Sidi Schaffer

Love and concern for nature

Nathan and Sidi Schaffer at the opening of their photography exhibit at the Zack Gallery June 22. (photo from the artists)

Painter, printmaker and mixed media artist Sidi Schaffer has a new show at the Zack Gallery – a photography exhibit with one of her sons, Nathan Schaffer. Eye Love Nature invites viewers to see the beauty and wonders of the natural world, and for us to recognize the dangers we pose to it.

photo - Embraced and Loved” by Sidi Schaffer — Embraced and Loved” by Sidi Schaffer

Rather than nature as something separate, we see ourselves in the Schaffers’ photos. Sometimes, the animals are doing something that we enjoy doing, like the three whales in Nathan’s “Family Swim,” only their fins visible in the misty ocean. Other times, we can empathize with what a tree has endured, but also our part in hurting it, as in Sidi’s “Embraced and Loved,” which shows a gnarled tree not only tightly wrapped by a vine, but also scarred by the initials, including a pair in a heart, that many people have carved into it.

The titles of some of the photos bring a smile, but also a sense of responsibility. The overall feeling of the exhibit, however, is uplifting, hopeful.

“I have a fondness for word play and puns as a way of expressing humour. I find it helps keep a positive environment when interacting with others and, at times, deal with sensitive issues in a less threatening manner,” Nathan told the Independent. “Artistically, my goal is to engage the audience both visually and with language. ‘The Pepsi Challenge’ [in which two horses tussle over a Pepsi cup] in my mind ‘can’didly raises concerns about human garbage and pollution straight from the ‘horse’s mouth,’ so to speak. In ‘I’m Stumped,’ there is also a bit of fishing line on the stump under the bird’s foot – again a reminder that human pollution is unfortunately prevalent in the lives of wildlife and sometimes it can feel like we are stumped trying to deal with it.”

photo - “The Pepsi Challenge” by Nathan Schaffer — “The Pepsi Challenge” by Nathan Schaffer

Eye Love Nature is the first photography exhibit for both Schaffers. Sidi said, “as I age, I wanted to see my photos on a gallery wall and share our joy creating them with the people in the community.” Nathan writes in his artist’s statement: “I very much hope the viewers enjoy the photos and that positive emotions arise and carry forth.”

Both Schaffers thanked Zack Gallery director Hope Forstenzer and the selection committee, as well as their friends and family, “for providing guidance and supporting this,” said Nathan, who works as a psychiatrist treating adults at a community mental health clinic.

“The resilience of many patients inspires me to search for strength and marvel at beauty in nature,” he said. “I often recommend spending time in nature as a way of reducing distress from inner turmoil, both to patients and family. I also enjoy my photography as a way of expressing latent artistic interests, as I haven’t improved my drawing beyond a rudimentary level. It is a counterweight to the stress associated with my work.”

For Sidi, who is a career artist, the skills involved in painting/printmaking and photography overlap to some extent.

“The combination of a good eye and imagination can help in both forms of art expression,” she said. “[But] the trigger when taking a photo is coming from outside. It is your sudden surprise of what your eye sees in front of you at a certain moment, in a certain light or shadow. It can be a landscape, people or clouds in the sky. It can be a design that the power of nature created on a tree bark, or a gentle breeze moving the petals of a flower. You can be enchanted by a flower’s seeds that hide themselves from the elements.

photo - “Burst of Colour” by Sidi Schaffer — “Burst of Colour” by Sidi Schaffer

“As compared to painting or printmaking, with photography, it’s presented to you, you only have to look and explore,” she said. “When I am in front of a canvas or paper, it’s usually in front of a white surface that waits for my imagination, for my expression of freedom to choose the subject or design that comes from inside me. It takes me even more into my inner self, into a world that brings me satisfaction, reflection and peace. Physically, painting is more challenging; my whole body is involved in the making. I love both mediums and hope to combine them in my mixed media works.”

While Eye Love Nature is Sidi’s first photography exhibit, she has been a photographer since childhood. Sidi was born in Romania – her mother studied photography before the Second World War.

“After the war, coming back home from the camps, my parents opened a photo studio,” said Sidi. “From then on, even as a little girl, I immersed myself in their world. I assisted my father in the dark room; I helped colour the black and white photos with watercolour. I learned from my mom how to touch up the negatives. Today, we would call it Photoshop. In my later years, here in Canada, at the University of Alberta, in addition to painting and printmaking, I also studied photography. I will always be thankful to my parents, who exposed me to the magic of photography.”

