Suzy Birstein

Eastside artists open studios

A stained-glass panel in a wood frame by Hope Forstenzer. (photo by Hope Forstenzer)

More than 500 artists are opening their studios, galleries or workshops to the public Nov. 14-17 for the 28th annual Eastside Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design & Craft Festival. Among the artists are many Jewish community members, including Suzy Birstein, Olga Campbell, Ana Clara Feldman, Hope Forstenzer, penny eisenberg, Lori Goldberg, Lynna Goldhar Smith, Ideet Sharon, Stacy Lederman, Shevy Levy, Lauren Morris and Esther Rausenberg.

“The Culture Crawl offers a unique opportunity to connect with our communities, to support artists in their livelihoods, and to come away inspired and reinvigorated by the countless ways in which artists explore and share their creativity with the world,” said Rausenberg, who is also the artistic and executive director of the Eastside Arts Society, which puts on the event.

Birstein, who creates and showcases her work from her 1000 Parker Street studio, is a figurative artist whose ceramic sculptures and paintings are self-portraits connecting her to women of history and mythology.

“I am merging my own personal narratives with the narratives of inspiring women artists whose lives and art ‘embrace enchanting intrigues’ to transcend life’s challenges,” she explained. “This includes Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Vali Myers, Artemesia Gentileschi and Niki de Saint Phalle,” as well as figures like Athena and Alice in Wonderland.

photo - “I’m Going With Myself” by Suzy Birstein — “I’m Going With Myself” by Suzy Birstein. *(photo by Byron Dauncey)*

Her upcoming solo retrospective, curated by Dr. Angela Clarke at Il Museo, is now scheduled for 2026, rather than next year, which is what was originally planned. The retrospective will combine her Tsipora and Ladies-Not-Waiting series.

“This past year has brought me two profound highlights that resonate deeply in my artwork,” said Birstein. “First, I’ve embraced the idea that the Tsiporas – my Hebrew name, meaning ‘Bird’ – have always been part of the Ladies-Not-Waiting.

“On the personal side, my husband courageously and successfully underwent two major surgeries in 2024, which deepened my appreciation for life and the importance of love and compassion. Additionally, our daughter-in-law became a permanent resident of Canada, allowing our family to thrive together.

“These experiences have infused my art with newfound freedom, imagination, and a willingness to experiment with construction, colour and concept. Each piece I create reflects this journey and the richness of these connections, as with my Ladies-Not-Waiting.”

Birstein and fellow Crawl artist Lori Goldberg spent October in Italy on a self-directed residency, which comprised four segments, each with its own and overlapping purposes, said Birstein.

They explored art at Venice Biennale and other exhibits in Venice. They went to Amalfi, where, Birstein said, “I created a most special and memorable experience – to visit Gianni Menichetti, who was the partner of Vali Myers (one of my artists). In a valley above Positano, Gianni lives off the grid with his family of animals – 10 dogs, ancient doves, chickens, fish, a rooster and others. Gianni himself is a well-known poet, artist, writer, as well as protector and preserver of the land and its natural inhabitants. He’s a most unique human being. Although we were only together for 24 hours, it is as though we have always known each other and always will.”

In Napoli, said Birstein, “within the ancient graffiti-covered walls of this chaotic, lively city, we [were] exploring, experimenting and expressing evolving directions for our art practice.”

Lastly, they went to the island of Ischia for a family celebration, visiting thermal springs, gardens and the sea.

photo - "You sing my songs" by Suzy Birstein — “You sing my songs” by Suzy Birstein. *(photo by Alan @ Fidelis Art Prints)*

“There are moments in my life when personal and global experiences intertwine – what I like to call destiny with focus,” said Birstein. “My Italian adventure, from connecting with Gianni in Positano, family in Ischia and gallerists in Naples, to engaging with art at the Venice Biennale, inspires every aspect of my life. I sense that I’m in the midst of crafting my next ‘big story,’ which will undoubtedly reflect in my evolving art practice. These experiences shape not just who I am, but also how I create.”

Ceramics and glass artist Hope Forstenzer is also expanding the way she creates.

