This is the close-up of a painting I am working on presently.  It is called "Cousin Harvey's Schule".  It spans the 19th century, from World War two to the present.  It is a 3 tier painting, showing from the end of this painting to the end of the schule, a building, the street and then a church.   My cousin will be in the middle of it walking in, and then a rabbi and priest will be talking in the street with their respective coffees

Here are two painting I am working on.  They are in my make-shift studio in my apartment. The one on the bottom is of Mount Sinai, where I have place a church in the middle between two buildings.  There will be three section to his going from the hospital to the Street.  On the bottom I will place sick and well patients going from the street to the church.  It is really a work in progress

THE SURPRISE VISIT & SECOND FLOOR

This is my latest addition, and well as my introduction to my blog... which I hope comprises the  personnal thoughts that go into one's Diary...  First, I'de like to give a brief background of my life,  and career.  At present I have lived long enough to become a Senior Citizen who finallly has the opportunity, through it may be a hard one, at times, to paint full-time.  For about thirty years before my transfer to painting I was a Graphic Designer who worked primarily for book publishers and magazines...  And had, I must admit, a charmed career... with companies  like Random House, Harper's Bazaar and Ms. Magazine, McCraw-Hill, after graduating from Cooper Union's  evening school.

In 2002 I decided to leave McCraw-Hill and start painting.  "THE SURPRISE VISIT" was one of my first attempts at a craft I though I had lost.  I had always dreamed of painting Jesus coming out of a subway.  This piece was in a show at the Marble Collegiate Church in 2011 and is in a private collection.

Yes, that is me in the photo.

size: 4 x 5 feet

I began to work on the "SECOND FLOOR" very shortly after I finished "SURPRISE VISIT".

It was the deciding facter on why I began painting houses of worship of all dominations.

I wanted very much to express the calmness people could appreciated in these buildings, the morality they could experience from the writings and music they found in its halls, ethics and justice that come from the sermons and the spirit of words.

The "SECOND FLOOR" was inspired from a photo I took of the women's floor of OC...  an othodox shul a few blocks from where I live that is easy to get to when in a rush.  The shul, on most Saturdays is only a-third full, and the ladies daven and talk, daven and talk.  That's how they keep up with the week's news and share recipes.  It is always very quiet, but through my imagination, the few times I have sit there either alone or with the few women,  I see the ceiling opening for a large breath of air. coming from the very depths of outer space, and tprayer books races out to the universe for refreshing... because they are free to do it in my mind.

size: 26 x 40 inches

OUR HIDDEN MORALITY, or I AM THERE

"HIDDEN MORALITY" is still in progress... and the start of a new series about New York for me... and what can be seen in this teeming, creative,  money oriented , fast paced city, "and what is not ".  Perhap it is the quietness of the buildings... the eyes and walk of the sick and aging.  A church wedding.   The homeless in pain. A couple in love.  A breath of space in the midst of cars and bricks... the smile of a child, as their mother talks silly to them to get their attention.  Maddness in the  the streets. The words of a raving lunatic, saying the truth if you really listen.
It is amazing, what we pass by, because we are too busy texting and cell phoning, or in circling thoughts that have no immediate answers... That we don't stop to wondered what is hidden from our view. Maybe Our Being!
I personally thing it will be an interesting series.  For me it is the search.  In one photo I see one thing, then in another; and another... I find that they go together.  In this painting, on the right side, in the white space,  I see three ill people waiting outside  to go to church to pray for their welfare,

size: 22 x 30 inches

HARVEY'S SHUL,unfinished piece, on its way

I call this Harvey's Shul, because it is where my Cousin Harvey works as the Business Manager. But thats not my only reason for painting this particular shul.
I am absolutely fascinated by comtemporary, odd religion buildings; whether christian, jewish, moslem, or buddists... as I am with religious art of all kinds. It seems to me that people have poured their hearts out, from the beginning of time, with the concept of God, and the concept of religion... the concept of something greater than themselves.

And Cousin Harvey's shul fits that bill.  It is a very tall and thin, very modern place of worship. What blew my mind is that when you get off the elevator, you find yourself facing toward the width of the schul... which makes the shul look wider, longer.  The architect is truly brilliant.
... but then when I look at it through my camera eye, and take a pic in the street; I see its connection to the heavens, the universe,  the past of our religion, our people, the neighborhood ... the warmth of a shabbos meal.

size: 22 x30 inches

GENERATION TO GENERATION

                                      size: 3 x 7.5 feet

The above pic is my make-shift livingroom/studio.  In reality my studio is 

taking over my livingroom, and because my drawings/paintings sit on my

couch, no more than two to three people can visit. But I do have a kitchen

and bedroom... so there is more space.  

The painting leaning on my wall, is called "from Generation to Generation"...

I did it, especially, for a show I participated in two years ago in

New Haven, Ct... at the Jewish Community Center. 

It was done on a wooden door as it would have in Jewish Foldlore

to convey the message or spirit of coming and going.  Passing through.

The visual is of a rabbi davening, looking towards the past,  

before the migration of Jews from Middle Europe to the new world... 

From nothing to a monotheic religion of one God.

