A Project of the Milwaukee Jewish Labratory

Wandering

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WANDERING: A PROJECT OF THE MILWAUKEE JEWISH ARTIST LABORATORY

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Contents

Introduction..............................8Foreward.................................11Analysis..................................13Shirah Apple...........................18Natanya Blanck......................20Bonita Bruch...........................22Richard Edelman....................24Judith Harway.........................28Annette Hirsh.........................32Jody Hirsh..............................36Philip Katz..............................40Barbara Kohl-Spiro................42Benno Rothschild...................44Jim Seder................................46Maida Silverman....................48Marc Tasman..........................52Clarice Zucker........................56The Artists..............................63Special Thanks.......................71

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WANDERING: A PROJECT OF THE MILWAUKEE JEWISH ARTIST LABORATORY

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In 2010, the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center was the recipient of a generous grant from the Covenant Foundation, a national foundation with headquarters in New York City. The grant was for a “Jewish Artists’ Laboratory of the Upper Midwest.” It was a unique idea: three Jewish Communities, Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis, would create an ongoing artists’ lab which would study together on a common theme, and would produce works of art related to the theme. This pilot year in which the first of the labs was created in Milwaukee will be the model for the labs emerging for the next two years in Madison at Hillel, the Jewish Student Center at UW Madison, and Minneapolis at the Sabes JCC.

The project in Milwaukee was facilitated by Jody Hirsh, the JCC director of Judaic Education, and Natanya Blanck, Associate Professor of Art History at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. It was a yearlong exploration. On the one hand, it was an exploration of the theme of “Wandering.” The artists met semi-monthly and studied the theme of wandering as it has appeared in Jewish life: Bible, Jewish Law, Jewish History, Anti-Semitism and Expulsion, Family History, Jewish Immigration, Personal Journeys, Spiritual Journeys, Homelessness and Poverty, and so much more. On the other hand, we have examined ourselves as artists and as Jews. We have shared our work. We have looked at ourselves as part of the Jewish world and as part of the larger world.

The project has surpassed our expectations. The group of 14 artists has become a close knit community. Each artist has pushed herself/himself in unexpected ways. And we have created our own wandering works of art which resulted in the exhibit you see before you. The goal of the Laboratory has been to foster community, to support each other as artists, to create new work, and to expose you, the public, to the Power of Art within a Jewish context. We think we have been a huge success.

We are especially grateful to Ryan Hainey for taking our 31 very diverse offerings and de-signing a spectacular exhibit.

The Milwaukee Jewish Artists’ Laboratory has been the recipient of the 2012 JCC Association Zahav Award for Excellence in Jewish Impact.

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JODY’S COMMENTARY

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NATANYA’S ART HISTORY

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The Artwork

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Shirah Apple I consider my work to be visual midrash—commentary—that reflects the American Jewish experience. Over the past ten years I have worked primarily with fibers....yarn, thread, tsitsit, the gossamer strings produced by hot glue...and natural materials including spices and natural dyes. I have experimented with sound and performance but find great satisfaction in working with my hands and experiencing the material world through artistic practice. The materials are important to whatever emotion or message I am attempting to convey and are usually overtly connected to Jewish text or tradition.

This small, simple drypoint print represents wandering on several levels. First, it was never intended to be exhibited...I made it as a holiday gift for friends and family, a practice I hope to continue. I also made it, in many ways, for my own pleasure of the process of art-making. There are several iterations since I changed the plate a few times as I worked, adding lines, deepening some, burnishing out scratches. I have only the most basic understanding of printmaking, so this was truly a learning experience as well. And finally, the eye in the pomegranate is one manifestation of the influence of local artists with a surrealist bent which has been creeping into my work and my imagination. The Jewish foundation is still there but it is shifting and changing. I am not certain of the next steps but I look forward to the journey!

