish and Hebrew books. As a young man, Seymour studied printing in Leipzig and, later, chemistry and science in Paris. He wanted to become a scientist. Meanwhile, photography fascinated him. He started taking photographs and selling them to support himself financially, and unexpectedly found a passion for humanitarian photojournalism. His first credited photographs appeared in the French magazine Regards in 1934.

Interested in social issues, Seymour photographed labourers and political rallies, famous actors and street scenes. At that time, he adopted his professional name, Chim, a simplification of his last name, Szymin.

Between 1936 and 1938, as a photojournalist, Chim documented the Spanish Civil War and other international political events. Twenty-five of his Spanish stories were published in Regards. Several of those photos are included in the Zack show. One of them, a close-up of a nursing mother looking up, obviously troubled (1936), is well known. Shneiderman said several history scholars studied this photograph and concluded that it was one of the inspirations of Picasso’s 1937 masterpiece, “Guernica.” Chim’s photo of Picasso in front of “Guernica” positions the painting’s detail of a woman looking up at the falling bombs, right behind the artist.

In 1939, Chim escaped the unfolding war in Europe for Mexico and, later, the United States. As a multilingual and Sorbonne-educated journalist, he served in the US military intelligence as a photo-interpreter. After the war, he resumed his photojournalism career.

In 1947, he and a group of his friends, like-minded photographers, founded Magnum Photos, a cooperative run by photographers. Chim served as Magnum president from 1954 until his death.

Chim’s postwar photographic stories are a blend of anguish and hope. Many of the images are on display at the Zack, divided into several distinct sections. The biggest section is “The Children of Europe.”

In 1948, Chim took a UNESCO assignment to report on the plight of the 11 million European children displaced by the war. He visited Italy, Greece, Hungary, Austria and other European countries. He photographed children who were maimed and orphaned, children playing beside ruins or working in print shops or begging in the streets.

“When LIFE magazine published a spread of those pictures,” Shneiderman said, “together with a list of organizations that accepted donations on behalf of those children, the pouring in of donations was unprecedented.”

Another series of photographs focused on postwar Germany. One of the most poignant ones in this series shows a section of a beach divided by barbed wire – the border between West and East Germany. A couple of boys lounge on the sand. A young woman in a swimming suit runs towards the water. In the foreground, a border guard in uniform stands grim and watchful with his guard dog and his rifle. Tension thrums through the image, underlined by questions and uncertainties.

On the other hand, Chim’s Israeli photographs of the early 1950s are infused with hope. A man lifts his baby to the sky in elation – the first baby born in his village. A wedding is celebrated under the chuppah, its makeshift poles including a gun and a pitchfork. An Independence Day parade rolls through Tel Aviv. A team of fishers proudly display their catch of the day to the photographer.

photo - A photograph by David Seymour (Chim) of a wedding in Israel, in 1952 — A photograph by David Seymour (Chim) of a wedding in Israel, in 1952. *(photo from Ben Shneiderman)*

In all his visual stories, Chim is always there with his subjects. They are his co-authors.

“It is that emotional connection that made many celebrities willing to pose for him,” said Shneiderman.

Chim photographed Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren and Picasso, and many others. These photographs are not included in the show, but, together with those that are included, they portray their creator as a man of courage, integrity and vision, one of the best photographic artists of the 20th century.

“Is photojournalism art?” Dobbs mused. “Yes, I think so. Photojournalists capture a moment, an interaction at a specific time. Contemporary art is a mirror of our times. It reflects the societal changes, cultural shifts and significant events that shape our world. It is what the best photojournalists, like Chim, do.”

Dobbs is certain that Chim’s work is still relevant.

“It continues to inspire and draw attention. It teaches photographers to get close to their subjects,” she said. “His images remind us of the past, of the destruction of war, but also of the humanity that transcends it, and of peoples’ resilience.”

Chim’s Photojournalism: From War to Hope is on display until June 15. It is sponsored by the Averbach Foundation, Esther Chetner, the Yosef Wosk Family Foundation and the Government of Canada, in partnership with Shneiderman, Magnum Photos, the International Centre of Photography in New York, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

For more information and to see a selection of photos, visit davidseymour.com.

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

Dickinson poem reflects art

The new exhibit at the Zack Gallery, “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers, derives its name from the eponymous poem by Emily Dickinson. Gallery manager Sarah Dobbs, who curated the show, was instrumental in coming up with the name, as well as in bringing together the two artists whose works are on display: Ilze Bebris and Barbara Heller.

“I’ve known Ilze Bebris for many years,” said Dobbs. “I saw the works she produced during COVID and said she should submit a proposal for an exhibition at the Zack Gallery. When she did, the art committee and I met and decided she should definitely have a show. But there wasn’t enough work for a solo show.”