It was Sidi who gave Nathan his first camera when he was young. “But the love of nature, the curiosity, his investigative spirit and his good eye, he developed through his life, step by step,” she said. “He was always surrounded by art and love of the natural beauty of our world.”

When asked if he had been lucky enough to meet his grandparents, Nathan said, “Yes, I have vivid childhood memories of helping them develop negatives in a darkroom with a red light and strong vinegar-like smell. I very much enjoyed spending time with them while watching photos gradually appear during this process.”

Of course, photography has changed much since that time.

“Through the years, I’ve worked on film and in dark rooms,” said Sidi. “With the explosive development in photography these days, I switched very happily to the digital camera. This way, I have a more direct and faster approach to picture taking. My aim is to stay true to what I see and not manipulate the image except maybe to crop or lighten/darken if necessary. We are surrounded by enough fake images and news these days. I want to be far from all that. The truth gives us freedom.”

More than 40 photographs comprise Eye Love Nature.

“Some Days I’d Rather Be Fishing” by Nathan Schaffer

“For this show, we picked images where we were primarily appreciative observers rather than creators,” said Nathan. “We only attempted to correct minor blemishes, in keeping with our parenting style,” he said with a smile.

There were many candidates for inclusion in the exhibit. “Like in nature, Darwin’s rule of survival of the fittest was the main guiding force,” said Nathan. “Some couldn’t compete due to technical issues such as file size or being unfocused; others lost out due to not being as captivating. Hope, the JCC gallery director, also helped in selecting the final choices.”

As for the choice of where to direct any profits made from the show, the Schaffers have decided to divide them equally between the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

Both organizations, said Nathan, “do their work in what appears to be very different areas; however, they share an important similarity. Cancer is essentially resident cells going rogue and taking over space and resources from the body, thereby putting it in serious danger. Civilization and humans can have a similar destructive impact on nature and wilderness by urban spread and taking of natural resources without limits. Controlling these rogue processes is needed in order to save and heal patients and nature. These organizations share in a mission of tackling some of the major problems we face.”

Eye Love Nature is at the Zack Gallery until July 24.

Artistic visions of hope

Left to right, Three Echoes artists Sorour Abdollahi, Devora and Sidi Schaffer. Their exhibit, Hope and Transformation, is at Amelia Douglas Gallery until Feb. 29. (photo from Three Echoes)

Connected by similar values and inspirations in their creative work and in their lives more generally, Sidi Schaffer, Sorour Abdollahi and Devora are longtime friends. Their fifth exhibit together – as the informal collective Three Echoes – is called Hope and Transformation. It is at the Amelia Douglas Gallery at Douglas College in New Westminster until Feb. 29.

“Art transcends the limitations of time, space, language and cultural background,” said Devora in her written remarks, prepared for the exhibit’s opening Jan. 16, which was postponed because of the snow, and given Jan. 21. “The echoes from within spill over onto the canvases,” she said. “Together, our works create a dialogue of hope and transformation.”

Devora told the Independent that the name for the exhibit came “through talk and discussion between the three of us in reflecting on our individual and collective journeys and where we found ourselves, and the world, at that moment.”

“Today, there is a lot of anxiety about globalization and migration,” Abdollahi said. “As an immigrant artist, my art deals with connections between cultures and hybridity. Therefore, my works might help serve as a bridge and tell the immigrant story.”

Abdollahi was born and raised in Iran, where she graduated with a diploma in Persian literature from Yazd University and a bachelor’s in fine arts from the University of Art in Tehran. In Vancouver, where she settled 20 years ago, she studied at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She writes in the exhibit catalogue that her Iranian heritage and Canadian experience “have had a tremendous influence on my works’ subject matter, dealing with the mediation between the modern and the ancient, the old and the new, the West and the East.”

The artist uses collage, a multi-layering technique and mixed media. “My works show the relationship between culture and environment and migration,” Abdollahi explained to the Independent. “Our environments are changing both internally in our mind and externally, and my works illustrate this change. My works create negotiation between different cultures and societies.”