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Matana Katana (Small Gift) Series #1 PomeranateDrypoint Print

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Natanya Blanck My grandfather passed away last week. I flew to Mexico City to be with my family. Since 1970, two years after I was born, he and my grandmother had lived in the first building my father built as an independent architect. As kids we used to meet there after school every Friday. All of our friends spent their afternoons and evenings together, but we had to go to the grandparents’ for la comida (the main Mexican meal, which at the Grynberg’s took place at 3:30 sharp). There are wandering markets in Mexico. They are called Mercados Sobre Ruedas (Markets on Wheels). The market is set up in a different area of the city every day of the week; the vendors put up their stalls made up of four metal-posts joint with chicken wire on which they display their merchandise held up by clothespins. Then at the end of the day they dismantle everything and place it on buses to start over on a different spot the next morning. The market on wheels has been setting up in the corner of my grandparents’ building every Friday since I can remember. I went there many times growing up: before the meal with Maria –my grandparents’ housemaid- to buy tortillas that we liked to dip in the chicken-matzo ball soup; or for fruit or candy with my mother after eating.Last week after the Shiva had ended, my sister and I rode the slow 1970’s elevator down to the street and walked the half-block to the market. We have both lived in the United States for over a decade. In my case, it has actually been over two decades: half my life. The market is no longer a place I go to often or take for granted; it is a place of wonder where colors, smells, and sounds combine to let me know that I am a wanderer through its rows of make-shift stalls and good-natured vendors who are, if a bit surprised, happy to comply when I ask them if I can take their picture. The vegetable vendors complain I did not go earlier when there was more merchandise displayed, as the bread and sausage woman finds the whole thing funny and laughs as she counts change for the piece of bread we just bought. The young man is mentally challenged, yet makes the most exquisite miniature figures of movie and TV characters. The toy sales person needs some convincing to pose with his wares: “Take the toys by themselves,” he says, “I’m too ugly,” while the watch seller looks directly at the camera wearing a felt fedora like some Mexican Sinatra. These are the people who remind me that I am myself now a wanderer, both in reality, as I am there only on the occasion of my grandfathers’ passing, and in spirit, as they and their market speak to me of a time, and a beloved grandfather, now gone.

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Bonita Bruch

I am a wanderer. When Jody Hirsh posted a notice in the Jewish Chronicle about the creation of a new Jewish Artists' program one year ago, I ambled into the JCC to check it out. During bi-monthly meetings, I discovered I was an artist who is Jewish, not a Jewish artist.  The Art Lab meetings and members have helped me evolve into being able to call myself a Jewish artist.

I chose to create Story of Naomi, Ruth but not Orpah because the Story of Ruth is read during Shavuos in most synagogues and temples and it is also a story about wandering. My drawing tries to capture the moment when Naomi and Ruth watch Orpah leave them to re-turn to her family.  [After the death of her two sons, Naomi told Ruth and Orpah, her daughter-in-laws, to leave her because she returning to Jerusalem.  Orpah agreed.  Ruth refused, telling Naomi..."Wherever you go, I will go"....and "Your people will be my people.

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Story Of Naomi And Ruth But Not OrpahConte Crayon

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Richard Edelman These sculptures in response to the theme of Wandering are cast in bronze. The sculptural journey begins with a vision of ABRAHAM WHO BINDS at the moment he is asked to bind his son. ISAAC THE BOUND is rendered burdened with wood at the moment he asks, “Where is the lamb for the burnt-offering?” The RAM IN THE THICKET also wishes to live. The SHOFARS are duplicate castings of horns of the RAM IN THE THICKET. What lights the way and what do we seek when we Wander? Perhaps the interpretative sculptures LET THERE BE LIGHT and RUACH ELOHIM HOVERED OVER THE FACE OF THE DEEP help provide an answer.

