Artists to Fuel High Octane Creativity at Summer Camp

By Jan C. Nadav, Director of Education and Interpretation

My friend Cheryl masterminds huge conferences and is one of the most remarkable networkers I know. Her common practice is to bring someone to you and say in her chirpy Australian accent: “You MUST meet so and so, you share so much in common!” And off she goes, leaving you standing face to face with a stranger, both trying to ascertain why it is you were brought together. I fell victim to this practice several times, but in each instance her hunch was spot on. Once the connection was made it was clear why she made the introduction. I think of Cheryl when I play “matchmaker” with my guest teaching artists. I employed her well-honed tactic when I brought Adrian Molina together with Barth Quenzer to collaborate on a new camp for Creative Journeys at the Mizel Museum.

Adrian Molina

Adrian Molina, known as Molina Speaks, is a multi-talented art educator, poet, storyteller, and hip-hop emcee with a background in history and futurism. He has worked on several projects with the Mizel Museum, including Stories Matter, which this year received an award from the NEA, and The Power of Civic Engagement. He has co-produced and self-released a string of groundbreaking projects from hip hop/neo-soul fusion albums to spoken word/jazz collaborations. He has performed at hundreds of events nationwide and regularly visits schools and community organizations. He teaches at the university level in hip hop, media studies and is a lead instructor with Flobots.org.

Barth Quenzer

Barth Quenzer is equally ambitious and expansive as a creative. He is a visual art teacher at Brown International Academy in Denver, and the recent recipient of the 2012 Milken Educator Award, a kind of national “Oscars of teaching” for exceptional educators early in their careers. Barth is also an artist in his own right who draws on mathematics, literature and art history in his abstract work. His visual art ranges from teensy to massive and he currently shows at the Guerrilla Garden.

I knew that bringing these two into conversation about their common passion as art educators, and providing five days to work collaboratively with young people, would yield serious innovation and hoopla. They came up with a joint residency camp called High Octane CreativityLab: Big Lives, Big World, Big Ideas for incoming 3-6 graders. They requested the age group because they love this stage of life! Together they will explore the velocity and power of kids’ ideas and self-expression through a combination of visual art, writing and performance. Kids will engage in innovative projects that encourage them to dive into their creative process, think out-of-the-box, and explore their talents as writers and artists. The camp will culminate in an an experiential performance, designed by the campers, for family and friends.

I can’t wait to see what happens with this substantial, creative combustion of teaching artists and campers. I am sure I will be glad that I made the introduction and got out of their way!

The Life Cycle of a Great Idea with Barth and his students at Brown International: http://vimeo.com/59852298

Art Teacher Barth Quenzer of Denver, CO, winning the Milken Educator Award:

About Molina Speaks:  http://www.molinaspeaks.com/

Brown is Beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knnoV2hRRsY

Ecstatic Places

By Jan C. Nadav, Director of Education and Interpretation

Creative Journeys 2012
Photo by Dona Laurita

In late December, my beloved dog died of old age and, in response, I found myself reading everything I could about the canine-human connection. Amy Klingenberg, Mizel Museum’s genius database manager and in-house dog expert, suggested the author Jon Katz, who quickly became my favorite writer on the subject. In one of his books I came upon a rather obscure reference to an article by an environmental psychologist, Louise Chawla. Katz explains that this article was a significant key to understanding his own enduring connection to animals and nature throughout his life. Similarly, when I read this a light bulb went off in my head, illuminating my mission as Mizel Museum’s educational director, especially as it relates to Creative Journeys Summer Camps.

In an article called Ecstastic Places, Chawla writes about the ecstatic memories of childhood places, and “unpacks” the original meaning of the word ecstatic from the ancient Greeks. We typically use this word to describe overwhelming happiness or joyful excitement. However, the roots of the word (ek statis), are related to “standing apart” or “standing ourselves.”

Chawla uses the word to describe a penetrating memory or experience that affects a child who goes on to become a creative adult. Such memories are diverse, but often involve similar themes—a genuine fondness for a place where one has felt “comfortable, secure and well-loved,” a place that often, but not always, included nature “imbued with life.” These memories often offer a center of calm that lasts a lifetime. For Katz, in his otherwise troubled childhood, it was his tank of fish.

Creative Journeys 2012
Photo by Dona Laurita

Chawla’s idea is that such environments offer children a sense of vast potential and openness to discovery. They are a landscape that beacons and transforms; a territory that can belong solely to oneself. Chawla writes: “We do not need to consciously preserve these memories; we know that we can never lose them… they are like radioactive jewels buried within us, emitting energy across the years of our lives.”

The late Michael White, one of the founders of narrative therapy and a pivotal teacher/friend of mine, called these “sparkling moments”—lived memories that have a quality of timelessness because they are continually shaping our lives.

Many of us resonate with some version of “ecstatic place” from our childhoods when we experienced that internal location where our spirit was animated. My ecstatic place was an overnight camp devoted to musical theater and community-building. The experience has reverberated throughout my entire life. It’s not just the visceral memory of the Wisconsin landscape (I can still smell the grass), the music (I remember every lyric), my familial buddies (still some of my most beloved friends), or even the values imparted (an enduring focus on social justice). That would have been enough. It’s something more that lives within me at my core that continues to yield inspiration, even clarity.

I see now that the idea of “ecstatic place” is the optimistic impulse underlying our camp program: the desire to provide children with a safe environment guided by the creativity, commitment and skill of remarkable working artists in varying disciplines. We have seen that through careful programming that brings the expressive arts together with compelling content, we are offering children a place to tap deeply into their own ingenuity and the spaciousness of their own vision.

