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Sept. 23, 2011
An artistic Israel pilgrimage
Rina Lederer-Vizer created eight paintings for Temple Sholom.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
It’s an emotional experience when you first walk into Temple Sholom’s chapel and its adjoining room. With a feeling similar to being wrapped in a tallit, you are embraced by images of Israel. On your left is the Kotel; then, you take a journey, from the Jordan River to Eilat, stopping at the Kinneret, Haifa and Carmel, Tel Aviv and Jaffa, the caves of Kumran, Masada and Kibbutz Sde Boker along way.
Artist Rina Lederer-Vizer created this beautiful, meaningful pilgrimage. Calling the eight-panel series “Israel from North to South,” she described it to the Independent as “an expression of the love and the strong bond the synagogue has with Israel.”
“In December 2003, Cathy Bregman called me about a new art initiative,” explained Lederer-Vizer about the series’ origins. The synagogue’s art committee, which has existed in various forms for at least two decades, “had decided to commission a selected artist to create a series of landscape imagery of Israel, to be completed over several years. I was very honored to receive this opportunity to submit my ideas for this wonderful project.”
The call to artists requested proposals that included a concept and a model representative of how the finished landscapes would appear, said Lederer-Vizer. “The chosen theme was ‘Israeli geography’ and the guidelines were broad enough to include multiple materials and 3D imagery. The requested mood of the project was to be tranquil, contemplative and spiritually uplifting.”
Three artists were short-listed to submit images of Jerusalem to the art committee, with Lederer-Vizer’s being chosen.
Whether they realize it or not, Temple Sholom congregants and visitors were already familiar with Lederer-Vizer’s work. She was one of six local artists who, in 1995, were commissioned to create paintings representing the Jewish holidays, and these paintings adorn the synagogue’s social hall.
Using that project and others as examples, Lederer-Vizer described her creative process, which, she said, “is continually evolving through my work. I tend to think in metaphors, so, at the root of each project, there is a metaphor searching for visual references. My most recent work is exploring ‘identity,’ ‘home’ and ‘family.’ Throughout the process, I search for a form or a technique that would serve as a metaphor for the theme. For example, in the series about family, the technique resembles a fabric with a texture of visible threads. Although a commissioned work requires a different process, one that is in tune to the role the art must serve, my creative process is similar.”
For Temple Sholom’s Jewish holiday series, Lederer-Vizer was commissioned to create a painting for Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) and another painting for Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day).
“For these paintings, I focused on two visual images: a tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) and the flag of Israel,” she explained. “I chose the title ‘Yizkor’ for the Yom Hashoah painting. A tallit is draped over a body that is lying next to a piece of cloth woven in a recognizable eastern European design. Six stars are in the sky, representing the six million Jewish who were killed in the Holocaust.
“In the Yom Ha’atzmaut painting, the tallit has morphed into a flag waving against a background of the map of Israel.”
About the new exhibit, she said, “A closer look at the ‘Israel from North to South’ panels reveals more metaphors: in the Kinneret panel, the Israeli ‘sabra’ cactus bushes appear at the forefront of the painting. This cactus has become the nickname for someone born in Israel: [a] Sabra, like myself, is thought to be prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside.”
Lederer-Vizer was born in Haifa, and studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. She came to Canada in 1974, settling for five years in Winnipeg before making Vancouver her home.
“I was born in Israel soon after the darkest period in our history,” she said. “I grew up in the blazing and bright Israeli sunshine, which was part of the new and evolving Jewish state. Ever since childhood, my personal story, my personal journey, were bound to and woven into my country’s narrative.
“In 2008, I had the honor of participating in the exhibition ‘Israel at 60.’ This set me on a course of artistic exploration.... I began a series of collages that depict the intersection of the personal and the public, the individual and the collective ... mirroring the dialogue that shapes my identity.”
This personal-public interaction is an integral part of “Israel from North to South.”
The idea for the east wall “was inspired by images of Jerusalem that were etched in my memory,” Lederer-Vizer told the Independent. “A few years earlier, I had collaborated with the artist Scott Plear; I exhibited 12 large paintings in a show entitled ‘Jerusalem’ at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery.... It was clear to me that the Temple Sholom project would be different than a usual exhibition. I wanted it to be more than just a display of art. This time, I wanted to involve the viewer in the art.