“I got a grant to learn woodworking throughout 2024, and that’s been a big highlight,” she told the Independent. “I’ve been working to make pieces that use both glass and wood, and it’s been exciting and challenging to learn a whole new medium. My progress has been slow and steady, and some of the work I made will be in the Crawl this year.”

This is Forstenzer’s third year of making clocks for the Crawl, and she said she’s really been enjoying the process.

“This year, I’m experimenting with different colours and patterns, and I’ve also got one that’s in a stained-glass panel in a wood frame I made. I’ve spent more time with clockworks and hand design, as well, and am experimenting with different materials for those aspects of the clocks.”

photo - A seder plate by Hope Forstenzer — A seder plate by Hope Forstenzer. *(photo by Hope Forstenzer)*

In addition to the clocks, visitors to Forstenzer’s studio in the Mergatroid Building, 975 Vernon Dr., will see her stained-glass panels in wood frames, blown seder plates, dreidel blown ornaments, small blown lamps with battery-powered LEDs inside, and some vessels and bowls.

“One of my roles at Terminal City Glass Co-op is the coordinator of the Learning Fire Program, and I’ll be doing a glassblowing demonstration with some of our students on Saturday the 16th from 1:15-3:15,” said Forstenzer.

For more about Learning Fire, visit terminalcityglass.com/pages/learning-fire.

Both Birstein and Forstenzer have works in the Culture Crawl’s preview exhibition, which runs to Nov. 29 at Pendulum Gallery, Alternative Creations Gallery, the Cultch and Charles Clark Gallery, with display dates depending on the venue.

For the full list of events and participating artists, go to culturecrawl.ca.

Culture Crawl starts Nov. 16

Suzy Birstein is one of the many Jewish community artists taking part in this year’s Eastside Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design & Craft Festival, which runs Nov. 16-19. (photo by Britt Kwasney)

The 27th annual Eastside Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design & Craft Festival takes place Nov. 16-19 and features almost 450 artists, including many from the Jewish community. Among the community members opening their studios to visitors are Suzy Birstein, Olga Campbell, Hope Forstenzer, penny eisenberg, Robert Friedman, Lori Goldberg, Lynna Goldhar Smith, Ideet Sharon, Stacey Lederman, Shevy Levy, Lauren Morris and Esther Rausenberg.

“We welcome the public to dive back into the Culture Crawl this fall to experience and be inspired by our artists’ growth and discovery. [The pandemic] has been a time of change for many of us and I believe art is a conduit for moving forward together,” says Rausenberg in the event’s press release. Rausenberg is a photo artist, as well as artistic and executive director of the Eastside Arts Society, which puts on the Crawl.

The Independent spoke with a few of the participating Jewish artists about what visitors to their studios can expect to see, and whether creativity is a place of refuge or if it is harder for them to create in times of conflict, including but not limited to the Israel-Hamas war and the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Visitors to Birstein’s studio will see her “figures from fired clay infused with aged and lustred surfaces, which inspire paintings in oil, cold wax and collage.”

The artist is currently working on two series, which will merge into the solo retrospective at Il Museo Gallery, curated by Dr. Angela Clarke for 2025.

“Both series evoke my art/travel adventures to Europe, Mexico and Cambodia,” said Birstein.

“‘Ladies-Not-Waiting’ reference the gazed-upon women by old master painters – Velasquez, Fouquet and Manet – alongside self-portraits painted by masterful female artists, Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini,” she said, while Tsipora (her Hebrew name, meaning Bird) is a series of loose self-portraits, which “embrace an exotic earthiness living within my poetic imagination.”

Both bodies of work, she said, “speak to nesting and transcendence, the mirror and reflection and celebrate the individual and universal.”

For Birstein, in times of conflict, “be it COVID, warfare, personal challenges – the only thing that centres me, coming directly from within me, is the creative refuge of my studio and making art. As I say this, I must stress that the love and compassion I feel for and receive from my family, friends, students and peers is the other half of that equation. I can’t imagine one without the other and I am extremely grateful.”

Friedman describes himself as “a muralist-styled stained glass artist.” He has worked in stained glass for more than 40 years and has recently added a blown glass dimension to his work, according to his website, which is also a recent addition.

“My studio is a great place and haven for creative thought and output,” he told the Independent. “[T]hese troubled times just [add] more impetus for me to have it reflected even more so in my artwork.”