Creative Journeys 2012
Photo by Dona Laurita

As we head into our fourth season, it’s clear that our teaching artists also experience this concept of “ecstatic place” as a generative laboratory to explore innovations in art education. In fact, several camps have incubated new programs and initiatives at the museum. For example, Dona Laurita, a long-standing artist-in-residence in photography and mixed-media, went on to develop a program with the museum called Stories Matter, which was recently the recipient of a prestigious award from the National Endowment for the Arts. And, as a natural outgrowth of Monica and Tyler Aiello’s popular, scientifically-inspired art camps, they are now exploring teaching content that involves how different cultural groups have perceived the cosmos throughout history. This coming summer, most of our esteemed artists-in-residence are returning, along with several new artists. We can’t wait to see what their work seeds, both for the campers and for the future of the museum.

It seems sweeping to suggest that one or two weeks at a day camp with an inspiring adult mentor has the potential to radiate across a life. But you never know. We will push on as if it might.

Jumping Into a Lifetime Love of Reading

Sharona Grinsteiner, or “Miss Sharona” as we fondly refer to her, is passionate about early childhood education, children’s literature and Jewish culture. Of Yemenite descent, she was born and raised in Israel and brings a direct, creative approach to learning combined with abundant warmth. She has taught in many classrooms and camp settings all over

Sharona Grinsteiner

Denver with children of all ages. When it came time to develop a camp program for our youngest kids, ages three through five, we had an assignment I knew could integrate her special gifts.

Since in 2009, the Mizel Museum has been the recipient of a MazelTot® grant from the Rose Foundation. MazelTot® provides parents-to-be and families with children under age five with information and discounts on hundreds of activities offered by dozens of organizations in the Denver and Boulder areas. The grant presented the opportunity for the Mizel Museum to offer a camp that would be fully discounted for eligible families.   So, together with Sharona, we created Stories that Jump Off the Page! Now in its fourth year, the program incorporates a ground-breaking curriculum that uses award-winning storybooks from the PJ Library® collection and Israeli storybooks in Hebrew from Sharona’s own library (and heart).

Preschool-age campers are in a magical time, being pre-readers with an innate love of stories and the world of imagination. In Stories camp, kids are exposed to wonderful tales through participatory storytelling and projects that bring the books to life. Books such as Bagels for Benny and It Could Be Worse are explored through creative drama, music, dance and a myriad of art projects.

Stories That Jump Off the Page! has grown in popularity over the last several years and is now offered at Temple Sinai, Temple Emanuel and the Hebrew Educational Alliance (HEA). Parents appreciate the focused fun on books and often find that their children are reciting entire passages when they get home!

Based on the success of Stories camp, we have developed a new camp for the next developmental stage—early readers in kindergarten through second grade. Tall Tales, Big Kids uses book selections for “bigger kids,” again, from the PJ Library® and Sharona’s collection. Kids will delve into juicy books with twists and turns through drama, art-making and zany, hands-on fun. Campers will also get the chance to meet and speak with several local children’s book authors. Miss Sharona has a way of generating a “contagion of joy.” Her vehicle is always a good story and lots of love and acceptance. What a better way to cultivate a lifetime love of books and reading?

For more information see http://www.mazeltot.org and www.pjlibrary.org. For the 2013 schedule of Stories That Jump Off the Page! visit http://www.mizelmuseum.org/summer-camp-denver.

Science Inspires Art and Learning

by Jan C. Nadav
Director of Education and Interpretation

When I inherited the Mizel Museum camp program as the director of education, it was time for a conceptual overhaul—something entirely new and different. It was the fall of 2009 and the first person I approached was Monica Aiello. Our own kids were deep in dance rehearsals for a show at the time,  so we had hours to spend together. We got to talking about what it would be like to create a camp program that paired kids with professional teaching artists. Monica and her husband Tyler, a scientifically-influenced sculptor, had already begun to devote themselves, outside of their studio, to the field of education, using the arts as a tool to expose and engage students in scientific inquiry and content.

Monica inspired the idea that we could build an entire day camp program that would explore significant content with arts as the vehicle—a laboratory of experimentation and learning for campers and artists alike. I started to contact other working artists passionate about education, and Creative Journeys was born.

The Aiellos are a dynamic duo. I fondly call them “our Kennedys.” Monica frequently consults with noted planetary scientists in the development of her geologically-inspired works. This dialogue has greatly enriched her artistic process, allowing her to develop innovative painting techniques to interpret planetary surfaces. She and David Grinspoon, noted astronomer and curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, were recently listed among the top 100 “Colorado Creatives.” Tyler’s work draws from micromorphology within the organic world of biology, botany and chemistry using mathematics. His sculpture is prized by architects, designers and consultants around the world. One of his sculptures is at Red Rocks.

Ionian Sea II Detail by Monica Aiello

The flagship program was Our Place in Space, a five-day camp exploring the elements of art in combination with planetary science. In one week, kids learn about such things as the solar system, ancient cultures and their understanding of the cosmos, the history of space discovery, and the dynamics of gravity—all through hands-on experimentation and art-making. Many campers have remarked that they learned more science in five days than they do in an entire year of school. And all the while, having so much fun, they lose track of time.

After the success of Our Place in Space, the Aiellos followed their own rigorous inquiry in pedagogy and created additional camps. One led by Tyler, Across The Universe, focused on the cultural history of engineering, physics and architecture. This may seem textbook heavy, but instead, was completely hands-on, including projects like sun-dials, catapults, simple machines and rockets, to name a few.