Schaffer also started her fine arts education in her birth country, Romania. In Israel, she received a degree in art education and taught in the school system for more than a decade. When she came to Canada in 1975, she studied at the University of Alberta, where she majored in printmaking and painting. Initially focused on abstraction, her work has become “more integrated, combining abstract and figurative forms,” she writes in the catalogue. “Now I am continually exploring new possibilities with mixed media, a combination of print, drawing, painting and collage. Important for me is the visual poetry, the relationship of form, space, colour and light. Some of my works in this show are a combination of collages of different things from nature and painting; others are collages of my own imagination.”

“I am an optimist and also I am amazed about the continuous transformation in nature around me,” Schaffer told the Independent. “I combined my love and respect for the beauty of flowers and leaves, surrounding them with hope, and new imaginary landscapes. In a way, I give the dry flowers a new life, bringing them out from the pages of old books.”

As for Devora, she told the JI, “What gives me hope is my relationship with the Divine – that there is no separation, that we are all connected and made of stardust, that we are all on an unfolding journey of being together. I attempt to express that emotion onto the canvas.”

For Devora, art has the power to transform the viewer when the viewer can hear her work speak to them from their own experience. “At the opening,” she said, “the Douglas College students from two classes – one poetry class and one art history class – gathered around and engaged with all three of our works, asking questions, wanting to understand the process, the intention and how they could relate from their own lives to what they were seeing.”

Normally, only the art history students attend each artist talk. However, after Devora shared that the Zack Gallery at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver hosts Pandora’s Collective poetry nights, where members of the collective create works inspired by the art, the Amelia Douglas Gallery invited the poetry class, as well.

Growing up in Berkeley, Calif., where she earned a master’s at California School of Professional Psychology, Deborah Ross does all of her creative work under her maternal grandmother’s name, Devora, in honour of her grandmother, who was murdered in the Holocaust. “Her spirit gives me the strength and confidence to create,” said the artist in her remarks for the exhibit.

Devora, who now lives both in Vancouver and on Salt Spring Island, came to Canada in 1993. She has studied art at Emily Carr, Langara College and elsewhere. “My artwork reflects the love I have for the creative process and exploration,” she writes in the exhibit catalogue. “I am fascinated by the inner world of emotion, dream, metaphor and story and strive to illuminate both the universal and personal by bringing them onto the canvas.

“My latest works explore the interplay and continuum between abstract and representational images of landscapes and figure, and a fascination with the surreal, in mixed media combining acrylic and collage.”

In her remarks for the exhibit opening, Devora explained, “My art reflects a search for understanding and clarity about my personal and ancestral history and the world. My experiences inform my work as I go inside and bring them onto the canvas. I endeavour to transform darkness into the light of hope. I am interested in what is hidden and how it informs what is revealed.”

She noted that she, Abdollahi and Schaffer “turned to esthetics as a way to focus and navigate our journey.” And she expanded on this concept. “Through the lens of esthetics combined with the common immigrant experience and effects of war and displacement,” she said, “the three of us have managed to bridge all other divides: language, ethnicity, culture, religion and country of origin. Our childhood environments and experiences could not have been more different on the surface and yet the foundations of connection and similarity were already being laid down, established through the development of the lens of sensitivity to beauty in the world and compassion for the human experience.

“Our ideal, of different cultures living in harmony, is reflected in our own personal experiences, in which intimate exposure to the world of ‘the other,’ unearths commonalities and gives rise to a greater depth of understanding about our own lives.”

She concluded, “In closing, I would like to quote Sorour, as Sidi and I feel that her words speak for all three of us: ‘In my friendship and collaboration with Sidi and Deborah, I see an opportunity to explore and express my own culture, but also to relate these themes to other cultural experiences – recognizing the echoes of each other in our works and our lives. My works side by side those of my friends’ works create a dialogue and negotiation which hopefully provides the viewer with a different vision of the world – one which is borderless, free and peaceful.’”

Mixing abstract, nature

Sidi Schaffer’s current exhibit, In Partnership with Nature, is at the Zack Gallery until March 3. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Sidi Schaffer’s art has gone through several different incarnations. At the beginning of her career, in postwar Romania, she adhered to a realistic approach. “For several years, the central images of my work were people,” she said in an interview with the Independent.

After her family immigrated to Israel, she continued her studies and received her art education degree. “At that time, I fell in love with the Impressionists, especially Cezanne, and started painting more landscape and still life,” she said. “I tried to catch the essence, the light and beauty of my surroundings. Even my palette changed.”