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Issac, The BoundBronze

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Abraham, The One Who Binds

Bronze

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Ram In The Thicket

Bronze

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Judith Harway

Memento Mori

Artist Book

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Judith Harway Three weeks to the day after moving my mother into a memory care facility, I awoke to the telephone ringing before dawn: she had fallen, hit her head, and been admitted to a nearby hospital. That call came nowhere near the start of my mother’s lengthy journey through the looking-glass world of Alzheimer’s, but it marked the start of her descent into a hell so particular and undeserved that her death five weeks later came almost as a relief.

The text presented here is excerpted from “Balloons for Invisible Children: Drifting with my Mother on the Crosswinds of Dementia,” a memoir of caring for my mother through those final weeks of her life, and of learning how to outlive her. The form is intentionally digressive – braiding together passages of narrative, commentary, reflection, poetry, science, and reminiscence – to mirror the impossible complexities of caregiving for a loved one with end-stage dementia. As the soul seems to rehearse its inevitable departure from the body, the foundations of identity, relationship, and memory shift and waver. And yet, there are redemptive aspects to this instability: muddling through crises, making endless mistakes, reaching life and death decisions with inadequate information and a whopping sleep deficit, forgiveness sneaks into the heart and it grows easier and easier to say aloud, “I love you.”

My mother herself wrote volumes of stories for her grandchildren chronicling much of her extraordinary life. The story I am left to tell is of her achingly commonplace death. I am especially grateful to Madison-based artist Sylvie Armstrong, who designed and created this artists’ book with sensitivity to the legacies of women’s work and visual references to my mother’s whimsical embroidery patterns. I could not ask for a finer collaborator and daughter.

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Annette Hirsh Though I enjoy making whimsical jewelry and sculpture, my abiding passion for many years has been the creating of Jewish Ceremonial objects, working in a variety of non-ferrous metals: silver, gold, copper, brass, bronze, or pewter. I cast the smaller pieces in my home studio employing the lost-wax process and using a dental centrifuge. However, the two pieces in this exhibit were foundry-cast with the originals having made in wax.

You will note that the two silver pieces in the exhibit each have a little girl. They happen to be sisters. One, in the pendant has climbed a tree. And the other is running wildly with her flag in front of the house (mezuzah).. Unfortunately in their daily wanderings they do get into mis-chief……….but are much loved all the same.

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Springtime Wandering

Silver

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AdventureSilver

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Jody Hirsh

HONIA Talmudic Tale in One Act

The story of “Honi the Circle Drawer” is a classic Talmudic tale about a First Century sage who was renowned as a miracle worker. According to the Talmud,

What did Honi do? He drew a circle on the ground and stood within it, and called out before God, “Master of the Universe! Your children have turned to me to pray for rain, because I am considered by them to be a member of your household who can acquire your mercy and bring an end to this drought. Therefore, I swear by Your great Name that I will not move out of this circle until you have mercy on your children. Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 23a

My Honi is, perhaps, less renowned, but just might be more human. His disillusionment in the world and his struggle with exile and loss is, at once, a story of personal wandering, a metaphor for Jewish History, and an acknowledgment of the human condition.

A note: The idea of including a play in what is essentially an art exhibit is a daunting one. I have, therefore, attempted to portray the opening scene of my play as a “graphic novel.” Much thanks to Artists’ Lab co-facilitator Natanya Blanck for being the daughter to my own impersonation of Honi.

