In The Beginning

How does one become an artist?

Is it genetic? Acquired? Chance?

I can track back my first artistic thoughts to kindergarten, at 5 years old.

One was when my friend, Orit, sketched a figure and drew to many contour lines for the hands. When painting inside she realized making a mistake and fixed it, but I was disappointed. I really liked those extra lines, and thought it was wonderful and imaginative.

Another was being fed up with threading plastic beads, and looking for other options. The teacher's assistant took some olive kernels and showed me how to grind their tips on a stone to make holes. I coated the kernels with gouache paint and created my first necklace.

I come from a family of craftsmen and artists, so becoming a creative artist seemed natural for me. However, support for my young talent came from other places, mainly my art teacher at school. When I expressed my wish to learn art in high school, my father replied that it's better to learn a trade, and sent me to learn bookkeeping.

Me, bookkepping???

I'm still lost in my bank statements!!!

Soon he realized his mistake, and became a source of support. Art became a built-in part of my routine.

fine silver pendant - metal clay, sterling silver and fluorite necklace

StudioD began its first steps about 30 years ago, when I quit my Architecture studies. At first it seemed to be a good substitute for art, but soon I found myself longing to form and shape materials with my bare hands. I began designing jewelry made of leftover modeling cardboard, and can sincerely say that they were the best outcome of my studies.

mixed media on canvas - acrylic and modeling cardboard

Getting There

What triggers your creativity?

What makes you leave everything and rush into your studio?

What drives your art making?

Every artistic creation has a story, and behind these stories lays inspiration.

I'm not different from other artists, and would like to share with you my sources of inspiration in a series of posts.

Let's begin.

The first rainy period this year was stormy. I love stormy weather; it charges me with fresh energy and fills me with joy. Go figure…

It wasn't so for my husband, who also likes rain but realized he lost his long loved wind resistant umbrella. It's the kind of umbrella that doesn't bend inside-out by a light breeze or even a fairly strong wind. It looks like this, but was dark green:

Charged with all that energy I was very generous, and suggested to knit him a new umbrella :)

I took the spool I just knitted from and made a dome, which later became this earring:

Obstacles and Creativity

I often hear fellow artists complain about writers' blocks, lack of muse and other obstacles in their path to making art. It's given, since creativity isn't always fluent and can be episodical. Moreover, most of our art is composed in our subconscious, and only when it surfaces – art is being created. I compare these phases to pregnancy. Other obstacles can be lack of time, of support, of financial ability and of opportunity. In the past few years I've encountered another: physical disability.

About twelve years ago, in the midst of a creative period, I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) – AKA Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome (PVFS), Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS) and other names. CFS is a neurological disorder characterized by exhaustion, cognitive fog, widespread pain and other symptoms.

In short, painting and jewelry making became increasingly very difficult, even impossible at times. After the initial mourning I knew I had to adjust, and gradually learned how to glide on the wavy nature of the syndrome. Now there are "good art days" which allow me to saw and hammer metal, and "medium art days" which I use for more delicate and less physical work. Unfortunately there are also "no art days", or "couch potato days".

Creativity means not only making art, but finding solutions, and I found two.

Ever since CFS became a fact of life, I wished there was an easy way to continue my work with silver. It took some years, and then I found Metal Clay for my "medium art days".

 Metal Clay pendant - Fine Silver and Carnelian

Working with Metal Clay is fun, but I still had to do it in the studio. At the time I began knitting wire necklaces for my Metal Clay pendants. When a "no art day" happened in the middle of a necklace, I decided to take it to the living room, to complete it in front of the tube. Since "no art day"s can stretch to weeks – this decision yielded a new and colorful line of jewelry.

Lacy Lariat Necklace and Belt

It may sound weird, but I thank CFS for expanding my choices.

Isn't it wonderful?

It was only two days ago that I praised mutual inspiration and cooperation between artists. Yesterday, to my great joy, I came across a new blog (in Hebrew) by a jewelry designer, Idit Stern.

Idit creates in goldfilled, swarovski crystals, suede, pearls, lace and more. Her designs are transitions between classic and modern, new and old, childish and mature. Her jewelry are characterized by clean lines that appeals to many. They are simply lovely!

Find Idit's jewelry in her shop and in her facebook page.

Back to the point and to Idit's blog at http://mefargenet.blogspot.co.il.

The blog's declared purpose is to support and praise other designers. The name of the blog, "mefargenet", is a Hebrew inflection of an Yiddish word, which means support without envy or jealousy.

Isn't it wonderful?

Why Blog?

I already have a website and even a blog (in Hebrew), so why blog here?

As it happens, my other blog turned to be mostly of travel and geology (yeh, I'm a little freaky...) and a little about writing in Wikipedia (again, in Hebrew; again, geology), but only a tiny little bit about art and creativity.

One may think that my personal website is a good place to write, and it would be true if all I wanted is to lecture.

No. What I miss mostly is a dialog.

Creativity and its artistic manifestations do not thrive in vacuum. Also, I don't believe in rivalry between artists but in mutual inspiration. The best example I can think of is the impressionists and their group exhibitions. Another is professional guilds, which we rarely see these days.

Talking about inspiration, if one is a multi-disciplinary artist, each discipline can inspire another. People who are familiar with my work claim that my paintings and jewelry show similarities. I agree. It often happens that elements I use in jewelry find their way into my paintings – such as metallic tints and deep textures. Lately it inversed, as the vibrant colors of my paintings found their way into my new jewelry collection.

mixed media, 80x80 cm.

adjustable wire crochet bangle bracelet