The next stage in her artistic development came after she immigrated to Canada in 1975. It was as if every country triggered a twist in her artistic road. “I needed to establish new roots and master new challenges,” she recalled. “In 1980, I went back to school to study printmaking at the University of Alberta. They told me: ‘Paint abstract, throw away realism.’ I followed my teachers’ good advice … and totally immersed myself in abstraction. I simplified my work; my focus became my inner world, my feelings and my emotions. The art-making process became a sacred ritual.”

But pure abstraction didn’t hold her interest for long. Her abstract compositions acquired random elements of realism. “I tried to make my works integrated, bring together abstract and figurative,” she said. “I tried to express the concept of unity between the internal and the external, between the spiritual and the physical.”

Her current show, In Partnership with Nature, which opened at the Zack Gallery on Jan. 31, combines her inclination towards abstraction, her love of nature and her ability to bridge the realistic and the spiritual in her paintings. It also highlights her innate optimism. The show is airy, uplifting and charming, the works prompting a quiet gladness in viewers.

It’s about flowers, but in an oblique, complex way. “I love flowers,” said Schaffer. “Nature is my biggest inspiration. When it surrounds me, I feel alive, free, and in awe of all its beauty and miracles.”

For years, she has been drying flowers between pages of books. “I have piles of those books in my house,” she said. “I always wanted to preserve the flowers’ beauty, even after the original bloom. I have been doing it since I was a young girl…. In autumn, I also dry leaves with their amazing colours and abstract designs. Nothing is more beautiful. Sometimes, I pick a flower just to remind me of a place and time.”

A few years ago, Schaffer decided to try and incorporate those dried flowers and leaves into her art. “I wanted to make them the subject matter,” she said. “Every picture in this show, except one, has one or more dry flowers or leaves in them.”

photo - “Grace into Focus 1” by Sidi Schaffer is part 1 of a triptych — “Grace into Focus 1” by Sidi Schaffer is part 1 of a triptych. *(photo from Sidi Schaffer)*

All of the images in the exhibit are mixed media. She experimented with acrylic and oil paint, with old prints and new drawings, with collage. The dried leaves or flowers form the heart of the compositions.

“I wanted to give them importance,” she explained. “Some of the landscapes in this show look fantastic, because dry leaves play the part of trees. Some abstract collages were like memory boxes for me, with layers. There are dry petals there, and lettering and musical notes.”

Schaffer’s collaboration with the elements of nature tends towards whimsical. Flower petals float on the visual breeze. Mundane dandelions turn into exotic palm trees. Waves of musical notation sparkle with rainbow colours.

“I played with the images,” said the artist. “I didn’t take myself seriously when I prepared this show.”

Schaffer said every image in the exhibit started with an idea. “But I never knew how it would come out,” she said. “It’s a process, a discussion between me and the flowers. Sometimes, it is a struggle. I look at the flowers and they supply more ideas. This one flower I had, I put it on the painting and the petals came off. I left them off, incorporated into the image.… From a flash of excitement to the end result, each image reflects my emotional journey. By the time I finish a painting, it seldom resembles my original starting point. What is important for me is the visual poetry, the relationship of form, space, colour and light.”

Schaffer’s exploration into creative possibilities is nourished by her rich inner life. Before her retirement, she taught art and painted commissions, but never, for example, something made specifically to harmonize with anyone’s living room décor.

“I paint what is inside of me,” she said. “I don’t paint for anyone’s sofa. I enjoy the hours I spend in front of my canvas. It is an intense emotional outlet and, when I’m finished, I feel happy, but, at the same time, drained and vulnerable.”

In Partnership with Nature is at the Zack until March 3.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Bridges built with art

From left to right, Echoes artists Sidi Schaffer, Sorour Abdollahi and Devora. (photo by Olga Livshin)

The term “artistic brotherhood” was coined in the 19th century. Among the most famous of such brotherhoods were the Pre-Raphaelites in England and the Canadian Group of Seven, and every brotherhood was comprised of artists united by similar artistic principles. Recently, such an artistic union appeared in Vancouver, but it is a sisterhood, compromising Sidi Schaffer, Sorour Abdollahi and Devora. They call themselves Echoes.