For the full script, scan the QR code

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Phillip Katz In order to know something one must have an understanding of its opposite. The theme of ‘Wandering’ can only is addressed by understanding the opposite of wandering. If wandering is defined as being; circuitous, deviating, indirect, or roundabout its opposite might be; settled, focused, consistent, or straightforward. ‘Light’ can only be understood in reference to ‘darkness’, ‘wandering’ can only be understood in reference to ‘focus’. The Star of David is two intersecting triangles of opposing directions, the upward pointing triangle representing ‘heaven’ and the downward pointing triangle representing ‘earth’. The Star of David represents a union of opposite worlds. The meaning and symbolism of the Star of David is similar to the message of the yin-yang symbol, a union and synergy of opposites. The definition of sacred space is broad and can include both; the ‘physical’ such as architecture or space as well as the ‘ethereal’ such as time and events. The intent of this project titled ‘Sacred Spaces: Wandering/Focus 5772.1’ is to portray both the ‘wanderings’ as well as the ’focus’ of my travels. Basically, the people, places, spaces, or times in our everyday life that create moments of transcendence or ‘sacred spaces in time’ are captured here. The first work in the wander map series depict a one week period in Athens and Thessaloniki Greece in the spring of 2012 (5772). The ethereal image and the technical data work in concert to create a matrix of form, proportion, memories, light, and other data. The resulting graphic serves as a chart or bar code of the ingredients that formed the experience. An experiential map is generated that reflects the ‘wandering’ and the ‘focus’ that reverberate to form a memory of the event. As an architect of sacred spaces there is always the challenge to articulate the poetics of imagery, culture, history, tradition, religion - the ‘ethereal’ or poetic concepts that inform a design. While at the same time the realities of air, light, geography, microclimate and the environment - or the ‘pragmatic’ or ‘functional requirements which must all be carefully considered as part of the design solution. The challenge and design problem always necessitates a solution that finds harmony between opposites. The architects job is a fine balance between artist and engineer or the ‘ethereal’ and the ‘pragmatic’. Wandering is part of our everyday lives and it is a delight – for me to understand an, image, feeling, or location I must relate to it within some context, this brings focus to the experience. Wandering is part of what informs my work and gives it focus and meaning.

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Sacred Spaces: Wandering / Focus 5772.1

Photomontage

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Barbara Kohl-Spiro 3 Folding Chairs and a Lady.

1. The Lady “I took a trip to Lima, Peru and found a hand made doll.”

2. The Israel Chair This Israel Chair is dedicated to the artist Jenifer Bar-Lev. The text is in Hebrew and English. Jenifer uses feminine images relating to needlework. Her commentary is either from Torah as from her daily life. She uses quilt-like compositions. The cover of her book has a heart. The title of the chair is “Needle Wisdom Sews the World From Behind. If the Garment is Turned Inside Out, Perhaps the Needle Wisdom Can Not Only Mend, But Design.”

3. Diaspora Chair Dedicated to Brazilian Jewish writer Clarise Lispector. “The Hour of the Star” is Clarise Lispector’s last book before she died. It is about poverty. The title of the chair “The Sky is All Blue – meanwhile the Clouds are White and Why So Much God – Why Not a Little for Man?”

4. The Family Chair Dedicated to the book “Embryo Culture” by Beth Kohl. Beth Kohl is my daughter. She has three daughters that were created by Invitro Fertilization. The title of the chair is “May You Grow into Thousands of Myriads”

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Benno Rothschild In addition to being a visual artist and maintaining a steady studio practice, I consider myself to be somewhat of a community organizer and activist.

I currently work at MIAD as the Service Learning Coordinator, volunteer locally, and I am also involved with a great group of kids in Uganda. I travel there regularly to teach art workshops with an organization that my girlfriend and I started called Gujja Ting African Art.

My artwork is personal.

I create more than just objects. Yes, it is important that the work I create is beautiful but it is also important to me that my work speaks to an audience, our community, and I often like to include our community in the process.

My work is intended to engage our community at many levels. From ideation to installation, my work both reflects and includes my audience.

From our community, for our community, the objects I create are both visually stimulating and intellectually engaging.

Using my skills as both an artist and organizer, I create sculpture with certain non-profit organizations and overlooked communities. My artwork is intended to be attractive to viewers and designed to attract our citizens to greater community involvement.

For this show I have created a model of a larger sculpture that I will be creating for, and with, the Jewish Community Center. This large-scale depiction of Noah’s Ark will be approximately 6 feet long and constructed out of steel.