Goldberg also finds herself more driven.

“My work is about vitality, life, vibration forging connections and bringing two opposing energies together as a way to find potential for resolution,” she said. “I have a responsibility as an artist to respond. I am more motivated. Expressing ‘Heaven on Earth’ is one way I respond to pain and suffering.”

Goldberg had a three-month residency on the North Shore, which she spent painting the forest – work that studio visitors will see.

“I was recently reading the book Speak for the Trees by Diana Beresford-Kroger about how the roots of the trees, the mycelium and plants and trees talk to each other,” said Goldberg. “By painting in the forest, I learnt how to listen, experience the tranquility, vitality and interconnectedness of the forest and to myself.”

Since the spring, Goldhar Smith has been “creating minimal colour-field style landscapes based on the idea of the shape of light and the colour of shadows,” she said. “The paintings are rendered in soft blues and pastels or deeper mysterious tones and suggest memories of places real and imagined.”

She acknowledged, “The conflict in Israel has, of course, been enormously upsetting and I find myself in despair for both sides of the conflict. My paintings do not yet reflect these emotions, but they will in coming months. I don’t yet know what I will be painting but I will be exploring more difficult terrain.”

For Forstenzer – a glass artist and director of the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery – creativity can be a place of refuge, but also more challenging in times of conflict.

“Making work when I’m feeling the stress of all that’s going on personally and globally is truly healing,” she explained, “but when I’m feeling overrun with those things, it can be a lot harder to fully concentrate at times.”

Lately, Forstenzer has been making glass clocks, something she describes as “incredibly fun.”

“I can experiment with colour and pattern in the glass, and I’ve learned a lot about clockwork mechanisms, which is also an exciting thing to dive into – I’ve been down many rabbit holes online about clockmakers,” she said. “I’ll have a bunch of clocks on display and for sale at the Crawl.

“I also have spent a lot of the last year generally playing with colour and pattern,” she added. “I’ve made vessels – vases, bowls, cups – that experiment with a particular colour or look or pattern or stripe in glass. Once I have a colour process in place, I often go on to use those colours, patterns and processes in sculptural pieces. Since I’ve done so much experimenting this year, there will be a lot of pieces on display and for sale at the Crawl as well.”

In addition to opening their studios, Forstenzer and Birstein are part of the Crawl’s juried exhibition, which has the theme “Out of Control.”

“At a time when we start to celebrate our freedom from pandemic restrictions, it’s an opportunity to reclaim experiences that were denied for so long, a chance to think outside of the box and just let go,” says Rausenberg in the press release.

The exhibition features the work of 80-plus Eastside artists and takes place at multiple venues: Alternative Creations Gallery and Strange Fellows Gallery (both until Nov. 19), the Pendulum Gallery (until Nov. 24) and the Cultch (until Nov. 25).

For more information, visit culturecrawl.ca.

Culture Crawl set to return

Suzy Birstein amid her work, some of which visitors to her studio will see during the East Side Culture Crawl. (photo by Britt Kwasney)

“I am most looking forward to healthily connecting with fellow artists and art lovers in real time, real space. Art is always more powerful in person,” artist Suzy Birstein told the Jewish Independent about the East Side Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design & Craft Festival, which returns to its traditional format Nov. 17-20. Some 400+ artists will open their studios to the public.

“The sense of community, commitment, excitement, inspiration, appreciation – all that brought me to Parker Street [Studios] and East Side Culture Crawl originally is happening again,” she said. “It feels like a renaissance.”

photo - Photographer Esther Rausenberg, artistic and executive director of the East Side Culture Crawl — Photographer Esther Rausenberg, artistic and executive director of the East Side Culture Crawl. *(photo by Adam P.W. Smith)*

“After the two-year pandemic rollercoaster ride, I am thrilled we are back to a ‘new normal,’” said Esther Rausenberg, artistic and executive director of the Crawl, as well as a participating artist. “I do say ‘new normal,’ as we don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t really speculate how this year’s Crawl will play out. Personally, I am excited to get out and see all of the new and amazing art that has been created and to catch up with the artists. It’s also a real pleasure for me to meet members of the public as they share their enthusiasm for the event, the art and the connections they will be making with the artists.”

