STORY

On a windy night in November, 2016, a sudden fire destroyed my studio - together with over fifteen hundred of my paintings.

I saw my studio go down in the fire, I witnessed the destruction of forty years of work, but I also recognized something else that night. The burning leaves falling off the trees, which would ultimately ignite the tinder box that is a studio full of canvas, wood and paint, seemed to be little angels, floating down softly in the mountain air.

I never really found the words to articulate how these two recognitions - destruction and celestial softness - could coexist for me in the same time. But when I began painting again my new paintings said what I couldn't.

On one hand they were full of dark tones, sometimes even black and ashy. This was unlike anything I'd painted in the past. But at the same time they were filled with gold, a color I'd never felt necessary beforehand. It was as if the darkness of my loss had somehow opened me to a deeper truth, a new light.

DOCUMENTARY FILM,

“THE LIGHT OF FIRE.”

(Click button in top-right corner of screen below)

HOW I EVEN FOUND MYSELF IN ISRAEL IS a story by itself. after all, i'd never planned on ending up here.

I was born in New Jersey to a typical suburban Jewish family. Moving to Israel wasn't something we discussed growing up, and it certainly wasn't something I thought I'd do when I began to chart my own path.

After art school in Philadelphia I began traveling the world, immersing myself in the art world of the various stops along my way. I headed east, planning to end up somewhere in India, or China.

Along my way I stopped off in Israel, and I never left.

Soon after i arrived in israel, i travelled to the sinai desert, where i spent some time at the red sea, alone.

At day I'd see the fish in the translucent water, and at night the stars in the clear sky. I had time to behold, and to reflect. Why was I here? Where was I going? And why were we, the Jewish people, here? How had we survived? And what did it mean to me?

Though I hadn't been religious for some time, these questions stayed with me. I returned to Jerusalem, and enrolled in a Yeshiva.

Many of my paintings over the years can be traced back to those days at Sinai, to those questions I grappled with. For three years I embarked on a project to make a painting for each week's Torah portion, which eventually was published in book form. My paintings are not depictions, but imaginings. Explorations. 

i came to israel forty years ago with a backpack, five hundred dollars in my pocket, and a need to find my place.

After the fire, in some ways, I'm back to where I started. I've begun painting again, but with new colors, as if it's forced me to begin from somewhere new and unfamiliar, as if I have to rediscover not only my paintings but my very sense of place.

It isn't easy beginning again, but the new beginning has opened up new pathways for me, and the greatness of my loss has instilled in me a new sense of urgency. I feel like my new work is more authentic, that I am taking greater chances. I want it to be more meaningful now.