The plan is to brainstorm about the project with the kids involved in this year’s JCC summer camp and then to work on the project together. I will be doing the welding but the ideation and painting will be a true collaborative effort!

I am excited to be a part of something so fun and meaningful.

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Noah’s Ark

Painted Steel

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Jim SederIt began with Buddy. She had a mansion and a huge swimming pool. We visited her every sum-mer. It was 1962 and I was 14; after our swim we were invited into her home. Buddy guided us through their new Art Gallery, a rather long modern rectangular building adjoining a Georgian Mansion. Her husband an avid collector, latest acquisition was Andy Warhol’s “Campbell Soup Can.” I thought it was a joke.

Rule 1: Don’t be afraid to be ignorant.I listen to Jazz and write poetry.Perhaps my Photographs are a visual representation of the two! Bill Evans and Emily Dickinson are two that have moved me. How do you stay in an idiom without being a prisoner to it? How do you move out of your own way? I start in the middle of things; often looking for broken things, the moments in between, transitions, future memories .... When I find forgotten people I look to capture expressions that define rather than exult. Lately I have been absorbed by the “crisis of beauty” .. in a series named ‘My Mother’s Flowers” I portrayed flowers that were slowly dying but still radiant and beautiful. It is a phenomena of our “age” in which all the messages are to keep physical beauty intact and to deny the natural state of things. During my flower project I became a traveller on a journey that I had not planned. The fragility of the flowers became a link between my Mother’s frailty and my own.

Rule 2: Don’t be afraid to be yourself. I meet my subjects by chance, there are few introductions. What’s the Point! .. I hardly know what I’m doing until I’m in the middle of it! A few months ago a friend proudly told me he had driven somewhere up north in 4 hours, I told him it took me 17.

Rule 3: Don’t carpool with me.Once the further I traveled away from home the more inspired I become... However as I sit in my room and watch the simple beauty of the tantalizing slow drip of water from my bathroom faucet I understand that space and time are irrelevant.

Rule 4: Don’t take your rules so seriously.Making a photograph of the fragrance of the air, the idea of sound,and the ever changing light presents a mystery that has a myriad of solutions.I have a new plan for making a plan ...

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The Existenstialists

Giclee Print

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Maida Silverman Weeds and the wanderings of the Jewish people--what can they possibly have in com-mon? A weed is a plant that grows where it’s not wanted. A beautiful rose bush in a wheat field is considered a weed and will be pulled out. Unwanted and uprooted, it will die. And yet the rose is beautiful-- treasured for its many wonderful qualities when it grows where it is wanted. Indeed, down through the centuries, there are many plants, once admired and protected by those who appreciated their value. But they became devalued and despised, uprooted, and left to die. But they did not die. Nor did their valued qualities. Strong and resilient, they managed to take root, adapt and survive no matter how much they had to struggle to do so. They eventually wandered the world, and now grow and thrive everywhere. A dandelion will lift itself to the sun even as it grows from a crack in the sidewalk. The lowly Dock plant grows tall and heavy with seeds, if allowed to do so. If it is ruthlessly cut down to but a few inches, it will nevertheless send up a small seed stalk. Far fewer seeds--but carried by the wind to unknown places, they will take root and grow---strong new plants will come from them. There are many other plants like those I describe. Cut down to the ground, their roots survive and new plant grow, even though the soil be poor, the environment inhospitable and filled with enemies who try to destroy them. A broken leaf, a fragment of stem will take root and spread. Many new plants will grow from just this one plant. The lovely rose is not a weed, nor are the Jewish people. But when we were uprooted and left to die, we did not die. The plants I describe are metaphors for us. Our roots go deep. We grow back, even when crushed to earth. Strong new plants will grow and we will never die.

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Plants As Metaphors For Jews Wandering Through The World

Mixed Media

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Marc TasmanDark Tourist seeks lost Galitzianers’ TreasureVisiting Poland as an adult grandchild if Jewish Holocaust survivors was a vivid experience.