“My concept was to recreate the Western Wall experience, the place where Jews visit to reconnect with the past, place a note in between the cracks of the ancient stones, with a wish and a hope for the future.
“I wanted to bring the same experience to the eastern wall of Temple Sholom; to create a metaphor that would echo the dialogue between the Jewish people and Jerusalem. The synagogue congregants would write notes, exactly as our people have done for thousands of years, and these notes would be incorporated into the art, infusing it with their spirit and energy.”
Her proposal to create a 3D work consisting of two approximately 42-by-60-inch panels that would hang on either side of the ark in the chapel was accepted by Temple Sholom Rabbi Philip Bregman and the art committee, said Lederer-Vizer. “The plan was to create two surfaces: a background board was to be a painting of Jerusalem and the Western Wall, and a sheet of Plexiglas carrying a fine, detailed drawing was to be placed in front of the painting. Biblical verses referencing Jerusalem with many endearing names are interwoven in the paintings.”
On each of the Plexiglas sheets is written, in Hebrew, a few words: “And Judah will always be” on one and “Jerusalem from generation to generation” on the other. “My intention was that the biblical text would cast its shadow on top of the landscape, like an echo,” explained Lederer-Vizer. “The lighting should be adjusted in order to emphasize the shadow cast on the verses on top of the image of Jerusalem.”
What also makes the artwork unique – and both personal and communal – is that these two paintings have within their frames a 10-inch box at the bottom, in which the aforementioned notes from congregants and others have been placed. Lederer-Vizer’s husband, Andy Vizer, together with framer Graham Warren from Westart, designed and constructed the boxes.
“Prior to Rosh Hashanah that year [2004], we prepared hundreds of blank notes,” explained Lederer-Vizer. “On one side of the note was an image generated from the painting. The other side was left blank, leaving space for a message. Upon entering the sanctuary for Rosh Hashanah services, congregants picked up the notes and were asked to write a personal message inside the note, to fold it in half, and return it 10 days later, on Yom Kippur. Together with notes from the Hebrew school students, we collected over 1,500 notes to be used in the paintings.”
Once the art for the chapel’s east wall was complete, said Lederer-Vizer, she submitted her ideas for the series of landscapes on the south and west walls.
“My idea was to create a visual tour of Israel from north to south, a trip that can easily be completed in one day,” she said, which is why the last panel is of Eilat at dusk. “However,” she noted, “this tour took seven years to complete! From 2004-2011, I have painted eight panels depicting the land of Israel.
“Before each panel, Cathy [Bregman] and I would meet a few times and explore ideas for the next panel. The objective was to give true, diverse and inspiring reflections of Israel.
“To elevate the sites to a spiritual level, I chose to paint the landscapes from a perspective hovering above the site.”
The detail of Lederer-Vizer’s work is remarkable. Each painting not only has vibrant colors and multiple textures created with the paint, but also a “a piece of ‘real Israel,’ in the shape of a photo transfer imbedded in the painting, serving a double purpose: to make the bridge between the past and the present tangible and, second, to engage students,” who can make a game of finding where in the painting the photo is hidden.
“The concept of bridging between biblical and contemporary led me to research the biblical references to each site,” added Lederer-Vizer. “I discovered many facts and colorful threads: in the Bible, Jerusalem is mentioned no less than 641 times; and it has a dozen names. The Jordan River is mentioned 175 times, and it is said to be like ‘the garden of God.’ Jaffa is mentioned as Israel’s major seaport; it was the port that Jonah sailed from on his fateful voyage. Eilat has references that go back over 3,500 years; Eilat is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, as the first of the stations of the Exodus from Egypt. These verses are interwoven into the landscapes of modern Israel.”
It will take viewers more than one visit to Temple Sholom’s chapel to even begin to process what “Israel from North to South” means to them. And this is exactly what Lederer-Vizer intends. “In my art,” she said, “I seek to provoke thoughts and emotions to the viewer without suggesting resolution or outcome. I view the visual image as a reflection of our complexity as human beings, a mirror that reveals and recalls our conflicted and multi-layered thoughts, concepts and ideas.”
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