Checking out the art scene in Chinatown

Last week I had a chance to hit a few galleries in Los Angeles' Chinatown. There's a bunch of them on Chung King Road in what used to be a bunch of souvenir shops but have recently been renovated into a hipster gallery scene. I spent most of time at Charlie James Gallery and Jancar Gallery.

Directional signage at Charlie James Gallery.

The Jancar Gallery exterior hasn't changed much since it was a Chinese souvenir shop.

"Sometimes I Forget to Remember to Fear Hope" by Jennifer Dalton at Charlie James

"Paradox Party Favors" by Jennifer Dalton

Part of "Reckoning" Jennifer Dalton; the full piece includes 1200 pinbacks.

There's a PDF catalog of Jennifer Dalton's work here – the show is called "On a Scale From Not Really OK to Really Not OK."

A shot from Richard Newton's installation "La Gruta Azul" (The Blue Grotto) at Jancar;
one wanders through an environment made of strung together bottles and cans.

Another detail from Richard Newton's "La Gruta Azul."

Another detail from Richard Newton's "La Gruta Azul." Yes, I really enjoyed it.

One more detail from Richard Newton's "La Gruta Azul."

Steve Lambert's "Everything You Want Right Now" (with some bondage dolls) at Charlie James.

"Sacred Words, Sacred Texts" features twelve B2 papercuts; please join me at the reception.

Please join me in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 13, from two to five pm, for the opening reception of “Sacred Words, Sacred Texts” – an exhibition in collaboration with American Jewish University,
USC Hillel and Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion/LA.

I am pleased to have 12 papercuts included in this exciting exhibition, many on loan from local collectors.

The reception starts at 2 pm at Hebrew Union College (3077 University Avenue, Los Angeles – 213 749 3424) and at some point wanders down to the USC site for dessert.

For details, visit the Facebook invitation page – and please "like" my fan page to get regular updates in your Facebook feed.

The exhibition runs through mid-December 2013.

Time to build a booth and shake those branches!

Love this – we just don't have enough good Sukkot songs.

And since these have been popular in the past... and I'm getting a lot of new traffic looking for them this year... here they are again: two silly instructional poster guides on "how to hold and wave the four species" and "how to pick an etrog." Feel free to download, print, distribute, and share (as long as you cite NiceJewishArtist.com). I'm providing links to both 11" x 17" posters in JPEG and PDF format. Happy Sukkot!

Sukkot Poster

Sukkot Poster JPEG

Sukkot Poster PDF

Etrog Poster

Etrog Poster JPEG

Etrog Poster PDF

May you be written and inscribed for a good year.

I made this for you, loyal readers of the blog. G'mar chatimah tovah – and may you have an easy fast.

"Sacred Words, Sacred Texts" exhibition and reception details

Please join me in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 13, from two to five pm, for the opening reception of “Sacred Words, Sacred Texts” – an exhibition in collaboration with American Jewish University,
USC Hillel and Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion/LA.

I am pleased to have 12 papercuts included in this exciting exhibition, many on loan from local collectors.

The reception starts at 2 pm at Hebrew Union College (3077 University Avenue, Los Angeles – 213 749 3424) and at some point wanders down to the USC site for dessert.

For details, visit the Facebook invitation page – and please "like" my fan page to get regular updates in your Facebook feed.

The exhibition runs through mid-December 2013.

The image above created for the exhibition is by Corrie Siegel. I'll be featuring photos of work in the exhibit in the coming days and weeks; in the meantime here's a complete list of included artists, with  links to their web presences (as available):

Melinda Smith Altshuler
Joshua Abarbanel
Andi Arnovitz
Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik
Will Deutsch
Jean Edelstein
Carol Es
Orit Hofshi
Peachy Levy
Krista Nassi
Soraya Sarah Nazarian
Sue Ann Robinson
Lidia Shaddow
Tal Shochat
Corrie Siegel
Doni Silver Simons
Hillel Smith
Jessica Shokrian

The rolled-up scrolls of Andi Arnovitz... and a group show announcement

I'm very pleased to be in a group show this fall with, among others, Andi Arnovitz, whose work reflects tensions that exist within religion, gender studies and politics. Above you can see a close-up and full shot of one of her pieces that will be in the show. This is focused on the marginalization of alternative voices in our tradition and a vision of an alternate reality with a broader inclusion model.

What show?

"Sacred Words, Sacred Texts" – a first-time collaboration between three big Jewish Los Angeles institutions: Hebrew Union College, USC Hillel, and American Jewish University. The group show will be spread out over these three venues, with work from Jewish artists around the world working in many different media. I will have a dozen pieces included in the show, most on loan from private collections.

I'll provide more detail coming up, as well as photos of more works – but in the meantime if you're going to be in L.A. on Sunday, October 13, please join me for the public reception. It starts at HUC at 2 pm and then proceeds to USC Hillel, accompanied on the way by a marching band. There will be a dessert reception at the Hillel, and the event ends at 5 pm.

Art at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

Saw a lot of great art in Israel, and took a lot of photos to share out here on my blog. This post has some from my trip to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Much of this is fairly contemporary, though some of it is a bit older ("Modern"). Some comments included with each photo – please let me know what you think, especially if you have details on related work.

