Interpretation of Jerusalem with figures and pomegranate, painting by Anna Abramzon

I “met” the artist Anna Abramzon when she followed me on Twitter recently. I took one look at her Twitter background (good reason to spend time on one’s Twitter background, especially if you are in a design/graphic/visual profession), and I thought, oh, this is lovely line work and color! So I clicked on her website, enjoyed her portfolio, and here she is, agreeing to an interview on my blog.

1) When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?

I don’t really remember a time before wanting to be an artist, it was always just kind of a given. My earliest childhood memories are of turning on my parents’ record player (that’s what we had in the Soviet Union in the 80’s!) and spending every morning listening to records and drawing for hours before the rest of the family woke up. Throughout my childhood my parents really encouraged and fostered my love for art. They saw that this was definitely my calling, so they sent me to classes, found me private tutors and exposed me to amazing artists from a young age. It was a natural progression from that to where I am now. When I was graduating high school I didn’t even apply to regular universities, only art schools, there was no doubt in my mind.

2) How have you used social media (Facebook, blog, Twitter) to promote your art?

I love social media! It has really changed my day to day life in an amazing way. I am totally fascinated by the new dialogues and relationships that social media opens and I am constantly discovering new sources of inspiration online. There are all these new channels open to artists now, it’s such an exciting time. I post new art on my facebook page (facebook.com/AnnaAbramzonStudio) and I share things on twitter (@AAartStudio) and my website (www.AnnaAbramzon.com) all the time. I also occasionally have free art giveaways and special discounts for my FB fans and Twitter followers.

3) When did you start doing Jewish art? Ketubot?

I was always an artist and a very proud, active Jew, but I had a hard time merging the two identities. As an artist I longed to paint about my passions, including my love for Israel and my Jewish identity, but painting scenes of Tel Aviv or Jews praying at the kotel just didn’t excite me. I struggled a lot with this in art school. While I wanted my art to speak honestly about who I am, I was also wary of becoming cliché or cheesy. After college I moved to Israel where I lived for four years. In Israel I found myself drenched in “Jewishness” every single day. In Israel being a Jew is so easy and inherent that you no longer really have to think about it. Ironically it was this immersion which finally allowed me to gain enough distance and perspective to be able to paint about being Jewish while staying away from overplayed, obvious imagery. It was also there in Israel that I met and married my husband. We had one of those uber intense, passionate love stories that would have made cynical art student Anna gag a few years prior. Naturally I wanted to channel all these new found lovey dovey romantic feelings into art as well. That’s how I got the idea to paint our ketubah, our wedding invitation and pretty much everything else that could possibly be painted for a wedding. After our wedding, other people started asking me to create ketubot for them. I found that people were coming to me specifically because I was not a typical ketubah artist. My work always was and remains quite figurative, which is not what people usually expect from Judaica and I think that was the appeal… that I came from a different background with a different vision, which allows me to create a contemporary, modern twist while maintaining the beauty, colors and and symbolism of traditional of Judaica.

4) What is your favorite part of being an artist?

I am never bored.

5) Where do you look for inspiration?

I have so many artists who inspire me! Some of my favorites are: Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud, Francesco Clemente, Goya, and Noshitomo Nara and I am often inspired by my favorite authors as well, I am a huge book nerd.

6) What are the hard parts of being an artist?

It never stops… it’s a job you can’t leave at the studio. Sometimes I’ll be having coffee with a girlfriend and I’ll think “Oh man, if I could just focus on this moment and stop drawing her in my head!!!!”

7) Can you talk a little about Valley of the Ghosts – it seems to be a comic strip about life in the Ukraine for a Jew. Is this autobiographical?

Valley of the Ghosts is a work in progress… it’s a very long term project that I have been coming back to for a few years now. It’s a graphic novel about a group of new immigrants in Israel. It’s a compilation of stories based on actual people I knew, and it is partly autobiographical as well. The title “Valley of the Ghosts” is a translation of “Emek Refaim” in Hebrew, which is the name of the street I lived on in Jerusalem.

8) You do a variety of artwork, from comics to caricatures to paintings – what is your favorite medium or style?

That’s a hard question… it would definitely be between figure/portrait painting in watercolor and comics. They are just so different… figure paintings and portraits allow me to express emotions really organically, while comics allow me to articulate thoughts in a much more tangent way. It’s really two different languages but there is quite a bit of overlap as well, because it’s two parallel ways of creating a narrative… I think I need to keep mixing things up and developing all my different styles in order to grow as an artist.