Birstein (clay, painting, sculpture) and Rausenberg (photography, Georgia Art Studios) are only two of many Jewish community members who will open their creative space to the public over the four days of the festival, which also features gallery displays, and artist demonstrations and talks. Other community members include, from Parker Street Studios, Shevy Levy (painting), Olga Campbell (clay, mixed media, new media), Mia Weinberg (painting) and penny eisenberg (drawing, painting); from Eastside Atelier, Lauren Morris (mixed media, painting), Ideet Sharon (assemblage, mixed media, painting), Stacy Lederman (mixed media, painting) and Karly Leipsic (mixed media); and, from the Arc, Lynna Goldhar Smith (installation, painting). Overall, festival-goers can explore about 68 buildings and studios in the Eastside Arts District, the area bounded by Columbia Street, 1st Avenue, Victoria Drive and the waterfront.

“This year’s event has a distinctly celebratory tone,” said Levy. “It is a reunion for Vancouver’s established art community, a chance to reconnect, to have meaningful discussions around art, not just with artists, students and educators, but with those who display art, like galleries and art management, and everyone who is excited to work together again.”

photo - During the pandemic restrictions, painter Shevy Levy started a new direction with her abstract work — During the pandemic restrictions, painter Shevy Levy started a new direction with her abstract work. *(photo from Chutzpah!)*

Thinking of the last couple of years, she noted, “What was fascinating about the immediate impact of COVID-19 was the sudden loss of collective connection – both human (face-to-face) and the collective understanding of what the future might bring…. When we were forced to isolate, I appreciated the introduction of art to the digital and virtual world, and how it helped the art world, in many aspects, to find new ways to connect with society. However, now I understand how much I, like so many of my colleagues, urgently need constant interactions with the community – 2022 Crawl is here to fill some gaps.”

Goldhar Smith – a multi-disciplinary artist who has spent more than 30 years in theatre performance with painting very much in the background – is excited about the chance to show her visual art to a lot of different people. “I especially love the opportunity to see their responses to the work and engage in lively conversation when it’s possible,” she said.

photo - Lynna Goldhar Smith — Lynna Goldhar Smith *(photo from Chutzpah!)*

Interested in integrating her visual art practice with her performance practice, Goldhar Smith said, “I have been building installations in my studio to that end and so, among my paintings and prints, visitors will see the beginnings of more conceptual ideas in some of the physical objects and paper sculptures in the studio.”

Whether abstract or figurative, Goldhar Smith seeks to express the intangible qualities of human experience in her work. “If I paint a landscape, it is as much an emotional or psychological landscape as a place,” she said. “Yet, at the same time, if I paint an urban crow or a heron, it is more an expression of honouring the urban wildlife, and reminding myself that I am in their domain. I hope that makes sense. Whatever I paint, I am like an improvisational actor, responding to the moment, with one brushstroke informing the next. The meaning emerges after the fact. It is not so much I make my art, as my art makes me.”

For Goldhar Smith, the pandemic was a dramatic reminder “that we need to behave more responsibly, more cohesively, with more compassion and care for each other – with more understanding of our connection to each other – and to view ourselves as part of nature and part of one planet all together. Yet, we are so divided. If there was ever a time for artists to get focused, this would be it.

photo - “Gloria” by Lynna Goldhar Smith — “Gloria” by Lynna Goldhar Smith *(image from Chutzpah!)*

“Artists, and art, have the privilege and responsibility of their voices,” she continued. “We need to use our voices to contribute to the global change that is necessary. We need to speak up with courage and make brave art.

“We need to be endowed with the respect that what we do is of great importance and we need to be valued, supported and encouraged because artists bring meaning and perspective and also disruption and confrontation with the status quo. We need to see how our art fits, not so much into the art marketplace, but as a central driver of change that can address the pressing needs of our time.”

Levy expressed a similar view.

“So many artists, myself included, produce artwork with an outcome in mind, such as an exhibition or career step,” said Levy. “The challenges of the past few years forced me to take the time to reflect on my own art practice, taking it to the next level by exploring new avenues and fresh approaches. I had to remove and free myself from that outcome. I was able to experiment and create work that connects me better to the meaning of being a better human and better artist, as opposed to a ‘professional artist’ operating within the structures of a commercial art world.”