The beauty of the place, Galizia, the southern part if Poland, Lesser or Little Poland, Malopolska, the cities, the Vistula River, the countryside, the Carpathian Mountains, the generosity if the people, was stunning.

This is a surreal contradiction to the deep shock of learning the intricacies of genocide.

It was with the newfound knowledge and details of my great-grandmother’s murder during the wave of unprecedented atrocities in a particular campaign of state sponsored killings, that I rushed back to mu family’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky to describe my experiences to mu great-aunt, (my maternal grandmother’s sister).

She, a survivor, and an actual living Galitzianer, to my perplexment, admonished me for partici-pating in the economy of Genocide.

“They murdered our family, stole our property, and you go and leave your money there?!”

My father too, was “uncomfortable” with my characterizations of the place, including highly aestheticized landscapes of mass murder sites, as “beautiful.”

Indeed, a great deal of thinking and planning has gone into the development of post-communist Poland, to be both aesthetically astute and commercially successful, to a niche market for dark tourism, (the visiting of sites of tragedy, such as mass murder camps, New York’s Ground Zero, etc…).

In fact, usually tastefully apart for the reflective and meditative spaces of the deeply disturbing sites of monstrous, systematic murders, are places where you can return from your journey with some souvenirs of a lost culture.

In the cities near the historical Jewish districts, it’s easy to recognize pieces of once Jewish property for sale. Silver and brass candleholders, in varying states of polished shine or grime, imply that “I’m looking at material objects that were once held by my kinfolk and their community.”

The natural impulse shaped by that planned or serendipitous dark tourism experience, is to reclaim a piece of one’s complicated inheritance.

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Top Left to Right

Antique store window on the way

to Kazimierz, historical Jewish

district of Kraków

Tour van outside the Great

Market Square of Zamosc

Baroque Synagogue in Łancut with

restored walls of Hebrew texts and zodiac

animal imagery

Bottome Left to Right

Crossing down by Vistula River near

Kraków

Barracks on west side of Majdanek

Extermination Camp Memorial Site,

adjacent to Lublin suburbs

Mina, my great-grandmother, also my

mother’s namesake, Bełzec

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Clarice Zucker As we began the study of the wandering of our people I thought of my own personal journeys, many of which were internal. In my mind, wandering became closely associated with wondering. I was wondering about health, life, death, and family. Thus, THE TREE OF LIFE, bearing pomegranates for fertility, nourishes the TREE OF CREATIVITY with cells of my imagination. This work on Japanese rice paper was placed on my own family tree.

Upon reflection, the process of working on my pieces presented somewhat similar, though artistic, challenges faced by our people in their wanderings. As with our fore-fathers and mothers, problems occurred along my path that required fresh thinking and new direc-tion. Our people had to consider human frailties that might impede their progress as I had to accept artistic imperfections. The vision of their final destination was often clouded by doubt, as was mine, working with a totally new medium.But, best of all was the wonderful challenge to create work in response to studying biblical text that would reflect and contain all of my wandering and wondering.

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I Wonder As I Wander

Mixed Media

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The Desert

Watercolor

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Do We Dare Unmask?

Watercolor

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From Slavery To Freedom

Watercolor

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The Artists

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Shirah AppleMs. Apple received an MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2006. A native of Milwaukee, she has exhibited and participated in artist residencies around the US and in Israel. She has shown regionally at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, UW-Madison, Tenth Street Gallery, the LGBT Community Center, Congregation Sinai, EFFJAY Projects, Sheboygan, and Woman Made Gallery, Chicago. She has lectured on contemporary Jewish art locally and nationally. For more information on her work, go to shirahrachelapple.com.

Natanya BlanckBorn and raised in Mexico City, Natanya Blanck has been living in the Milwaukee area since 1989. She developed and taught the first college-level course to specifically deal with 20th century Latin American Art in the State of Wisconsin, and is now Associate Professor of Art History at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. In addition to teaching, Natanya has served on the boards of two local organizations dedicated to fostering art and art education among local underserved children. As co-facilitator of the Milwaukee Jewish Artists’ Laboratory Natanya has had the time of her life working with and getting to know the talented artists.

