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Art at the JCC Presents Tu’BShevat Family Art Workshop

January 23, 2019 @ 4:00 am PST

Tu’BShevat Family Art Workshop – Love, Hope, Memory Exhibition Closing Reception. Wednesday, January 23, 2019 • 4:00-6:00 pm

Free and open to the public. Join us for refreshments, family and kids’ art projects and appreciation of artworks by local Survivors and Shula Singer Arbel.
 

Please join us at the Jewish Federation’s – Bronfman Family Jewish Community Center (JCC)

524 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Santa Barbara, California (January 4, 2019) –We welcome all families! Wednesday, January 23rd, 4:00-6:00 PM, in accordance with Art at the JCC’s current exhibition: Love, Hope, Memory, the Jewish Federation will host a special art workshop and reception, with arts & crafts for kids and families. The workshop will be a fun, interactive project for kids, in honor of the exhibit theme as well as the Jewish Holiday Tu’Bshevat (holiday of trees), which ties in with the theme of our exhibit. We plan for separate arts & crafts booths just for the kids. Plus, a community tree art project that everyone can participate in.

A special guest facilitator will be joining us for one of the kids’ arts & crafts project booths: Karsen Lee Gould, an artist, educator, and theatre director has been facilitating groups in the expressive arts for over 25 years.  Karsen has an MA in Creative Arts Therapy from Antioch University and studied theatre at the Goodman School of Drama and California Institute of the Arts. She is the founder and director of Arts for Humanity! And is passionate about exploring the authentic and unique nature of artistic expression and creativity within us all.

The artwork on the gallery walls surrounding this event, is a collaborative exhibit with Portraits of Survival: Life Journeys during the Holocaust and Beyond, entitled: Love, Hope, and Memory. The exhibit runs through February 26 at the Jewish Federation’s Bronfman Family Jewish Community Center.  Art at the JCC is able to offer this exhibition to the public with the generosity of benefactors and donors. This poignant exhibition celebrates the lives of Holocaust survivors and refugees, with a fresh and artistic approach on love, hope and memory, rather than focus on destruction and exile, which many experienced.

Complimenting significant collections of artists Lev Moross and Shula Arbel Singer, are the important works of local Holocaust survivors, refugees and descendants, notable artists: Margaret Singer, Maria Segal, Edith Ostern, Erika Kahn, Mary Freericks, Freddy Caston and Ralph Baxter. These particular individuals offer their legacies of endurance and hope; the lessons from their lives teach us about the power of the human spirit in the face of unthinkable evil. A number of these extraordinary local survivors have been life-long professional artists, while others have been art educators, or found their creative talents later in life. Collectively, their works offer insight into the experience of living through one of the darkest chapters in human history. Also, significant works by the late, local artist and refugee Freddy Caston, on his journey and life in Spain and beyond. There are also the paintings and hand-painted tiles from the collection of the late Evelyn (Cava) Gerlach.

The show features artwork of Shula Singer Arbel:
Shula Singer Arbel’s artwork is a fusion of abstract, representational and dream like images; a flattening of form mixed with painterly surfaces. Her newest series, “Love, Hope, Memory” deals with issues of displacement, loss and rebirth; exploring the re-entry into “normal” life, after the Holocaust. LOVE, HOPE, MEMORY is a series of 19 prints—numbered, signed, limited edition that tell the story of Arbel’s parents. Michael and Edith met in 1946 in a Displaced Persons Camp in Heidenheim, Germany, right after World War II. Edith was a survivor of Auschwitz and Michael had been a soldier in the Russian and Polish Army. They arrived at this refugee camp with nothing. In spite of the tremendous loss and unimaginable suffering they experienced, this was a time of great hope and optimism for the future. It was a time of building new lives and looking forward.  The paintings are based on black & white photographs found in an old, forgotten photo album. The portraits are a fusion of representational, abstract, and dream-like images; a flattening of form mixed with painterly surfaces. The figures in the paintings are intentionally faceless to create a more universal narrative. This series explores the issue of re-entry into “normal” life, after the Holocaust and ravages of war.  Although it deals with a specific time and place, the issues of displacement, trauma and rebirth are universal, particularly in today’s world.


Also tied to the exhibit, on November 9th, an 80th Anniversary Commemoration of Kristallnacht was held in the main gallery at the JCC. It was a packed house for the event, which commemorated Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass), November 9, 1938, and was the first case of organized violence throughout the German Reich against the Jews – and the true beginning of the terrible dark night of the Holocaust which was to come. As we move into the 80th anniversary year of this horrible chapter in human history, we stand together as a community which will pledge to never forget, but will also move forward with light and beauty, with survival and with hope. As we do every year, we will honor our cherished Survivor community of friends, and mourn those in this group who we have lost this year. We have also dedicated ourselves to keeping their stories alive, as we will be filming and preserving the last of their stories this year for a permanent archive to keep here for generations to come.

Proceeds of all sales from this art exhibition will benefit the Portraits of Survival/Upstanders Exhibits and Programs: Courage in the Face of EvilPermanent Exhibits and Educational Programs. This special and permanent installation has welcomed over 20,000 visitors since its inception in November 2003.

Details

Date:
January 23, 2019
Time:
4:00 am PST

Other

Event Ticket Type
Free
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