sculpture

Artwork flies, returns home

Suzy Birstein in her studio, with works featured in her solo exhibit Tsipora, now at the Zack Gallery. (photo from Suzy Birstein)

Suzy Birstein’s Hebrew name – Tsipora – means bird. The artist’s new show, Tsipora: A Place to Land, which opened at the Zack Gallery on May 20, expatiates on her name’s meaning and its connection to the winged creatures of the sky.

“I love feeling like an exotic bird,” Birstein told the Independent. “I like bringing colour and joy to the people who visit my shows.”

Birstein’s 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’s hearts, which feels especially important during COVID and all its associated hardships and anxieties.

“The show’s idea was born out of a personal tragedy,” said Birstein. “A few years ago, one of my close friends passed away. I grieved but I knew I didn’t 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.”

Almost every sculpture in the show has a bird. Sometimes, it is a tiny golden bird peeking from behind a woman’s 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.

“When I started this series in 2017, my thoughts were all about freedom and travels – flying like a bird,” Birstein said. “I’ve always liked to travel and visited many countries: Europe, Asia, Mexico. I like seeing something new every day.”

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.

“In 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,” Birstein said. After that, the focus of her art changed, becoming more home-oriented.

“Instead of flight, my sculptures became about nesting,” she said. “I couldn’t teach anymore because of the pandemic, didn’t 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.”

Many sculptures also have mirror fragments embedded in them, making them festive, shining. “The mirror shards help me bridge the inner world of a woman, her home and soul, with the outer world of traveling and flying,” Birstein said.

The show includes not only sculptures but several paintings as well. “The sculptures always come first,” she explained. “They 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 – working on a flat surface with no fear of breaking the fragile pottery. I don’t use a brush. I paint with a tiny palette and my fingers. It feels almost like working with liquid clay.”

Clay was the medium that catapulted her into the art world, and she feels a deep affinity for it.

“When I was a child,” she recalled, “I couldn’t draw realistically. I thought I couldn’t 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’s 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 – the pieces I created in Toronto.”

Birstein uses white clay for her pieces and paints them before she fires them. “Sometimes, this process has several iterations,” she mused. “I 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’t do perfect. I make mistakes sometimes and then play with my mistakes. I love quirkiness and imperfections.”

It helps that she owns her own kiln. “My kiln is in my basement,” she said. “It was a wedding present from my parents. They knew pottery made me happy.”

It is significant that the most important tool of her art was a gift to celebrate her family.

“I feel free like a bird in my art, but only because I have such strong support from my husband,” said Birstein. “I have stability in my life, a safe place to return, a secure home, and that allows me my freedom of artistic flight.”

That’s why the only image in the show with a man in it is her husband’s portrait.

“I 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,” she said.

“It depicts my husband and my art,” said Birstein of the portrait painting, which features a man standing beside a sculpture of a pregnant woman.

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, or by calling her at 778-877-7943.

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

From a singular perspective

Barb Choit’s “Ravenous Appetite and Boundless Energy” features a chimney swift that can only be recognized as such from one vantage point. (photo from Barb Choit)

Last October, in a year that could be considered one of the worst in history for artists overall, Vancouver artist Barb Choit completed a large public art project in Oakville, Ont. “Ravenous Appetite and Boundless Energy” is the image of a bird, a chimney swift, created from hand-drawn, coloured, lead-glass tubing filled with neon. It is installed in the Oakville Trafalgar Community Centre.

“Most public art projects are by invitation only. However, for this one, I responded to an open call put out by the Town of Oakville,” Choit told the Independent in an email interview. “With this process, the first step is to send a letter of interest describing your qualifications and approach. From that, a public art jury selects a smaller group of artists to create a design for an artwork, which is called a ‘concept proposal.’ Each artist makes a presentation of their proposal and one is selected to create their proposed project.”

Winning the competition, it took her one-and-a-half years to convert her original idea into the final installation, a bird in flight, soaring just under the ceiling of the community centre.

The chimney swift has special significance for the Oakville community, said Choit. “The work responds to the transformation of the adjacent, abandoned Oakville High School into a habitat for a colony of chimney swifts, a threatened migratory bird. Every year, residents of all backgrounds come to watch birds roost in the chimneys of the former school. The community’s galvanization around birdwatching inspired me to represent the chimney swift as an ‘artifact’ of the culture and spirit of Oakville.”