If you liked this interview, perhaps you will enjoy one of these related posts:

Lisa Palombo

Ruchama King

Elke Reva Sudin

There is a game with the dreidel that involves pennies and taking the pot of pennies if you get a gimel, giving it in if you get a shin, half the pot for heh, but it is all luck. My kids just spin them and spin them and spin them. What do you do with your dreidels?

I did the above drawing with black marker, then I colored it in with Photoshop. I promised my daughter she could color in the original with colored pencil. If she does, I will post that version as well.

Or maybe he’s really looking out the window:

For the answer to these and other tantalizing questions, you will have to visit my friend’s Harry’s post Noach – Is righteousness relative?

The illustrations of Noah with diamond and window were executed by me (with some critical helpful feedback from my daughter) with pen, ink, and then a lot of playing in Photoshop. The aim was whimsical and playful.

Etrog, watercolor on paper by Leora Wenger, October 2011

“Rise in the presence of the aged and honor the face of the old man”
מִפְּנֵי שֵׂיבָה תָּקוּם, וְהָדַרְתָּ פְּנֵי זָקֵן

Honor the face of an old man could also be translated as “ascribe beauty to the elderly.” Who has knowledge like an elderly person? Who has overcome so much and come so far?

Note the word used here: hadar. Hadar is also used to describe the etrog. Unlike other fruits, the other “lives” for a long time on the tree and does not fall off on its own. The word in Hebrew is dar, similar to hadar. Does the etrog watercolor remind one of an older person? How?

(Credit for these ideas goes to Rabbi Bassous, for helping me remember parts of his speech to my husband, and for help with locating the pasuk to my middle son).

In honor of my father, my favorite elderly person, and in memory of my aunt, my father’s older sister who died earlier this year and who lived admirably as an older person (she was also an artist). In memory of my dear mother – her yahrzeit is next week. And in memory of Linda Greenberg, who tragically lost her battle with cancer this week and will never experience old age.

dates in front of palm tree, watercolor on paper, 2011 by Leora Wenger

Here’s what one says on the siman (symbol) of the date:

May it be your will, LORD our God and God of our fathers,
that those who hate us be ended (yitamu – from tamar, dates in Aramaic)

Would you go on a date with a girl named Tamar? Tamar is the Hebrew word for date, so you can play with words and come up with some funny phrases.

If you are getting ready for Rosh Hashana, you may want to read this post:
Symbols for Sweet New Year – the Simanim to double check if you got everything you need.

Now the fox stands out in the grayed background.

The story:

Shortly after the destruction of the second temple, a group of rabbis went to visit Jerusalem or what was left of it after the Roman conquest. When they saw the destruction, they ripped their clothes in mourning. On getting closer, they saw a fox coming out from the site of the holiest part of the Temple. This was too much for the rabbis. They all broke out crying. Rabbi Akiva, however, started to laugh. “Why are you laughing?” they asked, in amazement. He replied: “now that the destruction prophecy of Micha has been fulfilled, we may look forward to the prophecy of Zecharia that Jerusalem and the temple will be rebuilt!”

Mrs. S. adds: ‘The end of the story is that the other rabbis said in response, “Akiva, you have comforted us; Akiva, you have comforted us.”‘ (thank you, Mrs. S.)

If I have time tomorrow, I’m going to put up a post telling the story of Rabbi Akiva and the fox with cartoon bubbles – update: no time this morning and no energy this afternoon – I’ll aim for next summer.

I decided I prefer drawing the old-fashioned way – with paper and pencil and paints. But I will probably plod along with this scheme of roofs until I get to the fun part, which will be adding color and texture and variety.

I hope you will come back tomorrow – I plan to post an interview with a relationships coach. Stay tuned.

Elegant Woman in Pink, painting by my daughter, June 2011

If you or a friend has a small business, you can learn how to put up a Facebook business page by reading Ease of a Facebook Business Page.

And I usually wait until Friday to link to other bloggers’ posts, but I did so enjoy these drawings for Jewish months by two of Mrs. S.’s children.

Roof of house and second floor, too

As you, the readers of this blog, are my cheering squad, I decided I would share with you this one black and white frame of a roof.

Salad Bowl watercolor on paper, June 2011 by Leora Wenger

Thanks to everyone who inspired me to paint by responding to my Simple Summer Salad Hunt. Results of the hunt (and feel free to add more salad ideas to this post) will be posted next week. A funny anecdote on this painting: my husband was trying to figure out if we have bowl that looks like this blue starred bowl. I told him no, I just made it up. Poetic/artistic license.

What kinds of ingredients make a great salad?