About Leora Wenger

Leora Wenger draws, sews, throws pots, and delves into watercolor, ink, and gouache illustrations. Sometimes she works on websites.

Art Background

Leora started drawing at about age 5 when her mother showed her how to draw disappearing railroad tracks (one point perspective). Later she expressed a desire to draw portraits. “If someone asks you, who is it? Just respond it’s a person,” said her mother. She has studied art at the Boston Museum School, Boston University School for the Arts, in other institutions, and via online courses. You can follow her art on the art database, Sketching Out Blog and on Instagram.

Sew, Sew, Sewing

The desire to sew followed disappointment with store offerings. She wanted a pretty, comfortable cotton skirt. A few sewing teachers helped her achieve this goal. Lately she has been sewing t-shirts with soft organic cotton. They feel amazing!

Pottery

Leora has plans to sell kiddush cups, candles, mugs, bowls, and more.

Future Plans

Leora is building up an inventory of modest cotton skirts, jersey cotton t-shirts, mugs, bowls, kiddush cups, candlesticks, zipper pouches, fanny packs, summer hats, tote bags, and more. Initial sales will be local in the Highland Park, New Jersey area. Stay tuned!

Computer Background

Leora has worked with computers all her adult life. She self-trained in web design and development, learning HTML, Drupal, WordPress, PHP, VueJS, ReactJS, CSS, Git, theme development, responsive web design, Javascript, Gimp, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Before the web, she did tech support and programming. While working at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, she learned more about computers (and computer scientists) than in the many computer classes she has taken.

Web Projects

Leora built website components and apps for the NY MTA. Projects included station pages with VueJS apps that show arrivals, elevator status, and alerts; a photo gallery: editors can add photos of their to choice to be displayed in a modal with captions and button links; a news grid of recent articles or press releases. She works with transit apis such as bustime so customers can know important, up-to-date details about their trains. Software skills used include Drupal site building and module development, VueJS, ReactJS, php, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript.

Leora acquired many web skills at challenging technical assignments. She developed Drupal themes for Princeton University. Leora worked on a Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 migration, managed the Highland Park Public Library site for over ten years, and developed sites for small businesses in New Jersey. She worked for over two years with a web team at Rutgers School of Communication and Information on a Drupal 8 site. She developed a Drupal theme for Rutgers SC&I to be used on various lab and project sites.

How She Got Started with Web Building

She began her web career doing local sites. The award-winning website for the Highland Park Environmental Commission was an early web creation. She redesigned a website for the Rutgers University Anthropology Department that was online from 2002-2005. For twelve years she worked as the webmaster for Rutgers Jewish Studies and helped put the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival online.