This year, in addition to Our Place in Space, the Aiellos will offer a new camp that was developed after a residency at the Odyssey School in Denver, sponsored by the Mizel Museum and the SCFD. I invited the Aiellos to Odyssey to enhance a fourth and fifth grade course of study exploring the connection between the human body as a system and the planets as a solar system. Sounds complex, right? It was! However, I knew that Monica and Tyler would relish the assignment and immediately understand the possibilities of teaching both systems in tandem. It was a remarkable program that brought the content and connections to life.

In true Aiello form, they culled so much material for this assignment that they were prepared to do a five-day camp! And so, this summer we are offering, All Systems GO! The Cosmos and YOU, a look at the connections between space, life on earth and possibly beyond. Campers will explore humanity’s cultural and historical connections to the cosmos, the story of the earth and the solar system’s formation through the vehicle of art-making.

To learn more about their distinctive educational approach and body of work, take a look at a recent lecture by Monica at a NASA Educator’s Workshop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5O1juhrQ9I&list=PL1139A87D8FDD6221&index=3&feature=plpp_video

Thanks to the Aiellos for their enduring inspiration, which spawned an entire approach to day camps at the Mizel Museum, where the arts are the tool for igniting understanding about the world around us.

CLICK HERE to read about 2013 Creative Journeys Summer Camps, and watch our fun new video!

Learning About Israel’s Complex Issues Through the Arts

By Georgina Kolber, Curator

As I sit at my desk here at the Mizel Museum in Denver, tasked with writing about Art & Culture in Israel, the Museum’s first group tour of Israel, it’s difficult to imagine that the seemingly heavenly places we visited—the dusty hillside village of Umm al Fahem aglow in honey-toned washes of seemingly endless light, the gritty artist studios of downtown Tel Aviv buzzing with creative promise, the sublime yet hospitable desert city of Mitzpe Ramon—are now staring down the ugly face of war. It’s hard to imagine Israel in any other way than how our group experienced it this past October. My heart feels heavy, and I can only hope that by the time this article reaches you, the strife has ended. I speak on behalf of the Museum in wishing for an end to suffering for the people of Israel and Gaza.

Because I can’t possibly cover everything we experienced in the short yet intense ten days we spent in Israel, stay tuned for our April 2013 community Shabbat dinner, when I’ll try to cover the rest.

Starting from the very beginning, “fresh” from the airport and 14 hours of travel from Denver to Tel Aviv, we found ourselves at the entrance to the Nalaga’at Center, which sits right at the picturesque old port in Jaffa. The itinerary said that we would be “sculpting in the dark,” and with jetlag settling in, I was slightly worried about our ability to stay awake. We were greeted by a sweet young man who prompted us to hold hands and follow the leader into a pitch-black room where each of us was guided into a seat. A small clump of clay awaited each of us. The man asked us to imagine a scenario: a blind person suddenly gains his/her sight and each of us was to sculpt the thing we wanted that person to see when the world became visible. It was quite a task, but one that yielded a variety of results ranging from a mountain range to a bird to a starry sky. Once back in daylight, we viewed each others’ (and our own) visions in clay. It was a truly interesting way to get to know each other a little better.

The Gottesman Etching Center at Kibbutz Cabri also hosted us for a session on unleashing our inner artistry, with a two-hour printmaking workshop. To properly whet our creative juices, we first toured the center with its myriad of professional prints from notable artists such as Yehiel Shemi (whose estate and collection is also housed at Kibbutz Cabri) and Yigal Ozeri. Known as a venue for artists from Israel and abroad, the center is a goldmine of historical and contemporary prints. After a healthy dose of inspiration, each of us received the proper material: a square piece of plastic, an etching tool and a helping of black ink. Some of us were mildly scolded for our over-consumption of ink, which yields the same problem as applying more than a dab of Elmer’s glue to a craft project. Yet once again, our group rose to the task, each print an impressive piece, an expression from within, a small treasure that served to fuel our journey—both in Israel and back at home.

Chicken Soup Column: Israel’s Ritual Art Strengthens the Soul

By Penny Nisson, Jewish Education Coordinator

Members and friends of the Mizel Museum returned from our first group tour to Israel in late October. As one of the lucky travelers on this triumphant journey, I was fortunate to meet many stars of the Israeli art scene. While each encounter was chicken soup for the soul, I give you now a tasty tidbit of what we were served by the magnificent creative genius, David Moss. He opened his studio to us on a lovely golden evening in Jerusalem and sent us into a state of non-belief as we gasped at the breadth of his work. Lined up on his studio shelves are pizza boxes filled with ideas to be explored and created. The scope of his work is vast and spans into architecture and park design.

David Moss shows the Moss Haggadah

David Moss synthesizes tradition, beauty, learning, art, and creativity into engaging new forms of expression. He says the making of Jewish art can be a holy process. His works are authentic in Jewish tradition, exhaustively researched, and of the finest design, material, and workmanship. His organization, Kol HaOt in Israel, geared toward North American visitors, provides groups with meaningful hands-on participatory interactions that utilize the power of the arts to teach and inspire.