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Richard EdelmanRichard Edelman shares a birth date with the State of Israel, May 14, 1948. He grew up in Iowa and in Milwaukee where he graduated from Nicolet High School and then earned his Bachelors of Science in Philosophy and Engineering from the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT he was a student anti-Vietnam War leader and faced several courtroom trials. After graduation Richard founded the leading movement press in Cambridge, Massa-chusetts: the Hovey Street Press. Richard edited newspapers and published several books of poetry, and was the correspon-dence secretary for renowned poetess, Denise Levertov as well as her student.

Richard founded and was President of Essex Trading Company of Northbrook, Illinois, Gary, Indiana, and Cleveland, Ohio and retired in 2010. For the last ten years Richard has been involved in metal sculp-

Bonita BruchBonita is the artistic name of Bonnie Ber-glund Bruch. She exhibits her art in 3-4 shows a year at Gallery Grand in Milwau-kee. As a member of their Art Collective, she has also exhibited her artwork at vari-ous sites in Milwaukee. Bonita is a 10-year member of the Milwaukee Sketch Club. She is also a member of the Riverwest Art-ist Association and the Milwaukee Artists Regional Network. Bonita attended Layton School of Art for two years, then graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a B.A. degree in Journalism and Fine Arts. She turned away from studio art to pursue a 36-year writing/fundraising/non-profit career. About 11 years ago, she rediscovered her interest in creating visual art while recuperating from a broken leg.

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Judith Harway Judith Harway’s most recent collec-tion of poetry, All That is Left (2009), exam-ines the legacies, intended and accidental, passed down through three generations of a fictional immigrant family. Kevin Walzer of Turning Point Books writes that this “haunt-ing story of flight and arrival… reminds us of the dire, even deadly, choices that histo-ry can thrust upon innocent people… Har-way’s poems trace, in memorable terms, the impact of large historical currents on the lives of individuals.”

A widely published poet and essay-ist, Harway’s work has appeared in doz-ens of literary magazines and has earned fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board, the MacDowell Colony, and the Hambidge Center. She is Associate Professor of Writ-ing at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Judith and her husband, musician Dan Armstrong, share their home in the Mil-

Annette Hirsh Award-winning artist-silversmith, Annette Hirsh, has shown her work through the years in solo and juried exhibits in Wisconsin and nationally, as well as being included in the permanent collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Mt. Mary Col-lege, Israeli Embassy (Wash. D.C.), Denvers Mizel Museum of Judaica, and synagogues in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona. She is listed in Who’s Who in American Art.

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Jody Hirsh Jody Hirsh is the JCC Director of Judaic Education, and was the recipient of the 2005 Covenant National Award for Excellence in Jewish Education. In addition to being the Creator and text facilitator of the Artists’ Laboratory, he is an award-winning play-wright and a musician and has performed all over the world. His works include the OBIE Award winning “Seeing Double,” writ-ten with the San Francisco Mime Troupe in 1989, and “The Case for Matthew Nathan,” written for the Hong Kong Handover in 1997. Jody is the world’s only Hebrew and Cantonese speaking player of the Viola da Gamba.

Phillip Katz In 1999 Philip Katz graduated at the top of his class with a Master of Archi-tecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Prior academic work includes studies at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture; with field study in Paris, Rome, Florence, and Venice. He also conducted studies on the Great Books of Western Civilization, at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition to leading artist in-residence workshops, and lecturing on liturgical architecture, sanctu-ary technology, and Jewish sacred space, Katz is also the founder and principal of Phillip Katz Project Development LLC, a full service design and management practice with award-winning expertise in the design of sacred spaces, specifically synagogues.

