Ceramics. Mosaics. Public Art. Teaching.
I started playing with clay when I was about eight years old. I used to walk myself to a bomb shelter in the center of the city I grew up in, Haifa, Israel. That is where my first clay classes were held, and the irony of it didn’t resonate in my world at the time. Yet, I always felt that at the entrance to this shelter, the rest of the world was left behind; it seemed to me that time and place had somehow been suspended.
Something about the fantastic elasticity of this medium, the ability of my fingers to walk through my emotions, and give birth to something from deep within me, always astonished me. There is something fluid and forgiving about clay that doesn’t exist in the other dimensions of life. Just as when I was eight, I still find joy in that suspension of time and place, and can often be spotted smiling to myself, as my hand and imagination work to bring the clay to life.
My work is influenced by my strong connection to my culture, and to history, as well as by such fantastical artists, as Marc Chagall. As some of the pieces indicate, I also enjoy the mixture of clay and other art forms and materials. Above all, my art is influenced by my love of children, and by my own impish desire to unearth the sheer joy of being a child. Stephen Sondheim wrote that life is about “children and art”, and for me, that certainly holds true.