The door is painted Gold to represents the Byzantine Period (330A.D. 

to 1453 A.D. of art, when that metal was used richly in Christianity...

Upon further research I found out that Gold was used because it

symbolised the generosity and spirituality of Heaven.  Also to my

surprised it was used in Synagogues for Jewish symbols and artifacts, 

perhap at the same time.  

KEEPING AL AND SOPHIE ALIVE

"Keeping Al and Sophie Alive, Actor's Temple"
framed as it actually appears in the show at the Holocaust Memorial  Center in Detroit... which
ran from March to May of 2012.  More about this
painting can be seen my Diary dated February 3rd, 2012, under the same Title"Keeping Al and Sophie Alive, Actor's Temple.

size: 22 x 30, without frame   

CITY SHUL

I don't even know the name of the schule.  It is across town from my apartment in NY, and I only know that its a very orthodox temple.  And  I know is that a lot of young people go there, looking for either wives or husbands.  The outside of the temple is quite beautiful, I think. What I don't understand is why there are  barricades in front of the shul.  They scream fear to me.
Every since 9/11 more synagogues have some kind of protection.  However the shul is beautiful... and I would like to only concentrate on that.

size: 22 x30

MY BLOG IS MY DIARY

As I started including my paintings on my blog, I began to write, as though I would in a Diary.  About why I painted about religion and religious architecture from the past and present.  I quess it comes from my interest in the World War I and II.... and my parents concern about the people they left behind in Poland.    What it was like for me to be a first generation Jew in New York, in America.  How I felt about the difference between spirituality and religion.  How I was not particularly observant, but the Jewish religion was in my identity... sort of in my blood.  I don't even know why I seem to paint about the Jewish religion.  It's all a mystery to me.  But I believe there are certain things in the life that one cannot answer.  They are just there.  I even have to deal with my admiration for Christ, as well as my love for Hasheim.  And that most of all, deep inside I really only believe in a higher power.  Could be universal truth.  Or it could just be my thirst for knowledge in general.  I do not know.  I invite you to go on the journey with me.  The only thing I am positive of is that most of my truth comes from any early age, and the story my parents told me.

The above paintings are of my mother and father, when they cam to America, around 1916 to 1918,  I must admit they are much better in person.  Both of them are 22 x 30 inches.

POLLUTION

I am taken by the church on 55th Street and 5th Avenue.  Every time I'm in that area a take a shot of the church, and then hope I will have time to paint.   I have done 3 paintings so far. Usually I get a bus and go down to So-Ho or No Ho.  As I stand on that corner, I notice that I cannot breath.  I am besieged by pollution.  My first painting of the church was surrounding by pollution.

Trump Towers is in the background.

size: 30 x 40

Keeping Al and Sophie Alive:

KEEPING AL AND SOPHIE ALIVE is in a show outside of Detroit in a Holocaust Museum and part of a group called the Jewish Artists Salon.  The piece is about the famous Actors Temple on 47th  Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues.  The small temple was started by a group of Orthodox Jews who arrived in Hell's Kitchen  in 1910.  For many years the temple attracted people who were in show business, because it is very near Broadway and many actors lived in Hell's Kitchen, because that's all they could afford.  As the actors, etc moved away to Hollywood and to  Long Island, the temple began to fall on hard times.  It is now getting on its feet again, with its director Rabbi/Cantor Jill Hausmann.

The Show at the Detroit based Holocaust Museum is called Silent Witnesses... about Synagogues turning into churches, or decaying into rumple, or like the Actors Temple are slowly, very slowly having a renewal.  The temple does receives some economic help from the plays which are performed there and I'm sure contributors. But it still in the need of more help... lots of more help.

HANS FALLADA, German Writer

This painting is from a book I read by Hans Fallada.  He was a German writer, who was very sympathic to the Jews.  He spent a great deal of his life imprisoned for his views. He did not understand the war, nor  what was happening to the Jews.   In the painting the woman's husband has been 

arrested and she is alone.  She waits  until it is dark and she feels safe to go out shopping for food.  

She put on her coat so she can hide her newly sewn-on Jewish star.  This reminds me that 

I must paint Fallada's feelings.

size: 22 x 30 inches

SATURDAY NIGHT EVENT

This is the second painting I did of the Park Avenue Synagogue.  And for some reason I had a fiddler in mind so I though of the center giving a Saturday evening recital on the outside of the temple with three people, of course a fiddle, than singing  piano player, and a female saxophonist.  And of course a tea-cup for a moon.   Why not.   It all became a dream, with silver and cooper trimmings on the old part of the Schul... 

size: 30 x 40

TORAH ASCENDING

The Park Avenue Synagogue is one of the Synagogues, and there are a lot, I pass almost everyday, when I walk about and when I ride up Madison on the bus or get off the train station.  The side I see the most is a very modern congressional community center,  However, around the corner, is the earlier temple, which is very magical to me.  I have fallen in love with it, and seem to paint it often.  The painting here is the first one I did.  And what came up in my imagination was of the torah going up into the skies to receive its continual knowledge.  Since I believe that all religions must be living religions,
with their art and spirit, evolved for all time.

size: 22 x 30