/-

/-

and see what happens. Oh, sure, I
know about design. I've studied de-
sign," says Bryant, who studied art
at Cooper Union in New York and at
Wayne State University in the '50s.
"But, once you've done a design and
transferred it on to a canvas, to me
that's not exciting. What's exciting
is discovery. What you're really look-
ing for is first love all over again —
that wonderful discovery of the new,
that new image.
With this painting over here,
for instance, I started out with an
ink wash," she says, "just mixing
ink with water and throwing it on.
That makes forms, of course, and, in
this case, at the top I could see
branches. Down here, I couldn't fig-
ure out what it made. So, I started
drawing there, but didn't like it. But
when I put a wash over that, these
people (I'd drawn) were 'caught'
there and, some way, that meant
something to me, and I went with
that."
A Detroit native, Bryant was
brought up by her maternal grand-
parents. ("I grew up Jewish in a
Gentile neighborhood," she says.)
Her mother, Detroit artist Sophie
Gurvitch, died when Bryant was
two, and her father, science-fiction
writer Richard Shaver, was confined
to a mental hospital before she was
born, and never actively participated
in her upbringing. For some of his
stories, Shaver occasionally created
his own artwork; recently, when
Bryant saw some of it for the first

time, she was astonished, she says,
wandering, cloaked figures, it began
to discover how closely it resembled as a snow scene, she says. "But I
her own.
can't stand landscapes without
She describes herself now as
people. So I began to paint people in.
not religiously Jewish," but "cul- . People seemed almost to appear in
turally Jewish," emphasizing that
the painting sometimes."
her Jewish background has always
Another work, with a slightly
influenced her work to one degree or
Oriental flavor, and painted soon
another. She apparently saw her
after she arrived in Israel, depicts
work as relatively unfocussed until
three people, engrossed in conversa-
she went to live in Israel during the
tion in an area that seems to resem-
'70s, after the failure of a second
ble an exotic marketplace. At their
marriage.
feet are a tiger and a dragon. Bryant
"The experience definitely
says she was constantly intrigued by
changed my work," she says. Before
the way the people of Israel carried
staying in Israel, her style she says,
on their daily activities — like going
was "just pretty much painting, in
to the market — even though they
an expressionistic way, what was
lived with danger much of the time
there."
in their lives. "I wanted to get that
While working four jobs as an
feel in the picture."
art instructor in and around Tel
A more recent work, "Judaica,"
Aviv during her nine-year stay, she
has about it an almost cartoonish
began, in what spare time she could
quality but, at the same time, seems
eke out, to do her own art work at a
representational of a nightmare.
printmaking workshop there.
("No, none of my paintings has ever
"Almost all of my black-and-
been conceived from dreams,"
whites come from that period," she
Bryant says. "I sleep very soundly. I
says. "I was looking for a way to
don't really dream much.") In
break out of the 'every day' in art.
colored inks and pencil, a large, pale
And that's when the surrealism
horse dominates the canvas. On its
really began to come out."
back are a strange, old woman and
Bryant's output in Israel was
some children, apparently attempt-
prodigious, and included not only
ing to escape The Flood, looming in
pen-and-ink, but a number of oil
the background. Cain and Abel are
paintings, and some water-color.
two of the children: another child, at
A large oil painting, done
first glance, looks rather appealing.
mostly in dark, ink-blues, was com-
But, on closer inspection, appears
pleted when she was in Israel.
subtly horrific, almost inhuman. The
Entitled "Exodus," she calls it one
painting is a clear example of why
of my Jewish paintings." A scene of
Continued on Page 17

—a...

Lys

"None of my
paintings has
been conceived
from dreams. I
sleep very
soundly."

.

15