In Choit’s installation, visitors to the centre can only see a bird in the design from a certain perspective. If they look at it from other positions, all they see is a wriggle, written in shining neon.

photo - The sculpture appears abstract to viewers moving through the space. Yet, from a specific vantage point, a representation of a bird appears — The sculpture appears abstract to viewers moving through the space. Yet, from a specific vantage point, a representation of a bird appears. *(photo from Barb Choit)*

“For ‘Ravenous,’” she explained, “I used a display strategy employed by science and nature museums to spark the viewers’ interest in the natural world – an optical illusion, anamorphosis. It is a visual illusion in which an object is distorted so that it can only be recognized from a specific vantage point. The sculpture appears abstract to viewers moving through the space. Yet, from a specific vantage point, a representation of a bird appears. Many people find optical illusions particularly engaging. Creating a visually striking piece was crucial to engaging a multi-generational community. And the glowing yellow form complemented the space for which I was designing the work.”

The word “illusion” suits the chimney swift as a species. According to Wikipedia, during flight, the birds often appear to beat their wings asynchronously, but photographic and stroboscopic studies have shown that they beat them in unison. The illusion that they do otherwise is heightened by their speedy and erratic flying, with many rapid changes of direction.

Choit’s choice of medium for this work necessitated collaboration with the manufacturers of the neon-filled tube.

“Different projects require a different balance between collaboration and delegation,” she said. “My recent project uses neon, which requires a type of industrial fabrication that includes hazardous materials and live electricity. It wouldn’t be practical or advisable for me to carry out this part of the fabrication myself. However, one needs a grasp of how materials work in order to create a feasible design and communicate with fabricators.”

She compared it to the architectural process. “In order to design and build a successful building, an architect does not show up at the building site with a hammer and nails,” she noted. “However, she must know how a building is constructed, as well as the properties and possibilities of the materials used.”

As she has done for other works, Choit did extensive research for this installation.

“People know me for my photographic work, but I have worked in most mediums at one point or another,” she said. “Within my work, I look at how communities and individuals imbue objects with meaning. Most of my major projects involve cultivating collections and working with archives. I explore this theme in a variety of media, such as photography, installation, performance and sculpture. Recently, I have had commissions for 2-D and 3-D public artworks.”

photo - Artist Barb Choit — Artist Barb Choit *(photo from Barb Choit)*

Choit’s interest in collections is longstanding. She has a master of arts in critical and curatorial studies from Columbia University in New York. “At Columbia, I researched institutional frameworks for art,” she said. “I wrote my thesis on the history of collecting. This area of academic research still drives my work as an artist.”

Public art is a relatively new area for Choit and she is exploring the possibilities. “I primarily make works to be shown in galleries; it is only recently that I have moved into public art. I like public art because the projects can be much more ambitious than something that would be purchased by an individual. However, I still enjoy making smaller works that can be appreciated privately and I am open to larger site-specific commissions to be installed in privately owned buildings and outdoor spaces.”

She is planning to do more work in the public sector, despite the challenges. “Usually, public art projects are by invitation. There are also a few websites that list opportunities for artists to submit their qualifications, with the intention of being shortlisted to create a proposal for a specific project,” she said, noting the need to be wary of fraud.

“Artists need to be careful of websites that list art opportunities because there are dubious organizations out there to exploit them,” she said. “For example, some art ‘opportunities’ ask artists to pay a fee to be considered for a project. Artists should never pay a fee to have someone look at their work.

“Also, some organizations solicit full proposals from artists. Creating a proposal is an immense amount of work and a highly specialized skill. For legitimate public art calls, artists who are shortlisted to create a proposal are paid a fee for this work. I discourage any artist (or anyone, for that matter) from engaging professionally with an organization that expects unpaid work.”

Among Choit’s previous public works is the photographic project “Campaign,” a billboard series commissioned by the Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver in 2017. “It was a series of outdoor billboards based on my 2015 photography project where I remade Andy Warhol’s shoe Polaroids from the 1980s. I documented a collection of vintage women’s shoes using discontinued instant film and a vintage Polaroid camera from the era.”

Despite her extensive education, experience and obvious talent, Choit considers luck as one of the best ingredients for artistic success.

“Luck is crucial,” she said. “It is not necessarily about chance but infrastructure – family and community support, education, healthcare, even freedom of expression, can be just as crucial as talent and skill.”

Learn more at Choit’s website, barbchoit.com.

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

What makes art Jewish?