Birstein also used the pandemic period for self-reflection. “The enforced isolation of the pandemic,” she said, “gave me the gift of time: time to create, experiment, reflect, all day, every day. This is a first in my art practice and I was very productive.”

Birstein created two bodies of work for two solo exhibits in 2021 and 2022.

“Tsipora: A Place to Land was exhibited at the Zack Gallery,” she said. “Tsipora is my Hebrew name, meaning Bird. Pre-COVID, the bird symbolized a freedom of spirit while taking flight. With COVID, it was a time to nest, to find a place to land.

“Frida: When I Have Wings to Fly was exhibited at POMOArts. Frida is a continuation of my art historical portraits, Ladies-Not-Waiting, inspired by Velasquez’ masterpiece ‘Las Meninas.’ This series speaks to Frida Kahlo as a symbol of feminine strength and empowerment: a person who transcended tragedy and transformed it into beauty. My sculptures and paintings invite the viewer to converse in intertwined stories of myself, my mother, Frida and other historic figures that embody resourcefulness, resilience and beauty.

“Materially, both bodies of work involved much experimentation with structural techniques, surfacing with fired and cold materials, addition of repurposed objects.”

For Levy, the last couple of years allowed her to start a new direction with her abstract work. “Slowly, I developed large-scale canvases that were marked by bold and expressive brushstrokes,” she said. “I am excited to share with the public my new collection, A Portrait of a Flower. My work demonstrates the flowers as a source of lines, shapes, negative space, gesture, colour and value, or another source of abstraction.”

The pandemic period also gave Levy the chance to explore more remote art communities. “Pre-COVID,” she said, “I used to share and exhibit my art within my immediate community. In the last two-plus years, I had more time to develop my social media presence and expertise. As an outcome, 2021 was the best year ever of showing and selling my work.”

Birstein also pointed to the technological silver lining of COVID. “With the necessity of communicating virtually while globally isolated,” she said, “I see the world of art opening in terms of compassion, imagination, inclusion, respect – all of this so apparent at this year’s Venice Bienale, from which I have just returned.”

In addition to the open studios Nov. 17-20, the East Side Culture Crawl features a multi-venue, salon-style curated exhibition called NEXT, which “explores the after-effects of living through a pandemic as we long for and ponder about what’s next.” There are also several other events. For more information, visit culturecrawl.ca.

Sculptures inspired by Kahlo

“She Was Like a Walking Flower, Centred by a Rod of Steel,” by Suzy Birstein, inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940.”

“She Was Like a Walking Flower, Centred by a Rod of Steel,” by Suzy Birstein, was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940.”

photo - “She Was Like a Walking Flower, Centred by a Rod of Steel,” by Suzy Birstein, inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940” — “She Was Like a Walking Flower, Centred by a Rod of Steel,” by Suzy Birstein, inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940.”

In her artist’s statement, Birstein writes about this ceramic work: “‘Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940,’ is one of my favourite Frida self-portraits. In it, she is at her most beautiful, surrounded by flowers, butterflies, her monkey and cat. Her direct stare compels us to reflect upon her body in pain, her complex relationship with Diego [Rivera] and her relentless drive.

“The metal headdress references an iron-clad spirit, topped with a golden bird holding my mother’s pill box. Both Frida and my mother required medication to alleviate their pain, which they housed in these beautiful containers.”

Birstein’s solo exhibit, When I Have Wings to Fly, opened at the Port Moody Arts Centre in the Canadian Pacific Gallery July 28 and runs to Sept. 4. For more information, visit pomoarts.ca/exhibitions/when-i-have-wings-to-fly.

– Courtesy Port Moody Arts Centre

Poetry-art book launch and exhibit

Suzy Birstein’s “Ladies-not-Waiting: Harlequin Zsa Zsa.” (photo from ParkerArtSalon)

Suzy Birstein’s “Ladies-not-Waiting: Harlequin Zsa Zsa,” made of fired ceramic with glazes and lusters, is featured in the book the poetry project: where poetry expands upon a visual idea, published by ParkerArtSalon. The artwork is accompanied by a poem it inspired, written by Majka Pauchly: “I’m not home décor / I shift on the shelf, and plot / To make my next move.”

