The Best of Times

One day I just went inside and never got out till now.
At least that was the plan, and I was eager to try, following the model of the Chinese city of Wuhan where people were forced to stay indoors for over two months. I am used to stay in - some days I need to kick myself in the *** to go out for some exercise, see the sun, meet people.
On the last meeting at Hapina Cafe, knowing that the virus was raging, a group of friends discussed the possibility of self-quarantine and we all agreed that as artists, we'd have no problem to stay home for two weeks.
So in I went and then began producing, one by one, all that was on my to-do list. But occasionally I did go out, not only because it was allowed but, because I prefer buying fresh, because I thought it's not necessary to act just out of fear.
At intervals I was making small works from my balcony and window.

Then I got busy with an old theme. This imaginary statue I placed  in Khayat Orchard, promising that it would guard and save us from disease and other misfortune.

Now after a second lockdown, life returns gradually, not too soon I hope. Life cannot be stopped: I have been creating grim images of looming disaster (that's one way to look at it) but also cheerful colorful scenes of the life I left behind hoping to return to it one day, or not.

New York is calling twice a week; my friend in Yonkers, who kept telling me that I should come visit, realizes now that it will be a while before such a possibility presents itself. But if that's really the case, if the old ways are gone not to come back, ever, I think we'll all adapt, and see what IS there, because a new world emerges from the ruins of the old one. We're still here, and living in interesting times.

Oil and Water

Yes yes, do you hear the music playing?






pictures from opening night, and just an ordinary day at Hapina with my paintings all around

Better late than never - you are cordially invited to my new exhibition at the Corner Cafe (Hapina).  It will be on for another two weeks and change. Oil and Water just means the medium, in the most literal sense. No drawings, no markers.
It's already the second time I exhibit there, and I take it ever so lightly as I should a show in a cafe.
I had my share of gallery and museum shows in the past year, and why not go back to the one and only gallery in Haifa (well, sort of), now that they closed Gate 3 for good - oh, so sad.
Cafe Hapina, old faithful, still has Yair host the Tuesday night jazz event as well as a new initiative by Omer Ben David - also a jazz musician - called Jam Night. It is usually every other Thursday, people gather from all around and you never know what's going to happen, though after a while I noticed they too have an inclination towards well-known (yet well played) standards.
Jam night is using my drawings for the FB event cover photo. I must have become nearly official in sketching regularly at jazz nights - and other times - in this cafe.

So now I am making an oil painting using these last few sketches I made. The music it sweet in my veins and lifts me up and definitely contributes to the success of a sketch. I hope the painting is as good as some of these.

Broken Visions

Two of the last images I made in France before I left there in September:

Yes I know, it's been a few months, summer turned to autumn turned to winter and broken glass does not leave my mind, even here and now in Haifa.
I still work from the old sketches and images of Bourbonne but I also started to integrate BG into the local scene. It just pops up here so very often inviting me to take a look, take a picture and see the world differently.
Haifa is beautiful sometimes with its unintentional coloring against clear blue skies, such as here:

But I do prefer it in the darker corners, like the market place that still needs a lot of cleaning and seems to me always in total chaos, set aside its liveliness and raw beauty in places; or a half abandoned office building where people still come for their shopping,  bored doorman at the entrance, a surprising slow elevator to nowhere,  and a church for the caregivers who come to work here all the way from the Philippines or elsewhere.
This is the square just before that building, drawn with glass markers on - well - glass.

I did this scene a few times, this one is pencil

But it is still new, the idea of Haifa broken glass, and I am studying it and contemplating it and making space for new ideas.
Another take - on plexiglass - of the scene in France, by now I may have painted it 100 times or more from various angles.

The above work is oil paint and scratch/sgraffito, again that place in France as well as all of these recent watercolors.

Dances with Cranes

"Work in Progress"
oil on canvas, about 72x133 cm

Summertime, and the living is unbearable. Thinking about the guys out there on the scaffolding, building homes for the more fortunate,  helmets covering heads sweating away melting under the naked sun.
I have been a member of various groups monitoring safety at construction sites, and as much as the fight is taken seriously, nothing yet has changed in the statistics. People die building homes for us. People die unnecessarily, out of negligence,  carelessness or sheer cold decisions to cut expenses right there.
For my part, I hate building taking place nearby; the pleasure of the outside is gone; it's dirty, hard to breathe, noisy all day and when the work is done (Twenty-two floors on top of three commercial ones), will probably block my winter light in the morning-noon, which is all the light I have in winter. 
But hey, progress, cities, urban renewal and the like. I'm not against all that.
I found out the building site was actually a treasure den for interesting subjects to paint. The colors, blue-turquosie sky and yellow-orange cranes, bright red railings and yellow vests, sometimes a green arm of yet another crane, blue vertical lines of ladders. Celebration. And the human element - people doing physical work, they seem so elegant, young and full of energy, united in their  coordinated movement to create a rich, complex modern dance.
Then, I read a book that had a description of cranes in it. Not this kind of cranes, the real thing. And guess what, cranes are noisy, and they dance as well. And after their job is done they all migrate - a huge group of them, darkening the skies, hundreds of thousands of free birds keep going and going until they find a place to settle, winter or summer, same routine for thousands of years. Are we lucky to be people? Why do we threaten nature so much? How come the summers now are so much hotter than in my childhood?
Cranes do not need to be saved, but most of nature does. And people.

"Horsemen of the Apocalypse"
oil paint and scratching on plywood, 53x73 cm

Moon and Craneoil paint and scratching on plywood, 37 ⌀


watercolor, 18x12 cm

watercolor, 28x23 cm

watercolor, 46x31 cm

watercolor,  26x32 cm

watercolor, 47x29 cm

markers, 16x20 cm


markers, 15x20 cm

markers, 24x30 cm

The Old and the New
markers, 20x27 cm



Setting Sail
Watercolor, 30x47 cm

No Fool on The Hill

New watercolor,  a back yard that no longer exists 32x51

The world is busy with its foolish business, but since my return from New York, six months ago, I no longer turn on the radio or read the papers. This leaves me with a great many gaps in my knowledge and a whole new world of firsthand experiences, untainted by the rage and regrets of the bigger scene.
I am watching winter turn into spring  in my homeland doing my own. For days I am indoors and suddenly the urge or necessity overcome me and I am amazed to see yet another season in the flow. I was preparing, sketching and so on with one major project, then a few smaller works, but in winter I tend to hibernate more - days are short - so I didn't really get much work done.

Three versions (markers, markes, & below - oil 60x40 cm) for "The Fool on the Hill"

Some New York scenes in watercolor or markers - all done after I returned home:

Some Tel Aviv (marker) scenes:

This fascinates me recently, what you can do with a sharp tool scratching oil-painted surface. The round panels I found on the street, where I always find things, pick them up and then spend years wondering why the house is crammed with things until - suddenly - the idea comes from nowhere. There is a time (and place) for everything. It is a small series of engraving on painted panel, all between 38-40 ⌀. Two of them below.