ABOUT THE ARTIST

I am an accomplished visual artist, illustrator and educator. I have expertise in:

- Portraiture

- Illustration (in a wide variety of styles including comics), working with classic techniques or digitally

- Fine art paintings in oil, acrylic, silk painting, focusing primarily on landscape painting and interiors

- Judaica on silk (hallah covers)

- Specially crafted pictures for children's gifts and murals for children's rooms

- Teaching drawing and painting skills to people of all ages, with concentration on the gifted and bagrut preparation

I was born in the US, in Boston, Massachusetts. I showed a gift for visual arts very early in my life, and it has remained my main passion and focus since. My high school education included two summer school courses at the Boston University School of Fine Arts. I went on to complete my undergraduate degree at Brandeis University, magna cum laude with a major in Fine Arts in an accelerated three years, and then spent another three years at the University of Pennsylvania, completing a Master of Fine Arts degree. During that time, I was awarded scholarships to Yale University Summer School of Music and Art, and Skowhegan Summer School of Art.

On New Year’s day, 1979, my father suddenly passed away, and feeling “unanchored” and at sea, I spent the following summer volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel and touring the Holy Land. Within a week of being in Israel it became clear to me that I had only one imperative, and that was to make Aliyah, which I did the following summer, on 1 June, 1980.

Since making Aliyah, I have lived a rich and interesting life, spanning years of productive work as an artist and illustrator and as a teacher in many different schools, including several centres for gifted children. I have managed to marry three times, adopt an infant who is now a mother, give birth to a miracle daughter at age 51, foster five children, and co-create a loving home and yard filled with cats, dogs, and chickens (the mice do not count).

I have developed techniques for teaching drawing and painting, particularly to those who have previously doubted that they had any ability.

I also work professionally as an illustrator, portrait artist, and creator of Judaica painted on silk.

My greatest desire, after years as a teacher, a mother, and a foster mother of young children, is to return to the easel and rejoin the journey which was begun years before, of looking within for my painterly voice, and painting on canvas and silk once again, as well as illustrating books and comic pages with classic and digital techniques.