Beedie Luminaries students were invited to participate in the project by submitting a work of poetry, inspired by a selection of art provided by the ParkerArtSalon artists. The book launch and an exhibit of the poems with the corresponding artwork by the artists – who also include Miriam Aroeste – takes place at Gallery George June 1-July 3, Wednesday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m., with the official opening weekend June 4-5, 2-4 p.m., with artists in attendance. Visit parkerartsalon.com for details.

– Courtesy ParkerArtSalon

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].

JI Reflections … on the occasion of the JI’s 90+1

Dorrance headlines Vancouver tap festival

Dorrance Dance will perform at the Rothstein Theatre on Aug. 30. (photo from Vancouver International Tap Festival)

“It would be like a jazz festival presenting Oscar Peterson,” said Sas Selfjord, executive director of the Vancouver International Tap Festival. She is so proud that tap dancer Michelle Dorrance is headlining her festival that she compared Dorrance to the great Canadian jazz musician. “Michelle Dorrance is the ‘it’ girl,” she said of the artist who takes the stage Saturday, Aug. 30, at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre.

The dance festival is now in its 15th season and it’s time to celebrate. A weekend of professional performance and a fundraising gala are on the schedule that runs Aug. 28 to 31.

With this, the festival’s 15th edition, Selfjord said, the Vancouver International Tap Festival “is one of the top two or three in the world. With that reputation,” she said, “we can attract any artist we want. That’s a very egocentric statement, but it’s true. People want to be part of the Vancouver festival, so that is the legacy.”

Selfjord said anyone who has ever enjoyed tap, even in old movies, will appreciate the festival’s artists. “Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelley, the Nicholas Brothers, these are people we revere in the highest regard,” she said. “Their work is a subset and that work is always carried through in everything that a tap dance artist does, except we give our own relevance to it … there could be a little bit more hip hop, there could be some breakdancing, there could be, you know, innovative combinations that no one has ever heard.”

In addition to Dorrance Dance on Aug. 30, the festival features two other professional performances, on Aug. 29, also at the Rothstein. First is LOVE.Be.Best.Free, choreographed by Danny Nielsen with an all-male cast. Selfjord remembers encountering Nielsen years ago. “I remember he was at our very first festival and what was he, 14? He’s now an internationally revered artist.”

photo - Travis Knight — Travis Knight *(photo from Vancouver International Tap Festival)*

Second on the Aug. 29 ticket is Lisa La Touche’s Hold On, the debut of a work commissioned specifically for this festival. “Lisa was here from the get-go,” said Selfjord. “Now she’s in New York and she’s revered.” Hold On has an all-Canadian cast of dancers.

Selfjord is also proud of Travis Knight, one of the performers in Hold On. Knight has been a tap consultant with Cirque du Soleil and performed at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics. He has toured with the Australian show Tap Dogs. Knight “is one of Canada’s top artists,” said Selfjord, “and I remember he came to our first festival. He took a Greyhound bus and came out on a scholarship from Montreal. He is one of Canada’s amazing, talented, generous artists.”

The gala fundraising and awards event, which takes place Aug. 28 at the Holiday Inn Downtown Vancouver, benefits from the sculpting talent of local ceramics artist Suzy Birstein. The local artist – who once chose dancing class over Hebrew school – was commissioned to design the awards to be presented. Birstein, who dances with the society during the year, was given the task of coming up with fancy ceramic shoes to honor some of those who have made the society great. “They pretty much gave me carte blanche as to what I wanted to do,” said Birstein. “So, I’m making shoes, like miniature shoes, not just like tap shoes. They’re just kind of in my style,” she said, referring to her own internationally known approach to sculpture.

photo - Three of the 15 individually crafted awards – created by Suzy Birstein – that will be given out at the Aug. 28 gala event — Three of the 15 individually crafted awards – created by Suzy Birstein – that will be given out at the Aug. 28 gala event. *(photo from Suzy Birstein)*

Each of the clay shoes will bear a special feature. “They’ll all have something that looks like a tap on the bottom of them,” she said.

Rounding out the weekend is Tap It Out on Aug. 31, where, according to the schedule, “everyone in Vancouver is invited to experience the tap phenomena themselves … when more than 100 dancers take to Granville Street,” and a performance by four youth ensembles that night at the Rothstein Theatre.