This is a work by Raffi Lavie from 1969 called "Untitled." Yeah, more Modern than contemporary. It's acrylic, pencil, and collage on plywood. I love the stylistic connection to abstract expressionists and the collage work of those Paris guys... and there are hints of things that Basquiat later did in New York.

These next two paintings are from a special exhibit on the Fauves. The top one is a Kandinsky from 1908 called "Mountain Landscape with Village I"; the lower one is from Gabriele Münter, around 1910, called "Sunset over Staffelsee." I love the wild colors. The most well-known Fauve work is arguably Matisse's portrait of his wife, "Woman with a Hat."

I love Man Ray. And getting to see the back of "Indicateurs," which he hand-titled and signed, was a thrill for this art geek.

The Israel Museum has a great collection of Judaica, and one of my favorite pieces is this all-in-one set of ritual objects designed by Zelig Segal in 1983, entitled "Holiday Set." At the top is a Hanukkiah, there's a Havdalah set on the right, an etrog holder on the left, Shabbat candleholders at the bottom...

The last piece I'm sharing in this post is the view from inside James Turrell's "Space That Sees" from 1992 – possibly my favorite sculptural work of all time. One enters a big white box (20' square? 30'?) and looks up through an opening to watch the sky above. It's sculpture in reverse, almost. I see it as an exploration of how we frame the natural word to create art – painters and photographers try to capture moments, sculpture tries to replicate it... and this frames the source itself.

Stencil Art in Israel

My trip to Israel this summer was flat-out incredible. In every way.

One of the things I did while there was photograph stencil art I discovered on the country's walls, and I'm pleased to share with you some of those pictures. Please let me know what you think, or if you have more information on the work or artists represented here.

"Ma?" ("What?") —
the eternal question.

The emotion that can be conveyed
with a little paint on a wall astounds me.
The wall, of course, is Jerusalem stone.

"In Aza and Sderot girls want to be" –
Is this a statement? Or are we supposed to provide the final word?

"I want" — it's Travolta, right?
Kotter-era Travolta?
In Tel Aviv, which seems appropriate.

Papa Smurf. In Arabic.
Found around the corner from the Bezalel School in Jerusalem.

Space Invaders. Classic 80s stencil trope.

I call this "Kahn!"
even though that's not the traditional transliteration
of the Hebrew word for "here."
There's a Hebrew word above "zeh" I can't make out...
it would mean, "______, it's here."

Anne Frank

I love fragments like this –
wheat paste and stencil together.

"Home Alone," right?
"They forgot me"... in what?
Another from Tel Aviv, near Dizengoff Square.

Prime Minister Benyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu,
with the caption, "who believes is not afraid."

Cutting paper – TOGETHER – at camp. Without getting injured.

Three weeks ago I posted about what I do every summer at URJ Camp Newman – teaching kids to cut paper. Two weeks ago I posted about the campers' first projects: mizrach plaques, and last week I posted about the camper's big projects: paper midrash. In this, my last post about my 2013 residency at Camp Newman, I'm sharing our final group project. Here's just one piece of it...

First, I want to mention that all of the campers' work is displayed at the end of their four-week session in the annual "Mark and Peachy Levy Hagigah Festival," alongside creations from the other campers: painting, tallitot, calligraphy, photography, dance and drama presentations, songleading and even some creative writing recitals; all of the arts activities they participated in as part of Hagigah.

At the end of the festival, campers take their work home – but I always like to have them make something as a gift for camp... and that's where the group project comes in. Here's another piece...

The overall theme for this summer was kehillah kedoshah – "a holy community," which is what we strive to be at camp. With that in mind, I planned for my papercutting campers to work together (as a community – see how it ties in?) to create a poster-size papercut that spelled out kehillah kedoshah. And not just one – TWO!

In the last few days of our workshops, each camper would take a break from their individual projects and spend some time on the group project. They got to pick whichever letter they wanted, and they had to design and cut and back it however they wished. Some created a design that pulled elements from their mizrach or midrash pieces, and others just came up with something totally different.

We even got some of the camp faculty to help out with a few letters, and the end results were wonderful.

I'm pleased to share with you photos of the final pieces (click them to see them bigger)...

Telling stories by cutting paper... at camp

Two weeks ago I posted about what I do every summer at URJ Camp Newman – teaching kids to cut paper. Last week I posted about the campers' first projects: mizrach plaques. This is the third of my four posts about cutting paper at Camp Newman, and this one is about the big project: paper midrash.

Bereshit

All of the campers in the two-hours-a-day yetzirah group (and many in the one-hour-a-day hizdamnut group) made "paper midrash" – they used their newly-developed papercutting skills to tell a story from the Tanakh (Torah, prophets, and writings) or midrash, picking a story or theme that was personally meaningful and interpreting it in this medium.

Eden

The Giants

The Rainbow

Parting the Sea

David and Goliath: Kavannah

Samson

Others had more esoteric sources for their work, pulling ideas from Sefer haAgaddah or other books that I brought for inspiration.

Claws

Dwarvish

Li

Mad Man

Pillar of Fire

Time

Sus

Next time – my last post about the camp workshops – will feature photos of the finished group projects which we made as a gift for camp.