Years ago, it was Moss who took a plain ceremonial marriage contract (ketubah) and elevated it to an art form. His meticulous artistry infused individual characteristics of couples into each design. Thereafter, he took on a new challenge, a commission wherein he created the breathtaking Moss Haggadah. A haggadah is a text that tells the story of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt. It sets forth the order of the Passover seder (ritual feast), which begins the holiday of Passover. So outstanding was the finished haggadah that limited-edition copies were painstakingly reproduced for sale. The Moss Haggadah is such an awe-inspiring aesthetic interpretation of history, science, and symbolism that words fail to describe it. It must be seen and discussed, and it is, here in Denver. Years ago, Temple Emanuel Rabbi Emeritus Steven Foster had the brilliant foresight to acquire one. In recent years, the Mizel Museum and Temple Emanuel have joined together to show and discuss the haggadah led by Rabbi Foster. Because of its popularity, we are excited to present the program again, closely timed with the holiday of Passover. In addition, Rabbi Foster will briefly display another haggadah he purchased years ago, the Szyk Haggadah, created by another prolific genius and master of illumination, Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). Szyk was a tireless activist who campaigned for universal human dignity. Looking ahead to 2014, Arthur Szyk will be the focus when Mizel Museum brings to Denver the scholar, Irvin Unger, the foremost expert on Szyk’s life and work. Unger will highlight the importance of this highly acclaimed haggadah as another type of chicken soup for the soul.

To The Very End: Art & Culture Tour of Israel, Last Days

By Alyssa Kapnik

The trip is nearing its end, and it’s just as densely packed and rich now as it was in the beginning.  We’ve been together as a group for so many hours, packed and unpacked our bags so many times, that it’s begun to feel like we’ll live as nomads forever.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We begin on Tuesday with a trip to the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv, a three story building in a quiet neighborhood.  Curator Sergio Edelsztein greets us in the lobby, and gives a brief overview of the collection – photographs and video art on all three floors.  Video art has been big in Israel for decades,  although it took a dip in popularity in the 80s, and watching a swath of videos from Israeli artists is like looking at history through a kaleidoscope.  Beautiful and varied, with moments of clarity, truth and facts, and great color.

Israeli artist Dana Levy‘s “The Wake” loops in one small, dark room, and we watch, totally captivated.  When we first walked into the room, the film was halfway through, and all we saw were butterflies flitting on the screen.  But the film soon ended – it’s five minutes and three seconds long – and we watched it again, all the way through.  And then again.  The film is beautiful and deeply sad, unexpectedly sad for a film about butterflies with no explicit context or narration.

From the start, we see the delicate focus of the lens, the details and colors in each shot.  Levy’s films often involve science and nature, and “The Wake” was shot in the Invertebrate Zoology department of the Carnegie Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh.  The only words in the entire work are the title, which show only briefly at the beginning, and then echo throughout the length of it.  The film takes place in what feels like a hallway – it’s narrow and dimly lit.  Each wall is covered with cases of stunningly beautiful butterflies, pinned down, behind glass, in perfect lines.   Cases and cases, rows and rows of butterflies.  And slowly, the shots introduce living butterflies as well.  100 living butterflies are released into the room.  Levy keeps us close to individuals.  One, two, three, perched, waiting, absolutely still.  The living butterflies seem hesitant at first, and then, one by one, like children testing their legs, the insects move their wings – stiffly at first, and then fluidly, and lift off the glass and into the room.

It’s almost painful to watch the living butterflies flitting past the dead, and the words “The Wake” continue to haunt the story.  They compound the chilling music, the low, hazy lights and the narrow and confining space of the room.  The living butterflies are free, alive, flying, but they are still trapped in a narrow space.  Butterflies are a symbol for life, rebirth and transformation, and not surprisingly, like much of the art we’ve seen throughout Israel, Levy’s films are unapologetically political.  “The Wake” is a likely a reflection of Israel, but I’m not sure whose wake we’re attending.  That of the Israeli soldiers who’ve passed?  Or are the butterflies the Palestinians?  We watch four or five more short films before we leave the museum, and each one only adds to the growing list of questions we’ve been accumulating here in Israel.  Where should (and do) we stand, as Jews, as grateful and graciously received visitors, as tourists, as beneficiaries of a Jewish State, in relation to the Palestinians?

The question is complex and difficult, and we never feel fully satisfied when the subject arises and then inevitably falls to the back of the agenda again.

After an hour or two of shopping and wandering around the outdoor Carmel Market, eating Turkish salads and witnessing the tourism industry at its most basic, we come together again to meet with author Eshkol Nevo.

Nevo is named for his grandfather, Levi Eshkol, the third Prime Minister of Israel, and the author is every bit as confident and sophisticated as you might expect the grandson of a great leader to be.  Nevo speaks generously and humbly about his experience as a successful Israeli writer, and reads short passages from his book, Homesick, to both tell stories about his own life, and to give a broad sense of what it means to be Israeli.  The book takes place in the 1990s, but the themes radiate through contemporary Jewish life in Israel, and it turns out that the book is so relevant today that high schools throughout the entire country require students to take an exam about it.

Nevo is sensitive and deeply connected to the fictional characters in his book, which he thinks is absolutely necessary to writing a great novel.  He’s so connected to the six characters in Homesick that he said he once had a terrible feeling that there were important people missing during a birthday celebration for one of his daughters, and it turned out that the people who were missing were the characters from his book.  They’d become a part of him, and separate from him.  Distinctly human and deeply embedded in his life.

Nevo, like most of the artists we’ve met with thus far, is a fascinating representation of modern Israel.  He is attached to the State – could never move away, he said.  But he’s also painfully aware of the inherent difficult issues involved with being a Jew in Israel today.  In his novel he also deals with the question of what it means to be a Palestinian, as homesickness is part of the Palestinian narrative in Israel as well.

What exactly does “home” mean?  A piece of land designated to our forefathers?  Given by God?  The place where we grew up?  A place we’re still seeking and haven’t yet found?  How can we be homesick for a home we don’t know?  And when we think of home, is it where our parents live and lived, or where we go every night after work?  Is home a matter of choice, or circumstance?

Nevo doesn’t answer these questions in our hour together, but as soon as he begins talking, we begin questioning, and as soon as he leaves, we’re left wondering.  There’s no closure, only many more open doors.  Many more reasons to feel homesick for a home that may not exist.