Bebris’s submission included a series of 19 drawings, called Ballad of Hope and Despair, and a journal with her sketches of feathers. “That journal is a record of found things; of feathers shed by the gulls in my neighbourhood,” Bebris explained. “Each morning, at least one feather landed on my daily walking route.… I collected them and drew them over a period of a month.”

When Dobbs contemplated Bebris’s feathers, another artist who uses feathers extensively came to mind.

“I remembered Barbara Heller instantly,” said Dobbs. “Heller had created many tapestries with birds and feathers, and I thought their art might work well together. However, once I reflected and looked deeper, it occurred to me that they were both talking about isolation and resilience. And the poem by Dickinson, which I used for the title of the show, also speaks of resilience, hope and feathers, even though Dickinson wrote it more than 100 years earlier.”

For the current exhibit, both Bebris and Heller are presenting art that they created during the pandemic.

photo - Ilze Bebris — Ilze Bebris *(photo by Olga Livshin)*

“We have a small property on Gabriola Island, a house” Bebris told the Independent. “My husband and I were driving there one day in 2020 when the news of the COVID lockup hit. We became stuck on the island, couldn’t go home or anywhere for months.”

Bebris and several artists she knew who lived or vacationed on Gabriola got in touch with one another and decided to exchange drawings that they would create daily.

“We needed something to do,” she said. “We were all trapped. The news was horrible. My father and stepmother both died from COVID in their care home in Ontario, and I couldn’t go there, could do nothing but wait and hope for a cure or a vaccine.

“I lived in a tumult of emotions: grief, hope, anxiety, boredom,” she shared. “So, I drew. I drew flowers and twigs and rocks I saw on my daily walks; I drew feathers. But, one day, I ran out of things to draw. I had this small wooden mannequin, and I thought: what if I put it into different poses and draw it. Then the black boxes appeared in the images, reflecting our collective feelings of being trapped, isolated. I called the series ‘Ballad of Hope and Despair.’ They were all done during the first summer and fall of the pandemic.”

The 18 images, set in two rows, one above the other, are all the same size and shape. In each frame, there is the grey background, a black box of a window in the middle, and a wooden mannequin inside the window. Every pose is different, like every person is different – different experiences, ages, ethnicities – but the series unites us as human beings. We have the same general body structure and we move in similar ways as the mannequins in those windows. We all went through the pandemic.

There is one additional image beside the original 18.

photo - One of the images in Ilze Bebris’s “Ballad of Hope and Despair” series, now on display at the Zack Gallery — One of the images in Ilze Bebris’s “Ballad of Hope and Despair” series, now on display at the Zack Gallery. *(photo courtesy)*

“I did it a few months later,” Bebris said. “In the first 18, all the mannequins are trapped inside. But, in the last one, the mannequin is outside the window, finally looking in, reflecting beside the viewers.”

“Hope” is Bebris’s first show at the Zack, while Heller has exhibited in the gallery before. Her contribution to this show includes a series of small tapestries called “We Are All the Same….” Each tapestry shows a couple of bird bones with a feather above or below them. We don’t know what species of birds the bones belong to, and neither do we know from which birds came the feathers – they are bright and colourful but mysterious.

“The entire series includes 16 small tapestries I wove when I stayed home due to COVID,” said Heller. “They are small, because my studio on Granville Island was closed and I only had a small loom at home. The tapestries were a response to the killing of George Floyd and the chaos in the world at the time. Not that it is better now!”

photo - Barbara Heller — Barbara Heller *(photo courtesy)*

She elaborated in her artist’s statement: “We are all the same under our skin, but by focusing on our differences, we have lost our sense of who we are and how we fit into our shared world. This series shows that … beneath the many colours of our skins and feathers, our bones, our organs and our blood are the same. They are what make us human, while the outward differences, no matter what kind, are invisible and irrelevant beneath our skins.”

In addition to the small tapestries, there are two other works by Heller that catch viewers’ interest. One is a big tapestry of a dead gull, called “The Shaman.” It is a skeleton and residual feathers. About 10 times larger than the small ones, the tapestry is bright with colour and infinitely sad – the memory of a bird rather than a living one.

“It is from a series of three tapestries I wove after I found a desiccated body of a seagull with its feathers almost intact, while walking to my studio on Granville Island,” Heller explained. “To me, there was such pathos in the creature that I took it home to photograph. And I wove a tapestry to honour its spirit. ‘The Shaman’ dances to warn of our earth in peril. It has included bits of wire and plastic in its nest, and a vessel for life becomes a warning of death.”

photo - “Chance” by Barbara Heller, part of her “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers exhibit with Ilze Bebris — “Chance” by Barbara Heller. *(photo courtesy)*

Dead birds and feathers have been parts of Heller’s expressive pallete for several decades. They represent the artist’s appeal for change and, to Heller’s chagrin, they are still relevant today, maybe more than ever. But she keeps trying to inspire people to become less destructive, more considerate of one another.