The festival idea began in the late 1990s when Selfjord took a trip to Minneapolis on behalf of others in the Vancouver tap world “to see what we could do to help build community and engage the community at large, and we thought a festival” might be the idea.

In Minneapolis, she encountered “two of tap’s greatest legends,” the Nicholas Brothers. To some, they are the greatest tap dancers who ever lived. Born in 1914 and 1921, the two became famous as children and opened at the Cotton Club in 1932. They made films throughout the 1930s and ’40s that showed off the prowess of the dancing team, which combined tap with ballet and acrobatics.

Meeting the brothers, said Selfjord, “turned me right on my head. I thought, how am I sitting having a brandy with the Nicholas Brothers and talking to them and engaging them? I was just so motivated by having access to artists of that calibre, that just set the stage to come home and to do the festival, so we did.”

For tickets and more information, visit vantapdance.com.

Michael Groberman is a Vancouver freelance writer.

VanDusen hosts Sculptors’ Society exhibit

The art of Jesse Rubin, above, and Suzy Birstein will be among the work displayed at the summer exhibit of the Sculptors’ Society. (photo courtesy of Jesse Rubin)

From larger than life to the minute details of life, the artwork that will be on display at the 38th annual summer exhibit of the Sculptors’ Society of British Columbia will engage viewers with multiple aspects of life – and a lot of remarkable art.

The exhibition, which opens July 31 at VanDusen Botanical Garden, features more than 15 artists, including Jewish community members Suzy Birstein and Jesse Rubin. Looking at the difference in style and material of these two artists alone gives an idea of what diverse interest the exhibit will hold. And, as noted in the promotional material, “In some cases, this exhibition is one of the few chances you will have to see [sculptors’] work here in their home province.”

Birstein says in her artist statement for the exhibit, “As a child, I studied dance, Hollywood musicals, film noire and Rembrandt. As an adult, I’ve been seduced by the sensuality, spontaneity and intellectual activity of working with clay and color, and the essence of romance.

“I see my imagery as a marriage of my childhood and adult influences. The figure dominates my work as I endeavor to create archetypal icons … overlaid with the spirit of song and dance. I long to merge the power of Nefertiti with the spirit of Carmen Miranda.”

The magnitude of Birstein’s scope is evident in her colorful, playful sculptures that engender a larger-than-life feeling, even if they are “regular” size. Meanwhile,

Rubin operates at the other end of the spectrum, making detailed miniatures that, while also fun, are highly realistic. A self-taught artist who began sculpting 19 years ago, Rubin writes in his statement, “I try to express the inner emotion of each piece, and hopefully the viewer will get a feel for what the person or creature might actually be like.”

Nefertiti meets Miranda

photo - Suzy Birstein will be displayed at the Sculptors’ Society exhibit, July 31-Aug. 4 — Suzy Birstein’s art will be displayed at the Sculptors’ Society exhibit, July 31-Aug. 4.
*(photo courtesy of Suzy Birstein)*

While Birstein’s name will be familiar to many JI readers, the last interview the paper carried with her was in 2008 (though she wrote about her Mia Muse workshops in 2013). Since then, Birstein told the Independent, she has created the Tap to the Muse exhibition of life-size Muses, a film that features her dancing and her sculptures, as well as “Motion Pitchers” for the Academy Awards’ ‘Everyone Wins at the Oscars’ gift bags.

“During the summer of 2008, film again serendipitously influenced my life,” she said. “I saw Mama Mia, and it took me back to my early 20s, living in Greece. After crying my way through the film with nostalgia for Greece, I was determined to go to that island.”

The island was Skopelos and, as it happens, Birstein had been forwarded website information for an art centre there. “I wrote to the two American women who founded the centre and the Mia Muse biannual workshops were created. I have been there three times since 2009 and can’t wait to return August/September 2015!” she said.

With each trip to Skopelos comes “European art adventure – Turkey, France and Spain – with new artistic influences,” said Birstein. “After France, I fell in love with painting – spent two years teaching myself to paint with oils, creating portraits of my Muses.