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and we’re rushing now, on our way to view yet another form of artistic expression: the theater.  We’ve got matinee tickets for the Hebrew version of Cabaret, which the Israelis pronounce, “cab-a-rette.”  We barely wait at all before the lobby lights blink and we’re ushered to our seats in the middle of the biggest theater in Israel, the Cameri.  The play, based in Berlin in 1931, is a force of nature, dipping into questions of sexuality, new love, and the cruelty of man as the Nazis rise to power and the Germans begin to turn on the Jews.  It’s especially poignant to watch such a play in the middle of a Jewish city, at the heart of a Jewish state.  I’ve not spent much time in my life in public places surrounded by Jews, and it’s a powerful experience.  After the play, we meet with some of the creative minds behind the theater, including Eli Bijaoui, the young man who translated Cabaret into Hebrew.  His thought was to tell the story of Cabaret, but to add a bit of a twist considering the current state of Jews, and the current status of Israel and the Palestinians.  It’s not the Jews who are being persecuted in Israel right now.  It’s not the Jews who have been marginalized, or moved out of their homes.  Bijaoui’s translation begs the viewer to consider their role in the current situation, and question how the Palestinians are being treated here and now.

Bijaoui’s words hung in the air as we left the theater and went into the warm Tel Aviv night, to move on to our next activity: a reception at the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre, where we met world-famous dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and viewed his new collection of photographs.

How quickly we adjust to new artists, new venues, new experiences!

Wednesday morning, our last together in Israel, we visit Shenkar College for Engineering and Design, think broadly about the current state of art in Israel, and make small predictions for the future.  This is the second accredited art college in Israel, and it’s growing steadily in reputation and importance.

We move from a brand new institution to a well-established one.  We climb to the top floor of an old warehouse building in Tel Aviv, the studio of Zvi Lachman, esteemed sculptor, print-maker and pastel painter.  He brings out giant pastels, impressionist paintings involving his wife, his mother, and other unnamed women, along with a Van Gogh-inspired self-portrait.  He tells us about his techniques, his history, and what he wants from his works.  He’s always got multiple projects going at the same time, and is often making changes to his paintings, even after he’s added fixative and even after he’s shown them to visitors.  A painting can transform almost entirely from its inception until he finally sets it behind glass.  Lachman is a treat to be around – he’s gentle and unassuming, but confident and sure.  He knows his place in Israeli art.  We listen quietly, and imagine ourselves bringing his works into our homes, even if only through memories.

We’ve visited these last ten days with a large number and wide variety of impressive artists, all of whom play with and manipulate concepts and language, thought and narrative, materials and emotions.  It’s disappointing to realize that after we leave, we’ll go back to the simplicity of our lives, away from this great and growing community of Israeli artists.  We are in a distinctly beautiful and unique world when traveling together here in the Promised Land.  We have tour guides to give context, and artists to lift us up out of the ordinary.  To raise our consciousness beyond history and politics and into the realm of color and imagination.  We’re deeply happy here, knowing what we now know.

Our last dinner is in the beautiful, large home of Israeli art collector Serge Tiroche.  We walk through the main floor of the house, taking in all of the art hanging on the walls, and then to large balcony overlooking the Port of Jaffa.  It’s difficult to believe that we’ll be leaving this all behind, going back to our lives on the other side of the planet.  We understand now the deep importance of supporting a steady stream of Israeli artists, and we want to bring everyone we know back to Israel to see for themselves.  The Israeli art scene is an immense and growing sea of talent and creativity, and we’re grateful to have submerged ourselves, if only for ten days.  We board the plane in Israel feeling that we’ve been a part of something important, here and now, and a we go to the US with a sense of comfort knowing that we’ll be back someday soon.

Alyssa Kapnik also writes her own blog, takes photographs, and works for public radio in San Francisco!  What a life!

The Art of Life: Art & Culture Tour of Israel, Days 6 & 7

By Alyssa Kapnik

We begin our Monday with a trip to the Negev Museum of Art in Be’er Sheva.  Another former Arab city, Be’er Sheva is heavily populated with Bedouins and Palestinians, and for the first time on the tour, I see women clothed in full burqas.  It’s hot outside.  I can’t imagine walking around fully covered like they are.  It’s not just that it’s hot and they’re covered – absolutely covered – in black fabric.  It’s that they look transformed under all that cover.  They have no figure, no separate identity as such.  This is likely part of the design of the burqa, but for days now, long days, speaking to painters and sculptors, videographers and even the installation artists, we’ve been talking and hearing about figures, individuals.

Sometimes in a work of art, the absence of a figure or an individual makes a greater impact than the presence of one.

The Negev Museum of Art is in a building that was constructed in 1906 for the Turkish Governor during the Ottoman reign of Israel.  The facade of the building is beautiful and classic – arches and Jerusalem stone.  But the inside of the building was remodeled in 2004, and the changes leave the museum in the unusual and beautiful space between historic and modern, ancient and new.