The trio’s first combined show was at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery in 2008. It was a success, and they have repeated the experience twice over the years. Earlier this month, they opened their fourth show together. Called Three Echoes: Harmony through Art, it opened July 8 at Britannia Art Gallery.

Even though their initial collaboration started by chance, the artists have stayed together as a cohesive group because of their common outlook on life and art. Despite differences in their ethnic and cultural origins, their humanity and the ties of friendship transcend age and space, traditions and societies.

Schaffer was born in Romania, a child survivor of the Holocaust. She received her first artistic education in Israel, but Canada allowed her to thrive as an artist. At various stages of her creative development, she has tried different expressive formats, and now she blends them all. Her paintings have figures in them but they tend towards the abstract, hinting at multiple meanings and deep, complex emotions.

Inspired by nature and by her beloved Israel, Schaffer uses mixed media – painting, collage, glue, melted wax and a number of others – in her imagery. Her art minimizes the gap between abstract and figurative, between dreams and life. Playful and nostalgic, her paintings infuse the show with the elemental simplicity of her early childhood.

“We keep the name Echoes,” she said, “because our art is echoing our lives and our pasts, our different backgrounds, and our common present. We regard art in a similar way, although we’re inspired by different matters. Devora draws her inspiration from inside. I find inspiration in nature, while Sorour seeks hers in the rich cultural heritage of Persia.”

Like the other two Echoes, Abdollahi is an immigrant. She came to Canada from Iran in 2000. But, unlike the other two, she is not Jewish. Ancient Persian culture permeates her paintings with generational memories. “My paintings are a bridge between the old Persia and the young Canada, a negotiation between history and modernity,” she said.

Abdollahi’s paintings are as much a declaration of her inner manifesto as they are a mystery for viewers to explore, often on the visceral level. “Many old buildings in Iran have mysteries in them. A half-hidden corner. An invisible door. Architecture has layers, some showing, others not, through the centuries of history. I like to reflect that in my paintings. I say with my art: look, there is something here, but I don’t say everything. I let people guess and imagine.”

She explained that both her Iranian roots and her Canadian experience have influenced her works enormously, creating a conversation between the old and the new, juxtaposing West and East. “Ancient ruins play a pivotal role in my paintings,” she said. “They enable me to express the conflict between different cultures and societies…. My paintings capture the process of change and its effects through the use of layers and textures.”

Although her works’ essence leans towards the abstract, playing with bright colors and enigmatic shapes, there is always a core of reality in every painting, that hidden door through which we are invited to glimpse the artist’s private landscape.

“Our art connects us,” said Abdollahi of Echoes. “We complete each other as artists. Each one of us, like everyone else, in every city and country, is reaching for peace, for the world without borders between people and nations. We are trying to achieve such a world through our art.”

Devora is the one who brought Echoes together.

She met Schaffer during the Gesher Project, which the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre website describes as a “project undertaken by Vancouver Holocaust survivors, child survivors and adult children of survivors. They met over a six-month period in 1998 to examine the impact of the Holocaust on their lives. They explored these experiences through painting, writing and discussion assisted by facilitators…. The project culminated with the mounting of the Gesher [Bridge] exhibit.”

Devora attended an art class with Abdollahi. Later, she introduced her two new friends to each other, and Echoes was born as an informal collective.

A transplanted American, Devora is a firm believer in dialogue between cultures. Her paintings are fully abstract, with colors flowing around each other, energy spiking, and whimsical forms unfolding into new revelations.

“My art reflects my personal search for clarity,” she said. “I am fascinated by dreams and fantasy and the interplay with the concrete and tangible. I am interested in what is hidden, how it informs what is revealed, and the tension and symbiotic relationship between the two.”

In her introductory remarks during the show’s opening, Devora talked about the closeness of the three Echoes members, despite their seemingly contrasting cultural foundations.

“When we go to an art show of some other artist, we always end up in front of the same painting, and our reactions are similar,” she said. “We have the same artistic taste. Our mutual experience as immigrants in Canada forms one of the many bridges that connect us. Our artistic ideas enrich each other, allow us a deeper understanding and lead to transformative commonalities…. Our esthetic communication is a model of a peaceful world, a microcosm of a greater ideal of partnership, a proof that it can be done.”

Three Echoes: Harmony through Art is on display until July 31.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].