The City Lives in a Dream

 

On the Road



Capital Wrecking on Crosby

It's been a strange year no doubt. As we are beginning to wake up, here at the eastern end of the Med, and look around us - Europe is still struggling to keep head above water, The US has reason to be a little more confident and I am not planning any more travel for the time being. 
But New York keeps calling me. First there are dreams, every now and then, of suddenly being in New York and then having to take care of paperwork and flights and insurance and where to stay - some upside-down schedule  - and even letting people know I am already there, which they did not expect at all. Funny. Then I started a series of watercolors and drawings based on New York and America at large - scenes from my visits there and beyond. 
And THEN -  I had been contacted by the New York Times Jerusalem office.  No kidding, true story. 
Patrick Kingsley, a very talented journalist, head of the Jerusalem bureau, decided he needed to have a chat with me, of all people in Haifa City,  to hear my take on the issue of --- wild pigs. Yes, Wild boar has been spotted closer and closer to where I live. They walk the streets looking for food and the whole tribe follows - 8 or 12 young, very cute striped hogs. Read all about it. 
(I actually once made some drawings, but that's not why he wanted to talk to me. It's the tigers of 2010 that caught his attention). 

So pigs

So back to New York watercolors and color drawings.

Two images around Times Sq

I then went into a very intense period of just pencil drawings and produced quite a bit of those, and this is just a sample, all USA or NYC-related:

Inside the Ai Weiwei Installation Central Park South 2017

Jerome Avenue bus station 

The Village

This last one is a pen drawing. I am alternately back to that as well. 

Park in Yonkers

Hey, New York. I will see you again. In your dream or mine. 

An Orchard Rising

From one show to another, I almost played three games at once (but two is more than enough).
Two months ago, two exhibitions opened in Haifa: my little solo show at Hapina Cafe, titled "The Gateway to Lower Paradise", and the grand-grand-over-anticipated-exciting-event-of-the-year "Bustan Khayat" (Khayat Orchard), in two parts - one  at Haifa City Museum,  and one that showed more of the arty stuff, at Bet Hagefen Gallery.

I didn't take any pictures from Hapina Cafe opening because I was too busy drowning in the sea of people that just kept on coming - but it was a very happy occasion. Literally the whole neighborhood swarmed in.
I managed to hang 30  works, most of them small marker drawings; I was really surprised when the Haifa Museum, in a Facebook post, recommended my exhibition, most of which was indeed about Khayat Orchard.

The opening at Bet Hagefen was something else entirely. 35 artists, a huge crowd numbering hundreds of people, according to some. Eyal Friedlander, a kind of host and one of the curators, was glowing all over. It was his big time. Hopefully something good may come out of all this. Eyal is a wonder, he started working there on his own and later with volunteers and still keeps the place together, deeply involved with it. If the city had any sense, he would have been commissioned there as warden/gardener. Here in a painting by Hila Sali.

The tigers were represented by some paintings and drawings, some shown in previous posts, and this oil 60x90 cm that was completed only two days before the curators came to my studio. It is part of the graffiti series.

My large wooden circle raised some attention, shown by most publications and TV shows who talked about us at all. Below, Pnina Beagetz, a painter friend,  and myself under the image. Photo taken by Efrat Peleg - another gifted artist.

Beautiful places are sometimes man-made and sometimes just places of great natural beauty. Because we lack breathtaking natural vistas within a walking distance, we settle for more humble places. Anyway one sees beauty not through the eyes of the flesh, but with the heart.

What Does Your Garden Grow

Our Secret Garden is coming to the center of attention in September, when two exhibitions (at least) will open in the city - one in the Haifa City Museum and another one in Bet Hageffen Gallery, showing the work of volunteers in the Orchard, plus some artwork created through the decades.
And all the while mysterious things continue to happen around the Khayat place. Tigers have been spotted again, and graffiti of tigers appeared in the pools area. 

But since it was drawn with charcoal, it is already starting to fade. 