“After Spain in 2013, I was inspired by Velázquez’s ‘Las Meninas’ painting. Although not in Madrid to experience the original, the influence of ‘Las Meninas’ was all over Spain – at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, in tourist art, contemporary art. My new sculptures are inspired by ‘Las Meninas’ but, as with all my art, there is never any one influence.

“India is the other place and culture that greatly fascinates me,” she added. “I am planning to create art during an artist residency in India and to explore the giant terracotta horses of Tamil Nadu. I have just begun a series of sculptures and paintings fusing these elements together.”

When asked about her desire to merge Nefertiti and Miranda, Birstein explained, “All my work is interplay of ancient and contemporary world cultures,” adding that she is “particularly fascinated with the concept of goddesses and cultural icons from Ancient Egypt to contemporary film.

“Queen Nefertiti symbolizes tradition, beauty, power, grace.

Carmen Miranda, wild, elaborate, ornate, fun, song ’n’ dance and with the hint of tragedy from personal life. The notion of transcending tragedy with absolute abandon to the joy of creativity, collaboration, performance and costume” is what draws her to both Nefertiti and Miranda.

“For me,” said Birstein, “life as art is one – my work, person, home, garden, teaching. I am mentored by art spirits and, through this, mentor my students.”

Birstein’s recent work includes 15 sculptures that will be given out as awards by the B.C. Tap Dance Society. “I have always loved tap and been inspired by Hollywood musicals – Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly,” she explained. “I went to the Tap Dance Festival 12 years ago created by VTDS and was hooked!”

She has been dancing with Vancouver Tap Dance Society ever since and is now part of Heart and Soul, their adult company.

“VTDS creates an amazing tap festival annually, on Labor Day Weekend, and this year they are having a silent auction on Aug. 28, giving 15 awards – five to tap artists, five to volunteers, five to patrons. They wanted to present meaningful/personalized awards from someone within their community and thought of me, especially because I also did this for the Academy Awards in 2008. I am creating very funky, colorful ceramic shoes.”

For Mia Muse 2015, Birstein will “have the opportunity to teach children in Skopelos at their film festival, SIFFY, followed by the Mia Muse ceramics workshop for adults. It is fabulous,” she said, to be able to “combine film/travel/art with mentoring children and adults.”

Molding his own reality

Born in Montreal, Rubin was five years old when he moved with his family to Vancouver in 1974. Here, they “opened the first bakery to sell bagels in Vancouver, the Bagel King, and, later, the Montreal Bagel Factory in Kitsilano.”

In an interview with the Independent, Rubin shared a bit about his journey to becoming an artist.

“As a kid, I enjoyed drawing, but, by the age of 13, I began playing the guitar. Music has always been a huge passion,” he said.

“I began sculpting on a whim when I was 26. I bought a pound of clay and made some whimsical cartoonish characters like goofy frogs. After a few months of getting used to working with clay in that manner, I began to sculpt parts of the human body as realistically as I could. The learning curve was fun, painful and, at times, slow. It took a few years to get the fundamentals down and, in retrospect, I could have benefited from some proper instruction. Years later, when I wanted to learn how to make silicone molds in order to reproduce my work, I turned to instructional DVDs for help.

“As far as the scale I work in,” he continued, “my father was a jeweler, so maybe it’s in the genes. I do know that I’m attracted to small-scale realistic sculpture. I like the idea of condensing all that visual information into a small space.”

Many different influences and approaches combine to form Rubin’s final creations. “First, I sculpt my piece out of Sculpey,” he explained. “It stays malleable until you bake it in the oven. (My wife does a little blessing before I bake each piece because it’s so fragile and, once it’s in the oven, it can twist, crack and, occasionally, develop small surface bubbles.) So, once I have my baked Sculpey model, I then use it to make a silicone mold. When I have the silicone mold, I reproduce the sculpture in resin. From there, I go on to the painting.”

Rubin’s art can be seen at deviantart.com, which is a communal website for artists: search for jesserubin. Birstein’s website is suzybirstein.com. For more information about the Sculptors’ Society or the exhibit, visit ssbc.ca or email [email protected]. The exhibit opens July 31, 5:30-7:30 p.m., and runs Aug. 1-4, 9 a.m.-9 p.m., at VanDusen. (Garden admission or membership is required.)