Nature Abstracts
These pieces primarily focus on the colors I find at the beaches, lakes, and hiking trails in my new brightly-colored home. And all of them are painted with water connected to the subject - from the salty waters of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, to the teal-colored sweet water of the Sea of Galilee. This intimate hands-on process - of wading out into the surf, the lake, the river - and then painting with the water while my feet are still wet with it ... it's my way of getting to know, and honoring, my Mediterranean home.
Waves of Haifa Bay
When I moved to Israel, I started learning Hebrew from scratch - 25 hours a week, that's all I did. In a classroom with 20 other adult immigrants (mostly Russians, Ukrainians and one woman from Thailand) we crammed basic Hebrew grammar and vocabulary into our brains.​
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After class ended in the early afternoon, my brain bruised and buzzing, I'd walk along the beach next to the school. This one started as a miniature piece in my tiny leather-bound sketchbook I used on the boardwalk. I liked it so much, I brought home a jar of those saltwater waves and created this larger size.
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(Painted with salt water from the Bay itself.)
Summer Colors of Haifa Bay
I grew up in central Ohio - that meant I was surrounded by cornfields, and was a 12-hour drive from the nearest body of salt water.
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Moving from a Midwest state with long grey winters and overcast skies, to the luridly bright colors of this Mediterranean city, still breaks my brain.
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These are the colors of Haifa Bay when the water is hot, jellyfish-filled, and a deep tropical teal during the sweltering summer months. Painted with salt water from the Bay itself.
Gold-Veined Leaf
If you ever want to have a *deep* meditation on the changing colors of fall, pick up one those changing leaves and paint it ... one cell at a time.
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I remember enjoying the painting the process on this one a LOT - getting to know a single fall leaf so intimately was incredible. And, as a precursor to my succulent pieces, it laid the groundwork for how I would deal with light and color in my later pieces.
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This was also - accidentally - my first abstract piece that I liked! I hadn't realized that, when I zoomed in to this level, it would turn into such a lovely and natural abstract piece.
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(Confession: I zoom in on my subjects because I'm terrible at painting backgrounds - !! hahaha)
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The original was displayed in multiple galleries in Columbus, Ohio. And now it hangs in my home.
Mediterranean Shells
When I first moved to Israel in the summer of 2019, I attended a Hebrew school for new immigrants called an "ulpan", located right on the beach of Haifa Bay - a part of the Mediterranean Sea.
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I would often walk barefoot in the surf to recover after a day full of lessons (learning a new language from scratch in your 30s is no joke). And usually end up scooping up a jar of saltwater from the bay and a handful of shells, sit on the beachside bike side, and use both to paint.
The Colors of Aqaba
Back in the summer of 2020, Ido, myself and some friends of ours managed to squeeze in a long weekend together (between Covid lockdowns) in the vacation city of Eilat at the southern tip of Israel.
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It's the first time I got to see the Red Sea - the one that Moses so famously parted in the flight from Egypt. And I was captivated by the vivid tropical colors.
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Honestly, when I pictured Moses parting the seas - I didn't picture the waves being a flourescently-bright tropical teal, and ringed with beaches of palm trees! (Painted with the saltwater from the Gulf of Aqaba / The Red Sea)