The tigers in this image came from this painting:

oil on plywood, 64x48 cm

I worked on it for almost a year, give or take, and with a few months break in the middle (visiting Europe and USA in 2015). But the best works are not the ones I work at the most. Sometimes it's just a small sketch in markers, and sometimes something different entirely, like this plywood round panel of  ⌀110 cm.

oil on plywood

In a Facebook post I named this painting "Off Fence". The fences are a new arrival. It used to be as it is, abandoned and beautiful in its neglect. But the city wanted to cover its a** and one morning there were those ugly green railings everywhere. I thought about making a comment, but in a very subtle way. I think the work does not appear to be political in any way. For this oil painting I used a sketch in markers:

As well as this one

And last, I tend to make more drawings of the same spot over and over again, and this is one of my favorites:

pen, 35x50 cm

So, another one.

markers,  21x28 cm

Backyard Garden

This painting done about two years ago made me think of water flooding the place, and then the desire arose in me to paint this image. Eventually I came up with only a hint of water - the painting below can be interpreted in many ways.

Wadi Siyah and the Khayat Orchard, at the foot of the Carmel, are some of my favorite spots in the city. Once a thriving beautiful  residence getaway for the wealthy Khayat family, it  passed hands until it became city property, but since then (the 70's) it has long been abandoned,  and the city does little to maintain this heritage site or make it accessible for the public (tax-paying, a-lot-of-tax paying public etc.).
The wadi or dry creek runs from the Carmeliya neighborhood on the Carmel range in Haifa, down to the cemetery. This drawing I made on a daytrip up the dry creek in summer. (In winter it can carry occasionally some actual rain water).

I made a few oil sketches there, but recently I take the markers or make a pen drawing.

After spending a few years painting and drawing in the Orchard, I started to see tigers in the deep shadow of shrubs and trees. The tigers are an ancient subject I dealt with some 5 years ago.

Some people live in the lower entrance to the wadi, across from the cemetery. There is a dispute going on with the municipality who wants them out. This is one of the houses, with a magnificent tree in front of it.

Some of the magic of the place is in its many staircases, leading from one level to another, sometimes made for leading the water down.

Panthera Tigris Nisnas

In the past year and a half I have been busy with a project inspired by Wadi Nisnas in Haifa, my hometown since two years.

The idea came to me while strolling through the Wadi, a beautiful if somewhat run-down old quarter, rather quiet except every year in December, when the "Festival of festivals" takes place.

I imagined a few tigers climbing down the stairs in a desolate alley.

Haifa, the port city in a coma, holds a record on both the most marvelous vistas in the country and a huge failure on behalf of the ministry of tourism and local authorities. It's a bustling microcosm under the surface. An impossible blend of veteran Israelis - including Arabs, orthodox Jews, Druze from the Galilee, immigrants from Russia, students from Europe, Caregivers from the Far East and Bahai's from all over. Like every big city it has a number of neighborhoods with each its special character. In Wadi Nisnas the hidden potential is even more evident. The narrow winding lanes with houses attached to each other remind me of a village in Southern France.

Wadi Nisnas is pretty deserted throughout the day, that I can vouch for after having sat there many times to draw next to "my" stairs. It is a mysterious place. I do not understand the language spoken but I can guess what is troubling the residents, or what puts them at ease. Indeed we share the same air and the same city government. It's a twenty minute walk from my home.

In the past year, Haifa Zoo celebrated the arrival of a pair of white tiger cubs from Siberia. But white tigers in general are a result of an unfortunate genetic deviation and inbreeding. I went to the zoo and had a look and took a few pictures. Victims of fashion and whim that attest human cruelty.

This year is the "Year of the Tiger" according to the Chinese calendar. Incidentally or not, the year 2010 has been declared the Year of Biodiversity by the UN. It will focus on endangered species, the tiger being on top of the list. All these facts I have learned while doing the research for my work, this past year and a half.

The project includes two large paintings in oil, as well as small watercolors, drawings, sketches etc.