Heller’s other offering is a real nest abandoned by its avian makers. It is full of feathers she found during her walks. Like Bebris’s journal filled with feather sketches, the nest is a memory. They both tell the same story: the birds were here, but they are not anymore. Should we take such a message as a warning or as an inspiration – each one of us must decide for ourselves.

“I was amazed and very pleased to see how well Ilze Bebris’s art and mine looked together,” said Heller. “We met for the first time on March 4, when we brought our works in to hang, but we explored the same themes. And the fact that we both have depicted boxes within boxes is fantastic. Both her works and mine deal with COVID and isolation and our relationship with the world. They complement each other and amplify our messages.”

“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers opened at the Zack Gallery on March 5 and will be on display until April 11.

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

Art as a form of storytelling

Sarah Dobbs is the new manager of the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (photo from Zack Gallery)\

The Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery has a new manager, Sarah Dobbs, who showed an early affinity for her chosen field.

“My first time as a gallery host happened when I was about 8 years old,” she told the Independent. “My father was a journalist and a travel writer, and we lived in many countries when I was young: Spain, France, Morocco. Everywhere, my parents took me to art galleries, and I loved it.

“In the 1960s, while we were in Mexico, we often went to the local market. My father bought colourful folk sculptures. It was long before they became popular, we started collecting them. After we returned to Toronto, my family decided to have an exhibition of our collection. I was there, too. I enjoyed talking to people who came to see the show. I told them stories about this sculpture and that one. I liked sharing another culture with the people in my city. This entire experience had a huge impact on me. Even though I was young, I realized that art was storytelling. Art reflects our understanding of people and cultures.”

After receiving her degree in art history from the University of British Columbia and a master’s of education from the University of Toronto, Dobbs worked in the art world for more than 30 years.

“I ran commercial galleries and public galleries,” she said. “In the mid-’90s, I opened my own gallery, where I displayed mostly abstract art. I love abstract. Anyone can read their own story in an abstract painting.”

One of Dobbs’s most interesting projects happened when she was the director of the Burnaby Art Gallery.

“Part of my job there was to increase our interactions with the community,” she

explained. “I started an outreach program for people who would never go to an art gallery on their own, specifically youths right out of jail. They were young. Most of them had yet to graduate from high school. We gave them disposable cameras and suggested they take photos of what was important in their lives (but not drugs). Then they would do collages of their photos and we displayed those collages in local bus shelters. Those collages reflected the teens’ lives, perhaps helped them to come to terms with it. The collages were also an opportunity for all of them to share their lives and their concerns with the wider public. I’m proud to say that all of our participants graduated from high school.”

Projects like this, integrating art and public awareness, have accompanied Dobbs throughout her career. From 2002 to 2008, she worked in Ireland, at the National Gallery of Ireland and at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

“We worked with hospital patients, but it wasn’t art therapy,” she said of that experience. “It was just doing art, participating. It reminded sick people of their healthy selves.”

Everywhere she has worked, Dobbs has helped people tell their stories through art, helped them deal with their suffering.

“In 2004, I was invited by a nurses’ charity to go to Sri Lanka for five weeks, to help the tsunami victims,” she recalled. “So many died there, children, old people. So much pain. I tried to do what I could to help, to ease that pain – I brought 98 kilos of art supplies with me.”

Later, in Kenya, she lived in a women’s peace-building village for a time.

“There were women from different tribes there, the tribes that were at war, that committed atrocities towards each other. But those women tried to build peace,” said Dobbs. “We would sit together and share stories. When women from different tribes saw similarities in their stories, felt their stories resonate with everyone, it helped in the peace-building process.”

Dobbs has curated about 200 art exhibitions. In her opinion, deep knowledge of the art world is only part of being a successful curator.

“Of course, you have to be passionate about art,” she said. “But you also have to be very organized. You need to be patient with the artists – they are very sensitive. Encouraging artists, especially young artists, boosting their confidence is paramount. It helps them tell their stories. And you also need to be aware of who is going to see the art – to keep balance between artistic expression and public understanding. Sometimes, the latter could be a challenge. Another ongoing challenge is convincing people that art has value.”

Those challenges can be exhausting, and even a successful art curator occasionally needs a break. Dobbs took such a break during the pandemic. The timing made sense, as most public spaces closed in 2020.

“For three years, I ran an integrated clinic, including traditional medicine, a naturopath, a massage therapist, etc. A break is good,” she said, “but I always come back to art. Sharing art with everyone is my joy.”

That’s why when the JCC announced that the Zack Gallery needed a new manager, she applied for the position.

“I have known about the Zack Gallery forever,” Dobbs said. “It is a wonderful place, a blend between a public gallery and a commercial art space. The gallery runs community exhibits. There is a theatre next door, which brings people in before the shows and during the intermissions. Children come in often. That is how art education starts for most of us, when a child wanders into an art gallery.”

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