Sorel Etrog’s sculpture in Odette Sculpture Park, in Windsor, Ont. Etrog was one of four artists featured in Prof. Jennifer Eiserman’s March 7 lecture, Is There Such a Thing as Canadian Jewish Art? (photo by Matt Glaman)

Is there such a thing as “Jewish art” in Canada? Dr. Jennifer Eiserman explored this question in a March 7 Zoom lecture organized by Victoria’s Kolot Mayim Reform Temple.

Eiserman, an artist and an art professor at the University of Calgary, shared some of the preliminary findings of her investigation. She pointed out that, with respect to the concept of “Jewish art,” she was not referring to Judaica or Jewish themes in art. “I’m curious about whether artists with some kind of Jewish background make art that is qualitatively different from other artists. If so, I am interested in how these Jewish artists speak and think Jewishly,” she explained.

She began by providing a background to Canadian art history and, specifically, how it has been taught. There has been a profound shift, to put it mildly, in focus, she said. Prior to 1990, the study of Canadian art was a colonial one, concentrating mostly on male artists of European descent. Now, the works of women, Indigenous people and others are part of the curriculum.

Eiserman then discussed four artists and how they speak both Jewishly and as Canadians. She started with sculptor Sorel Etrog (1933-2014) and his contribution to Canadian Modernism. Etrog was a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor who spent time in Israel before immigrating to Canada. His biography is one of movement from place to place.

“The way I see Etrog speaking Jewishly is through the tension between tradition and innovation and the notion of interweaving roads, the idea of the new, which occurs in Etrog’s work,” Eiserman said.

His work, she added, also speaks Jewishly, in that it maintains certain core principles of the genre of public sculpture while addressing the contemporary context in which the sculpture is being placed. Just as we place Jewish law from generation to generation into contemporary contexts, Etrog’s art innovates while carrying on traditional elements.

The figurative art of Betty Goodwin (1923-2008) was demonstrated as being the work of “an outsider, someone not part of the Old Boys’ Club and one who had to find her own way.” Her work, according to Eiserman, contributed internationally to how drawing was defined and what it was to become.

“Her floating figures might express the experience of being in a world that does not welcome one’s experience. The experience of being neither here nor there. Her work speaks to the experience of losing and finding,” Eiserman noted.

Sylvia Safdie’s video installations of flowing water, sand, light and sound advance the traditional concerns of Canadian art with landscape and nature, most commonly associated with the Group of Seven. Safdie was born in Lebanon in 1942 and her family moved to Montreal in 1953.

Safdie’s video can be perceived as exploring a variety of themes that allow her to bring her own voice into the world. “Her work is part of a post-colonial narrative in which some people have experienced harm as the nation of Canada came into being, and speaks Jewishly of the central issues of living in the Diaspora – how to adapt and yet maintain our identity,” said Eiserman.

The distinctively Jewish fantastical creatures of sculptor David Altmejd (born 1974), who represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2007, were the final set of slides shown by Eiserman. She described Altmejd as the “quintessential 21st-century Canadian artist. He is bicultural, multilingual, internationally known and now lives in another country (United States) yet is still deeply rooted in Canada.

“Life is complicated, Altmejd reminds us, we can’t have the good without the bad. Yet, always in his work, life shines through. While he rarely discusses his Jewish roots … one can see that his works speak Jewishly in many aspects,” Eiserman said.

Growing up in Montreal, Eiserman experienced the national influence that the Saidye Bronfman Centre had in disseminating Canadian Jewish art. She received her bachelor’s in art history and master’s in education through the arts at McGill University in Montreal, and a bachelor’s in fine arts (visual art) at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan. Her doctorate, one of the first to use studio art as its method of inquiry, is from the University of Calgary, where she is now an associate professor. Her current research is in North American contemporary Jewish art and community-based Jewish art.

In her artistic endeavours, Eiserman uses mixed media, crochet, watercolour, installation and public art projects to explore issues related to Jewish theology, philosophy and identity. She refers to her work as “visual Midrash, an artistic response to sacred Jewish texts.”

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

Dali artwork on display

Left to right: Oree Gianacopoulos, Chali-Rosso Gallery director; James Sanders from Dali Universe (Switzerland); and Susanna Strem, president of Chali-Rosso Gallery. (photo by Shula Klinger)

May 17 and 18 saw the unveiling of two sculptures by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali, which will be on display until September. The sculptures were brought to Vancouver by the Chali-Rosso Gallery on Howe Street, the site of the annual Definitely Dali exhibition. More than 100 Dali originals are on display at the gallery, along with 20 smaller versions of Dali’s bronzes.

