Esther and Eunice Celebrate Passover
7 years ago
Friday, September 23, 2016
TAIWANESE GALA EVENT
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
PRESS RELEASE FROM CECI LEIBOVITZ
FROM ILLNESS TO ENTERPRISE
Nearly a year and a half after being diagnosed with chronic Lyme Disease, Craftsbury, Vermont textile artist Ceci Leibovitz has launched a jewelry collection utilizing local historical materials and her own hand embroideries. Leibovitz is already gaining attention for her work; she has been accepted into Vermont Hand Crafters, the oldest and largest juried craft organization in the state. Leibovitz will debut her work in person at the CRAFT VERMONT FINE CRAFT AND ART SHOW, put on by Vermont Hand Crafters at the Sheraton Conference Center in Burlington, on November 18 – 20th. In addition, Leibovitz has launched a website at www.cecileibovitz.com where her work can be viewed and purchased online. This is an important milestone for the artist: as the sole breadwinner for her family she has been working hard to devise a way in which she can bring in an income while dealing with difficult Lyme symptoms.
Leibovitz had been hand-sewing couture style hats for six years, when an ongoing sharp pain in her eye, along with nerve and joint pain signaled that something was wrong with her health. After a series of tests, Leibovitz was diagnosed with Lyme. Chronic fatigue and hand pain were making her millinery work, which required hours of hand sewing, often through thick layers of fabric, increasingly difficult. She began to experiment with making smaller pieces, in the form of textile jewelry and found this much more doable. “Textile jewelry is a dream come true for me. I can create beautiful visual treats that don't take hours and hours to make,” said Leibovitz.
Fascinated with textiles and fabric manipulation, Leibovitz draws from her large collection of beautiful silks, antique and vintage lace and fabrics, as well as her own hand embroidery to create visually interesting, layered pendants and earrings. The work is inspired by her love of collage, flowers and color. She has been collecting antique textiles for years and has been lucky to receive many pieces as gifts, as well as to find a plethora of options at estate sales. “With the antique lace pieces, I love that I'm taking objects with a long-standing local history and placing them into a modern framework,” said Leibovitz. Each piece of artistic jewelry brings its wearer to a simpler time when many things were made by hand, by families at home, while still being relevant to today's fashion. Leibovitz uses both handmade and machine made textiles that have historical significance, ranging from the late 1800s to 1930s. “Who knows, the lace I used to make your necklace could have been worn by your great-grandmother 100 years ago!”
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art
mirrored NYC Sanitation truck in 1983 and called it "The Social Mirror."
Created in 1983 and featured in the grand finale of a New York City art parade, the truck/art piece is covered with mirrored glass which captures the image of the Unisphere. Ukeles, the longtime Artist-in-Residence at New York’s Department of Sanitation, said at preview event for the exhibit that it was made to help sanitation workers “see themselves captured in their job so that they are not outside, but part of the story. Our biggest challenge is how we deal with our waste and the effects of our living in the whole world now.”
Ukeles came to her position with the Department of Sanitation after addressing those issues in her work. In 1969 she first created what she called “necessity art,” which she later named Maintenance Art. She even wrote a “Manifesto for Maintenance Art.” So perhaps it was inevitable that in the 1970s she would get a call from the Sanitation Department asking if she would like to make art with 10,000 New York City workers.
A museum within a museum, her exhibit encompasses all of the first floor gallery areas including the walls and center space. In it, Ukeles charts her work in terms of both feminist and conceptual performance, referencing both her unsalaried career with the Department of Sanitation and her work as an artist whose Jewish faith has fueled her belief in the capacity of the human spirit.
“Ceremonial Arch,” which is displayed at the entrance of the exhibition, honors service workers. The arch is composed of 5,000 used, signed work gloves from workers at New York’s Fire, Police, Sanitation, Environmental Protection, Parks, Cultural Affairs and Transportation Departments, as well as the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The arch is topped with a canopy of tools used by ConEd workers, placed over six sturdy columns.
“The black gloves that you see at the entry are from the Fire Department,” Ukeles explained. She recounted her memories of 9/11, having had some of her art displayed at a firehouse in the Bronx. Michael Judge, the chaplain of the Fire Department, blessed her work.“I put the gloves at the entrance as if to bless everyone for the sacrifice of their lives.”
Just beyond the arch sits “Peace Table,” a clear blue glass table suspended under the center skylight. Its purpose is to engage and contemporize important themes of the exhibition. Public programs will be held here, such as one with Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl that was held last month.
The exhibit also incorporates many other art forms—photographs and structures, as well as media that include video on screens and monitors. There are interactive displays and one featuring a book where you view a hand turning the pages. For works entitled “Touch Sanitation Performance,” Mierle spent a year visiting each New York Department of Sanitation districts to shake the hand of every one of the 8,500 workers who were willing to accept her gesture.
Vito Turso, who was just starting out at the department when Ukeles started out as Artist-in-Residence nearly 40 years ago, was present when Ukeles sent along her manifesto on art. “It was the first time that anyone really thanked the sanitation workers for what they do,” said Turso. “It was Mierle that brought all of this to our department. I am honored to be here on behalf of Commissioner Garcia. He referred to her as the “patron saint of Sanitation”.