Artist Sigalit Landau meets us in front the museum to talk to us about each piece in her one-woman show.  The entire art museum has been filled with her art, and we listen, following her from room to room, captivated, for hours.  We begin with “The Sculpture Shelter,” a five-meter tall bronze cast of the entrance and staircase into a public Tel Aviv bomb shelter.  Landau has the sculpture set up on a giant cement platform on the front lawn of the museum, and it stands like a stairway to nowhere.  The way she’s constructed it, open at both the bottom and top of the staircase, and because it sits above ground, we are all at once witnessing the shelter as outsiders, and in a sense, seeing out into the world from inside the bomb shelter.  From the bottom of the bronze staircase, we look out to the bright blue sky.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Landau’s been seriously affected by living in a war zone her whole life, and not only does her work reflect it, but she speaks about it openly as she walks us through the exhibit.  She doesn’t believe women should be required to serve in the army, especially as it is now, where Israeli women soldiers have to fight to protect men who won’t serve in the army.  “I am a feminist,” she says, by way of reassurance.  It seems a bit silly that she would have to tell us this explicitly, considering the subject of much of her work.  Video art and bronze sculptures of the Three Graces, women suffering and bare, stretched and suspended in time.  And then there’s the reconstruction installation on the top floor of the museum: a 1950s Israeli kitchen, where the stove burners have been replaced with speakers playing four different voices of four different women in Landau’s life.  It’s impossible not to believe that the artist is a true feminist.  Her work is an orchestral celebration of women.

But these two concepts appear to contradict one another.  How can a modern feminist believe that women should be exempt from military service and men not?  Why shouldn’t women have an equal obligation to fight?  It seems less an intellectual argument for Landau than an emotional one.  In a country where war is a matter of fact, a matter of everyday life, this is not an uncommon discussion.  Landau served in the Israeli army decades ago, but the pain of fighting, of carrying a machine gun, of the added fear, responsibilities and stress, still deeply move the artist, and I am inclined to agree with her.  Not because I think women require extra dispensation, and not that I necessarily believe that women are always more sensitive than men, but because I can’t imagine living with a requirement to fight.  I can’t imagine carrying a gun, the added fear, responsibilities and stress.

We discussed this as a group as we drove away from the Negev Museum of Art and Sigalit Landau, and came to no sort of conclusion.  Just the muddy confusion of varying opinions and moral obscurity.

Landau’s work isn’t only focused on women, but all of her work seems political in one way or another.   Even the apparently innocuous bicycle covered in two months worth of salt from the Dead Sea is a precursor to a future project she wants to do with building a Dead Sea salt-covered bridge from Israel to Jordan.  Where does she want to build the bridge?  She doesn’t know, but laughs telling us, “Somewhere good.”  Somewhere where it will make an impact.  She doesn’t waste her time, or that of her staff – she’s got ten salaries to pay.

The reality of the war is often overwhelming.  So many of the artists speak about it through their work, and then we pass checkpoints, officer training camps, groups of young soldiers waiting for the bus, individuals in civilian clothing with M16s casually slung over their shoulders.  After Be’er Sheva, we were scheduled to visit Sderot, the city closest – less than a mile away – to the Gaza Strip, and often the target of the Qassam rockets.  But Monday morning, dozens of rockets were fired at Sderot, and so, with heavy hearts, we turned back to Tel Aviv.

Instead we visited the Diaspora Museum, and went back to the hotel for a bit of rest before dinner and a workshop in Gaga, an Israeli modern dance technique.

Tel Aviv is truly a beautiful city, and difficult to pin down.  Public art is nearly ubiquitous, some apparently planned and some not, covering fences, buildings, walls. An entire block, and the cars parked in the street, all covered in a continuous mural.  Sculptures and fountains, flags and installations.

It seems to us, in our second week of exploring Israel artist by artist that the country has been enveloped by paint.  By copper plates and printing presses, by sculpting clay and dance routines.  It seems to us that art is politics and economics, art is land and justice.  And it’s a beautiful thing to see our world through such a scope.

Alyssa Kapnik also writes her own blog, takes photographs, and works for public radio in San Francisco!  What a life!

Moving South: the Art & Culture Tour of Israel Continues…

By Alyssa Kapnik

Saturday we slept in.  We awoke to the same view we’d left the night before, but even on the second day, a panoramic look at the Old City of Jerusalem manages to overwhelm.  Breakfast on the terrace, joined by giant crows with dull gray bellies, and it feels a bit like we’re sitting on a movie set.  Mandates insure that every building constructed in Jerusalem be made strictly out of Jerusalem stone—an off-white-ish limestone—glass and metal.  The result is positively majestic.

The day begins with a trip to the Israel Museum, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a number of other ancient texts.  The texts are beautiful, and it’s the first time we’re doing something that feels less about the art and more about the pure history of this place.  These thousands of years old writings are delightfully imperfect.  A forgotten sentence inserted here, misplaced words there, squeezed between the lines.

We visit the archaeological wing of the museum, with pots and jewels of ancient Jews, arrows and silver amulets.  A room filled with bridal costumes of Jews around the world: gold necklaces, bracelets, giant earrings, and intricately woven, bright and colorful draping fabrics.  And then cut to the Modern Art Wing, where paintings and installations sit side by side with photographs of Israeli soldiers.  A constant in daily life here.

In the evening we take a walking tour through thousands of years of the Old City, and we’re left standing at the studio doorstep of renowned artist, David Moss.  His works are so thought-filled, so obsessive, so perfectly rendered, that through his presentation, we can’t help ourselves: we constantly let go sighs of disbelief, gasps, oohs and ahs.  I let a few tears drop to my lap as he discusses the now-famous Moss Hagadah.  And within his other works, there is such variety of styles, traditional to modern, each work delicate and resilient at once.

Our Sunday morning is spent bussing around Jerusalem from artist to artist, beginning with the deceptively simple, color-filled and joyful works of Moroccan-Israeli Shai Azoulay.  Much of Azoulay’s work seems to come directly out of a Moroccan dreamscape – the rich and pale desert blues, reds and yellows, donkeys and exotic birds, and patterned rugs and tapestries lofted, floating through his scenes.  His parents are from Morocco, but not the artist.  Azoulay is Israeli – as Israeli as anyone else here – which is to say, an immigrant.  Of an immigrant family.  The country is a collection of immigrants, and the result is a strange combination of knowing that no one truly belongs here, and at the same time, feeling that perhaps everyone belongs here equally.