On May 17, “Dalinian Dancer” was revealed at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni. “Space Venus” was unveiled on the next day at Lot 19, on West Hastings at Hornby. The unveilings were accompanied by flamenco music, which Dali loved.

Oree Gianacopoulous, Chali-Rosso’s director, spoke before the unveiling of “Space Venus.” Describing it as one of Dali’s “iconic” pieces, she expressed her gratitude to Beniamino Levi, director of Dali Universe, the foundation that lends out the artwork. Levi worked with Dali himself to develop the collection of 29 sculptures.

This is the third year that Dali sculptures have traveled to Vancouver, under the leadership of Chali-Rosso president Susanna Strem, a member of the Jewish community. Working in close collaboration with Dali Universe in Europe, which loaned the sculptures to Chali-Rosso, Strem’s initiative has helped establish a new cultural tradition for the downtown core.

This year, the gallery also worked with Virtro Games to develop a smartphone application to enhance viewers’ experience of the sculpture. Definitely Dali is an augmented reality app – when a phone camera is focused on the image of Dali’s face, the dancer begins to move her arms and spin.

Alex Lazimir, who developed the app, talked about the privilege of spending many hours looking at Dali’s dancer. “I really like this piece because it was like going into Salvador Dali’s mind. The first thing I thought was that she has to be spinning.”

photo - Salvador Dali’s “Dalinian Dancer” can be found at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni — Salvador Dali’s “Dalinian Dancer” can be found at the corner of Thurlow and Alberni. *(photo by Shula Klinger)*

After the unveilings, Chali-Rosso hosted a champagne reception and a talk by James Sanders of Dali Universe (Switzerland). With reference to the sculptures at the gallery, Sanders spoke about Dali’s life and the tremendous influence of his surreal imagination on the world of art. Sanders is responsible for sourcing locations, sponsors and partners for exhibitions all over the world.

Originally from Europe, Strem came to Canada 25 years ago, via a spell in Israel. Formerly an information technology professional, Strem spoke about the challenge of bringing world-class art to public spaces in Vancouver.

“These sculptures are traveling all over the world. They’re exhibited in many major cities. Vancouver has to compete with cities like New York, London and Paris. These are major art hubs, so we are very happy that we managed to get two sculptures.”

Last year, Definitely Dali featured “Woman in Flame” and “Surrealist Piano.” More than three million visitors saw the sculptures.

Bringing monumental works of art here is a labour of love, however. “It takes almost a year to organize something like this,” said Strem. “Last year, when we had two other sculptures here, we were already talking about this year’s exhibition. It all depends on what is available and circumstances in other cities.”

The logistics of moving bronzes like “Space Venus” – which is 3.5 metres high – can be tough. “These sculptures were transported by ocean freight from Italy, then traveled through the Atlantic to the Panama Canal, up the Pacific Ocean past Mexico and California to Vancouver,” she said. “It’s a long journey. We experienced a delay. There was a traffic jam in the Panama Canal.”

photo - “Space Venus” by Salvador Dali has been placed in Lot 19, on West Hastings at Hornby — “Space Venus” by Salvador Dali has been placed in Lot 19, on West Hastings at Hornby. *(photo by Shula Klinger)*

These exhibits are both the impetus for, and a sign of, urban growth – “for a real city,” said Strem, “public art is a natural part of its evolution.” She spoke of the collaboration with the Downtown Business Improvement Association. “They were full-force behind it from day one, which helped motivate us. They were really enthusiastic,” she said.

Part of Chali-Rosso’s community involvement includes supporting Recovery Through Art, a charitable organization in Vancouver that gives individuals struggling with mental illness and addiction a chance to heal through the creation and appreciation of art.

Strem is already seeing the impact of the Dali pieces on public display. “If somebody is looking at their phone and they walk by 10 times but, this time, they look up and their face changes, even for a fleeting moment, that’s important. Or they might stop for 30 minutes. There are many ways to enjoy art,” she said.

Strem explained that, to truly become part of life, art should not just be locked away in special locations.

“It’s not about having a destination for art, where you allocate time and energy to it,” she said. “When we don’t engage with art like this, in public, people are missing out.”

Shula Klinger is an author and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at shulaklinger.com.