The exhibition is organized by Queens Museum curator Larissa Harris and guest co-curator Patricia C. Phillips, who initiated the project in 2012 with Tom Finkelpearl.
Ukeles and her husband, Jack, currently live in Tel Aviv, to be closer to their three adult children and seven grandchildren.
Posted 12:00 am, October 13, 2016
©2016 Community News Group
Monday, September 12, 2016
Filmmaker tells a story of the Holocaust—and humanity By Merle Exit
Philippe Mora is a second-generation Holocaust survivor—eight members
of his family died at Auschwitz. Born in 1949 in Paris, Mora moved to
Australia with his family when he was small, and he was not aware of the
role that his father played in the French resistance, nor of how his
mother had evaded, by just one day, what would have been a certain death
at Auschwitz.
Those stories are at the center of “Three Days in Auschwitz,” a documentary film by Mora that will be opening at the Kew Gardens Cinema Friday. An award-winning director, he has made both documentaries and fiction features. In addition, Mora is an accomplished painter, inspired by the memories of Holocaust survivors and his feelings about the Nazis. Mora’s film makes particulary effective use of his own paintings, and of those by his mother, Mirka Mora. (Mora’s father, Georges, died in 1992.) Mirka is also a moving, and entertaining, presence through much of the film. Those paintings carry a large part of the film’s emotional charge. Mora notes that for him the camera “was a separation between me and Auschwitz,” while in his paintings, the emotions connected with Holocaust’s horrors are given free rein.
Bearing the subtitle “cinematic notes for my grandchildren,” this documentary is Mora’s way of making sure that the events of the past are not forgotten. He calls the film “the sum of my life,” emphasizing the story of his family and of how the story of the Holocaust is, for him, personal as well as historical. We follow Mora from Melbourne, to Paris and London, as he traces the history of the concentration camps.
Returning to the barbed wire fences that surround the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, we see the symbol of the atrocities that human beings are capable of. But “Three Days in Auschwitz” also leaves us with a valuable and uplifting message: “The capacity of the human spirit to recover from tragic circumstances as well as the importance of learning from our past to clear our way to a much brighter future.”
“I thought it better to make a very personal film, so that people could relate to it,”he said, “rather than try to make an objective documentary, which would have been impossible.”
The themes of the film are powerfully underlined by a moody, expressive score that was composed by Eric Clapton, one of the film’s co-producers. Clapton’s original score can only be heard by viewing the film.
The special “Three Days in Auschwitz” theatrical event will include a taped question-and-answer session with Mora and segments from “Monsieur Mayonnaise,” a film about Mora’s father, who used the code name “Monsieur Mayonnaise” during his time with the French reistance. Another short film on the program is “German Sons,” about the relationship between Mora and the son of a Nazi, who engage in talking about their past.
Managing Director / CEO of Vision Films Lise Romanoff says: “We’re honored to bring this important film to audiences worldwide. This poignant picture is sure to stay with you long after it’s over.”
Those stories are at the center of “Three Days in Auschwitz,” a documentary film by Mora that will be opening at the Kew Gardens Cinema Friday. An award-winning director, he has made both documentaries and fiction features. In addition, Mora is an accomplished painter, inspired by the memories of Holocaust survivors and his feelings about the Nazis. Mora’s film makes particulary effective use of his own paintings, and of those by his mother, Mirka Mora. (Mora’s father, Georges, died in 1992.) Mirka is also a moving, and entertaining, presence through much of the film. Those paintings carry a large part of the film’s emotional charge. Mora notes that for him the camera “was a separation between me and Auschwitz,” while in his paintings, the emotions connected with Holocaust’s horrors are given free rein.
Bearing the subtitle “cinematic notes for my grandchildren,” this documentary is Mora’s way of making sure that the events of the past are not forgotten. He calls the film “the sum of my life,” emphasizing the story of his family and of how the story of the Holocaust is, for him, personal as well as historical. We follow Mora from Melbourne, to Paris and London, as he traces the history of the concentration camps.
Returning to the barbed wire fences that surround the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, we see the symbol of the atrocities that human beings are capable of. But “Three Days in Auschwitz” also leaves us with a valuable and uplifting message: “The capacity of the human spirit to recover from tragic circumstances as well as the importance of learning from our past to clear our way to a much brighter future.”
“I thought it better to make a very personal film, so that people could relate to it,”he said, “rather than try to make an objective documentary, which would have been impossible.”
The themes of the film are powerfully underlined by a moody, expressive score that was composed by Eric Clapton, one of the film’s co-producers. Clapton’s original score can only be heard by viewing the film.
The special “Three Days in Auschwitz” theatrical event will include a taped question-and-answer session with Mora and segments from “Monsieur Mayonnaise,” a film about Mora’s father, who used the code name “Monsieur Mayonnaise” during his time with the French reistance. Another short film on the program is “German Sons,” about the relationship between Mora and the son of a Nazi, who engage in talking about their past.
Managing Director / CEO of Vision Films Lise Romanoff says: “We’re honored to bring this important film to audiences worldwide. This poignant picture is sure to stay with you long after it’s over.”
Posted 1:50 pm, September 8, 2016
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