Azoulay prods us on in our search to understand his works, and laughs joyfully listening to our interpretations and impressions.  The pieces tell great narratives and personal histories, and he often winds up the subject of his own work.  He’s Gulliver, held prisoner by the droplets of paint that surround him in his studio.  He’s the conductor of a strange and unruly orchestra without any musical instruments.  He is the recurring subject in his paintings until he’s not.  And then, in the few where he’s not around, the absence is significant.  The paintings are almost sadder.  Lonely.

Azoulay surrounds us with his works, bringing out three, five, six, eight, ten of his giant paintings, six feet tall, seven feet wide.  With each one, we are caught off guard.  The more he brings out, the more we are immersed in his strange and colorful world.  The more we want to burrow deeper inside.  What at first appeared almost simple is now breathtaking and a bit addictive.  We only want more.

We visit next the studio next door.  One door over, and an entire world of difference.  Though the neighboring artists are dear friends, Etti Abergel is more reserved than Azoulay.  She’s quiet, gentle and vulnerable.  The world inside her is one of tumult, self-doubt and a lovely, quiet confidence.  Her pain is at once entirely exposed, and also protected.

Abergel teaches to subsidize her art.  She doesn’t know another way, she says.  But her works, these apparent tangles of white plaster, rope and common objects: pens, plastic whistles, plates and bowls, are installed in galleries and museums around the country.  Her small studio doesn’t accommodate any complete works, but she tries to describe what these pieces all around us in her studio, these fragments of a larger story, will look like.  I didn’t fully grasp the work until we saw her installations in the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv.  The art is indescribable.  Emotional and raw.

Finally we arrive at our last art studio of the day.  The second floor of a stunning house in the Baka neighborhood in Jerusalem, home to prolific American-Israeli artist, Andi Arnovitz.  We have to walk to get there – the old roads are too narrow to accommodate the tour bus.  Once a deserted and dilapidated Arab neighborhood, Baka was taken over by Jews in 1948, and has since come to represent a population of well to do, mostly observant Jews.

Arnovitz is careful with her studio.  It’s so ordered and neat – one artwork laid neatly and orderly in a drawer, others hanging in the window, and books.  Hundreds of books line opposite walls.  She is very obviously a graphic designer, and the entire room feels balanced in color, shapes and sizes of objects and artworks.  She’s fervently political, and nearly every work she shows us has a message.  A translucent wedding dress with stones sewn into the skirt.  A bomber vest covered not with metal flecks, like a suicide bomber might do, but with thousands of tiny rolled scrolls of prayer books, each sewn carefully and lovingly together with white string.  Arnovitz’s works all have an element of the obsessive compulsive: even the strings hanging off the garments are perfectly placed.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We leave the artists’ studios, and are buzzing from the morning.  It’s a bit difficult trying to unpack all of what we saw and learned.  The variety and similarities, the intensity of listening to one brilliant person after another speak about matters that are so close to their hearts.  So impossibly personal and important.  We’re back to the bus, back to our seats, back to the highways.  This time we’re stopping for some light recreation, to take a quick dip in the Dead Sea.  The water is so dense with salt that almost nothing – with the exception of bacteria and microbial fungi – can live inside it.  No seaweed.  No fish.  We walk into the water, and start laughing uncontrollably.  It’s nearly impossible to do anything in the water except float.  We shift and roll, as Georgina said, like beach balls.  We have so little control over our bodies, and we relinquish ourselves to the sea.  It feels good to let the water hold us for even a short period of time.

Back on the bus, it’s nighttime again.  We’re now officially in the Negev Desert, and as we drive along the darkened highway, we look out onto almost nothing.  Scatterings of yellow lights, open spaces, cars passing.  After dinner we dance with the Adama Dance Company, and drift off to sleep in a landscape that holds the memories of our ancestors.

Alyssa Kapnik also writes her own blog, takes photographs, and works for public radio in San Francisco!  What a life!

Arriving Home: Days 3 and 4 of Art & Culture Tour of Israel

By Alyssa Kapnik

Our third day began in Haifa, fresh on the bus at 8:30 in the morning.  There’s a certain amount of adrenaline associated with our mornings – we’re not staying in most of these places for more than ten or twelve hours, so our suitcases are tightly packed (and growing tighter), and we leave our sunglasses and water bottles on the bus at night.  We’re nomadic, and it almost feels like we’ll be this way forever.

Breakfasts are early in the morning, but they’re magnificent: cappuccinos, thick Israeli yogurt, nuts, melon slices and gourmet cheese with artisan breads.  We’ve also come to expect all kinds of fish, which seems almost punishing so early in the morning, but as I graze the buffet tables, I make room for the older Jewish men behind me with plates filled with pickled herring and lox, and think, To each his own.  We’re in Israel – anything goes.  And then I shamelessly move on to the entire table covered with freshly baked croissants and sweet breads.  Breakfast dessert seems almost compulsory by Day 3.