Artistic tribute to Shoah survivors

The Schara Tzedeck Shoah Survivors Tribute Wall was created for the congregation by John Nutter. The sculpture, which includes the names of 230 survivors, was dedicated May 3. (photo from John Nutter)

Congregation Schara Tzedeck has a new art installation in its main sanctuary. The Schara Tzedeck Shoah Survivors Tribute Wall – a Tree of Life rendered in sandblasted glass – includes the names of 230 survivors. It was dedicated May 3.

Full of shared memories and friendship, the pre-Shabbat dedication ceremony featured several speakers: the synagogue’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt; its executive president, Howard Kallner; younger family members of the survivors; Ed Lewin, co-chair of the project with Hodie Kahn; and the man who started the entire project, Dr. Robert Krell, a child survivor.

“We wanted to honour the Holocaust survivors who found their way to Canada, before and after the war, and wound up as members of this shul,” Lewin told the Independent. “Most of them came here in 1948. Their names are all there, on the wall. My parents’ and grandparents’ names are among them.”

Explaining how the project started, Lewin said, “We had this empty space, and Krell suggested a tribute to Holocaust survivors. It was several years ago. It took us awhile to find the talented glass artist, John Nutter, who transformed our ideas into a sculpture.”

The synagogue is publishing a commemorative book about the installation, as well. While the Tribute Wall features survivors’ names only, the book also contains photographs of the survivors; there are family and group photo pages. Together, the book and the wall serve as a memorial to those who not only survived the Shoah but contributed greatly to Schara Tzedeck and to the development of Greater Vancouver and the province over the past seven decades.

One page of the book is dedicated to Nutter, who has created numerous art installations for churches and synagogues, mostly in New York. His works decorate many institutions in the United States and Canada: hotels, museums, hospitals. He collaborated with local artist Bill Reid on a glass sculpture at the Vancouver International Airport. A few years ago, Glass Magazine named Nutter one of the top three architectural glass artists in the country.

About how he came to design the Tribute Wall, Nutter said, “A few years ago, I did a small glass sculpture for the Louis Brier Home, a collaboration with a wonderful artist and friend, Diana Zoe Coop. Camille Wenner, Diana’s daughter, works for Schara Tzedeck. I’ve known Camille since she was a young child. She contacted me about this project and, of course, I said, yes.”

He explained his work process. “They knew exactly what they wanted – a Tree of Life, made like a Vancouver cherry tree in bloom. Usually, I start with a small draft, show it to my clients, make changes until they’re satisfied, before I transfer the design to glass. But the people from Schara Tzedeck were very nice. They approved my first draft of the design.”

The first step in making the sculpture was creating a life-size drawing out of the small-scale draft. “I hire a company for that,” said Nutter, “give them my small drawing, and they blow it up to the size I want.”

Once he has the full-size paper draft, he starts working on the glass. For this sculpture, he used nine separate glass panels. The three bottom panels are roots. “The words ‘Schara Tzedeck’ are carved among the roots, to symbolize the Jews who had set their roots with the congregation,” Nutter explained.

The middle panel is the trunk, and the five panels around it are carved with leaves and flowers. “I sandblasted each petal of each flower individually,” Nutter said. “It gives more depth to the sculpture.”

The work is made of 15-millimetre laminated glass; two layers joined together. The carving is on the back, and the names of the survivors are written on the front, in black, which adds to the visual depth.

Nutter has been working with architectural glass for decades. “I started as an architecture student at the University of Manitoba,” he recalled. “A couple years into my studies, I took a summer job with a stained glass company. I loved it so much, I left my schooling and stayed with the company for several years, before I founded my own company. I never finished my architectural degree, but I taught stained glass making at the same faculty years later.”

He loves architecture, and most of his works are large-scale glass. “Sometimes,” he said, “my background in architecture helps me to win the contracts. I often build small-scale models of my proposed installations when I bid for a job. I like the details and hardware used in the models. I learned that during my years of architectural studies.”

Frequently, Nutter’s sculptures and windows tell a story, like the one he created for Schara Tzedeck. “In the past, when artists made glass installations in churches and other religious institutions, it was always to tell a story, as most of the population were illiterate,” he said. “Now, people can read, so the art became more decorative, but it still tells a story.”

To learn more about the artist, visit johnnutterglassstudio.com or visit his studio on Granville Island. For those interested in purchasing the hardcover, full-colour commemorative book ($54), visit scharatzedeck.com/event/-shoah-survivors-tribute-book-order.html; the order deadline is June 30.

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