Creative Jewish Living | Artists We invite you to participate in a new Jewish Renaissance. We invite you to begin a relationship with the most amazing, beautiful art you have ever seen. We invite you to participate in Jewish traditions and lifecycle events, elevating the pageant of the holy days with fine art, beautifying your home, inspiring and touching all those around you and supporting the work of talented artists. We invite you to a feast of the imagination and of the senses.

Karla Gudeon is a storyteller. She culls her images from her own cultural heritage and family lore. It is through Karla's natural ability to tell a story, her humor and wit, that her work attains its universal appeal. As with the best folk and lyrical art, Karla's work is wholly accessible while encompassing emotional honesty and layers of meaning. Her chosen medium, the limited edition dry-point engraving, allows her work to circulate to an ever widening circle of collectors and admirers. Each print, hand water colored in bright, rich hues, remains truly unique. The imagery, interpretations, and stories embodied in these works touch the soul and warm the heart of the observer. Marvin Wolf, the celebrated jewish storyteller, screenwriter, author, world traveller & photo-journalist, infuses the jewish holidays with newfound meaning when he uncovers the secrets hidden in his images. By investing the literal with the metaphorical and allegorical, with pious fantasies, he created visual midrashim, digital, reflective love poems exploring Judaism’s mystical dimensions. Nishima Kaplan uses color and iconic imagery to express the emotional experience and the texture of the relationship she has created with her materials and her subjects. Her artworks are full of depth, shades of brilliance, shadows and layers. Her art is always about her relationship with God, holiness, sacred time, space, and community. Janine Sopp builds a personal relationship with her chosen medium-- clay-- as she combines her highly developed talents as a designer and her deep connection with the lands of the Mediterranean Sea. While traveling and living in Morocco, she uncovered her deepest artistic vision. Surrounded by pottery, mosaics, hand-made bricks and architecture in harmony with the local lands, she was inspired with the realization that she is a spirit living in a material world. She has devoted her life's work to being a ceramic artist. Her years as a textile designer bring sophisticated textures, colors, and forms to her ceramic creations. Steven Bronstein twists and bends metal to create functional and sculptural pieces that blend the primitive charm of ironwork with the energy and interest of more contemporary design. Steven celebrates the three thousand year tradition of blacksmithing and its capacity to adapt and evolve with the changing designs of the day. He looks forward to all the possibilities inherent within this dynamic artform. Blackthorne Forge is owned and operated by Vermont blacksmith Steven Bronstein. He has been creating his ironwork for over 25 years. Relying on the qualities that make iron such a beautiful material, Steven's pieces are both delicate and rugged. Ivan McLean has the amazing ability to make functional items into pieces of art. He is a self-taught master sculptor who picked up the welding skills he uses to create art while working odd-jobs in cattle ranches. McLean learnt how to wield the blowtorch while still in school. All his artworks are hand-crafted of steel, use sturdy welds to create a unique image, and are coated to inhibit rusting. All are handmade in his shop in Oregon and have small variations, adding to the work's appeal and value. Kendall LeCompte works straight metal into movement. He trembles it, encouraging the non-organic steel to take the form of an organic material, using straight lines only when necessary. "We live our lives in a structured world, but prefer a natural one. Twigs and reeds are a return to more elemental life. And that's why I build as I do. Imagine that happy place that doctors and tax attorney are always talking about. Yep: beach, forest, mountain, stream, ocean. Not a happy angle to be found." Tamara Baskin is a self-taught artist with some twenty years experience working in several mediums. Born and raised in Israel, she moved to the United States where she began her career in art. For the past several years she has been working with fused glass, where her emphasis is creating elegant yet functional designs to celebrate Jewish life. Tamara's chosen technique of fusing glass goes back to biblical times. Layers of glass are cut and then arranged in a kiln to be fired to a temperature of 1550 degrees when they become one piece of glass. A second firing is required to form the piece into a bowl or platter or other piece. Marian Slepian paints brilliantly colorful glass against cool silver lines to create mysteriously sensual artpieces. She works with cloisonné glass enameling, a realm of glass, metal and fire where every new creation is a challenge in the unknown. For most of her 35 year career, she created large paintings for wall hangings and architectural installations. She found the luminous colors to be a painter’s playground and the shaping of metal more exciting than canvas. In recent years she has explored the joy of three dimensions. Enamels are impervious to the ravages of time-- she is making heirlooms that will endure for centuries. These objects for home and liturgical use join her love of tradition to her love for contemporary design.