Thursday morning we’re on our way to our first kibbutz of the trip.  Historically, kibbutzim are collective communities, traditionally based in agriculture.  I’d never been to a kibbutz before, but always imagined an open field, tall grasses and children running without socks or shoes.  I imagined the communist ideals to play out in some strikingly obvious and plainly visible way: the entire settlement playing some massive game of catch, where there are no teams, just camaraderie and engagement.  Instead, the kibbutzim turn out to be large areas of land with buildings and homes.  Same as any other community.  Steve, our lovely tour guide, gives us the broad strokes: there are few kibbutzim nowadays that function under the communist structures they came to represent.  They all started that way, sure, and their ideals formed a great deal of the Israeli identity.  But many of the kibbutzim started businesses – toy and weapon factories, restaurants, beach resorts, artist studios and museums – and capitalism took hold.  Arguably the most successful kibbutz in Israel received in a two billion dollar military contract with a foreign army, producing different forms of plastics.  We passed the kibbutz on the road, and it looked absolutely bleak.  The home of a great factory.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We drive to Kibbutz Cabri, home to a few different notable Israeli artists in the last seventy years, including Yehiel Shemi, a prolific abstract sculptor, and enter the Gottesman Etching Center for a quick and thorough lesson in printmaking.  This is one of the few times on the trip where we’ve been given free reign over our materials.  The instructions are quite open: draw, carve, paint, press.  It’s immediately obvious just how difficult and apparently wild the medium is.  Lines are not always clear: they bleed, blossom, spread.  Circles are nearly impossible.  We’re not in control.  We do our best, giggling and deferring to each other for best practices and confirmation on the order of operations.  But we take our charge seriously, too.  Move the paint thusly, in all directions, but be careful not to go to the edges.  Wipe thoroughly with the talisman, press harder now.  We’re proud of ourselves for producing something, and it’s surprisingly gratifying to watch our works come out of the professional press.

We eat a sumptuous meal at a restaurant in the kibbutz: multiple courses, tapas and Carpaccio, soups and salads, and then climb back into the bus, ready to continue north.

The next stop is incredibly brief, a walk through the narrow, winding streets of Tzvat, a world-famous city known as the birthplace of Jewish mysticism, and home to a small artist colony, and we stop into David Friedman’s studio and shop for a succinct and thorough discussion on the content and background of his intricate, powerful, Kabbalah-infused works.  We stay the night at the relaxing and beautiful Hotel Spa Mizpe Hayamim, which boasts organic gardens and olive branch massages, a full dinner spread and every kind of tea.

It’s late Friday morning, and the excitement of Shabbat is buzzing through the group.  We know we’re on our way to Jerusalem, and that feels like a great milestone.  But we’re pretty far up north, and the drive down through the Jordan Valley is a dry, dusty trip through the very hottest part of Israel.  We drive for hours along the Jordanian border, watching a winding dirt road parallel us about 200 feet away, on the Israel side of a simple metal fence with barbed wire.  Steve says he used to patrol these borders when he was a young soldier, and the job consisted largely of checking footprints on the dirt roads to make sure no one had illegally crossed into Israel.

We ask Steve multiple times to clarify for us.  So that, right on the other side of this fence, is Jordan?  The country?  Those hills, those dusty, rocky fields, are Jordan?  At one point we can almost see Syria, too, and we’re mystified.  This part of the world feels incredibly foreign, even here, looking out into an expanse of Middle East.  We touch our feet into the Sea of Galilee, eat falafel at a roadside shop, and watch Palestinian cars drive by with green license plates, and Israeli cars drive by with yellow license plates.  We pass camels, Bedouin encampments, military checkpoints, and it’s still unreal that we’re actually here.

Museum of Art, Ein Harod is the last art stop on our road to Jerusalem, and I admit I was skeptical when we got off the bus.  The museum is on another kibbutz, a white cement building with little architectural character on the outside.   But inside was an entirely different story.  Lofted ceilings, natural light, multiple displays laid out across multiple levels.  One of the curators of the feminist art collection, Dvora Liss, led us through the exhibit, and with each explanation, she nearly ran herself out of breath.  I found myself clutching my heart with each description.  All of the artists in the show are observant Jewish women, and the works and installations speak to layers and depths of Judaism I didn’t think a Jewish museum could touch.  Much of the works are about respectfully questioning, prodding and poking at different biblical strictures and guides.  I wanted to wear the coat made of torn and resewn Ketubot for undissolved marriages.  I wanted to live in the tunnel of small paper clay scrolls showing the balances and imbalances between Torah and Real Life.  I wanted to watch on loop the film of an orthodox woman getting ready to dip into the Mikvah, the ritual Jewish bath, and then getting ready again for the world after she’d dipped.

We’re back on the long hot road to Jerusalem, and the bus quiets down for stretches at a time.  We’re all a little tired, and anxious to arrive in the city before sunset, anxious to settle into our fourth hotel on our fourth night.  This time we’ll be staying put for two nights straight.  This time we’ll be having dinner with families and friends.  Climbing slowly up a remarkably steep hill, we finally cross into Jerusalem.  The low sun is already coloring the white limestone of the city a glowing, hazy yellow, and each time we go under a bridge or through a tunnel, we come out into another picturesque expanse of the ancient city.

It no longer feels so foreign to be in Israel.  Somehow Jerusalem feels not only like a Middle Eastern city, not only like the home of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but also, in a sense, like home.  I have this strange and almost indescribable sense of ownership over the city.  Without totally understanding it, or having any way to defend it, I feel as though I somehow deserve to be here.   A night with dear friends over Shabbat dinner confirms the feeling, and walking back to the hotel, across miles of conspicuously car-free streets, passing other Jews walking home from other friends’ Shabbat dinner tables, I feel totally relaxed and utterly invigorated.  Tomorrow we’ll go back to seeing art, but for tonight, I am exhausted.  Another day has come and gone, and our trip is nearly halfway done.

Alyssa Kapnik also writes her own blog, takes photographs, and works for public radio in San Francisco!  What a life!