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Barbara Kohl-Spiro Barbara Kohl-Spiro has been creat-ing work for over 60 years. She has studied the Torah at Jewish Community Center for 33 years. Her work has been shown all over the United States and Israel in many museums and private collections. Barbara has taught and started an art program for children at Walkers Point center for the arts and has an art degree is from University of Wisconsin Madison.

Benno Rothschild Benno Rothschild received his BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & De-sign, and is MIAD’s current Service Learn-ing Assistant Program Coordinator. While his art has been displayed across the country, garnered honors, and appeared in “Creative Quarterly: The Journal of Art & Design,” Benno is happiest producing art for individual enjoyment, as he strives to work for and with those who inspire him or are in need of inspiration. His commitment to community art includes volunteering with at-risk youth both in Milwaukee and Uganda, where he travels annually to teach at Gujja Ting African Art, an organization he co-founded to help children and youth enjoy the benefits of art making.

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Jim SederEducation:University of Vermont 1971Praestegaard Photography & Film School 1970Numerous Professional Master ClassesI have discovered a certain comfort in traveling in the space of strangers. It is a way of connecting with “common” people that has brought me endless pleasure.My published work of Street photography includes: Books on Cuba, Morocco, and Myanmar. I have recently exhibited a series of Prints on” Aging Flowers.” My other works in-clude: Seascapes, Horses in winter and Portraits of Friends and Neighbors.Lately I have concentrated on subjects even closer to home, which includes: Portrait’s of my 93 year old father, and a series on “Working People.

Maida SilvermanA native New Yorker, Maida Silverman attended Pratt Institute, majoring in Graphic Arts and Illustration. Prinmaking was a major interest--etchings and woodcuts in particular. After graduation, she worked as Art Assistant to the Children’s Book Art Director at Holt, Rinehart & Winston, and later, Special Projects Designer/Editor at Golden Books. She left to paint, illustrate and write freelance, specializing in Children’s Judaica. Her books have been published by Simon & Schuster, Golden Books, Putnam, and Grosset & Dun-lap. She is particularly proud of “Israel, the Founding of a Modern Nation” commissioned by Dial Books for Young Readers, published in 1998 in honor of Israel’s 50th Anniversary. It was selected by the Children’s Book Council as one of the 100 Best Books of 1998.

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Marc TasmanMarc Tasman is an intermedia artist who works in photography, performance, and networked media. He may be most well known for his photographic endurance project which he concluded in 2009, mak-ing a Polaroid self portrait every day for ten years and one day--3,654 consecutive days. In 2010 he exhibited the nearly 5000 photographs at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2006 Tasman was awarded a Greater Milwaukee Foundation Mary L. Nohl Fellowship for Individual Art-ists. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies and coordinates the Digital Arts and Culture Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Clarice ZuckerArt has always been an important part of Clarice Zucker’s life, as a painter and a docent of twenty-five years at the Milwau-kee Art Museum. Although she has worked in most media, watercolor remains her favorite. It offers her tantalizing possibilities for the use of color, shape, line, and tex-ture. The beauty and power of nature is her inspiration. Clarice received the First Annual Bluestone Judiac Arts Award, The Art of the Seder Plate and the Second Annual Blue-stone Judaic Arts Award, The Aart gallery and at Saint John’s Art Certre. She has also been shown in local galleries. Clarice received the First Annual Bluestone Judaic Arts Award, THE ART OF THE SEDER PLATE and the The Second Annual Bluestone Judaic Arts Award for DO WE DARE UNMASK? as Purim theme. She

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Special Thanks

Shirah Apple

Natanya Blanck

Bonita Bruch

Richard Edelman

Ryan Hainey

Judith Harway

Annette Hirsh

Jody Hirsh

Barbara Kohl-Spiro

Jim Seder

Maida Silverman

Marc Tasman

Clarice Zucker

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C re a t i v e

Photos and Book Design By Ryan Haineywww.ryanhainey.com