g otta STEVE LAPIN SUZANNE CHESSLER Special to the Jewish News ive Jewish artists, each with a very different approach, represent the diversity that visitors will , find this summer at the three art fairs about to line the streets of Ann Arbor. Barbara Sucherman's jewelry, Steve Lapin's sculptural wall hangings, Susan Levi-Goerlich's scenes on fabric, Elizabeth Lurie's porcelain forms and Al Lachman's prints are among the work offered by a variety of Jewish artists. The 40th annual Ann Arbor Art Fairs transform 26 city blocks July 21-24 and will welcome 1,100 artists and 500,000 visitors. Street perform- ers provide entertainment, and children and adults may participate in demon- strations and free art activities. The Ann Arbor Street Art Fair is the smallest and most selective with 200 artists. The State Street Area Art Fair features the work of 300 contemporary artisans. The Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair, organized by the Michigan Guild of Artists and Artisans, showcases 600 artists and is the most diverse. Hours for the fairs are 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. The Ann Arbor Area Convention & Visitors Bureau will extend its operating hours to 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 9 a.m.-noon Saturday to help visitors: The bureau, located on the north- east corner of Huron and Ashley, will supply fair-goers with maps and visitors guides. For more information, call (800) 888-9487 or visit www.annarbor.org . In the meantime, meet five of the talented people whose work soon will be shown and available for purchase. ril . . 7/16 1999 82 Detroit Jewish News Although Steve Lapin is coming to Michigan for the first time, he seems to always have connected with the area. He loves cars, a passion reflected in his sculp- tural wall hangings, which depict storytelling scenes. One scene has a 1963 Corvette coming off the surface as if flying in the air. A series on Cadillacs has the luxury models moving our of swimming pools and going into rooms. Not to be caught along a straight-and-narrow road, his narratives also have taken him into the world of mythology and the domain of animals. "I started out doing functional ware," explains the California-based artist. " n 1984, I was included in a Los Angeles show, 'Revolution, Evolution, Continuation,' and decided to do something surreal and sculptural. I made a house with people jumpina out, sold it and started doing more scenes." Lapin, who works with ° high-fire porcelain, has a home studio. He studied at the Arts and Crafts College in California and earned his master's degree at the University of California at Los Angeles. "I do commissions, have work at galleries and travel to shows," says Lapin, 50, who makes all his own dinnerware and has done special projects for his family. He made a political photo collage for his older son, an attorney with strong political interests, and is planning a similar project based on ancestral pho- tos recently found and forwarded by a cousin. "I had a huge family in Lithuania, and there were some rabbis among them, Lapin says. BARBARA SUCHERMAN Barbara Sucherman has been featured at the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair for the past 20 years, and each time, she tries to come up with a new jewelry concept. This season the spotlight is on "The Treasures," a series that introduces small acrylic boxes filled with colorful beads. "I make earrings, pins, pendants and bracelets," says Sucherman, who works out of a studio in Illinois. "The Spertus Museum in Chicago carries my jewelry and has suggested that I take this concept and use it to design mezuzahs, and that's a possibility." When Sucherman was a student at Carnegie-Mellon University and later at the Art Institute of Chicago, her inter- est was in painting, drawing and printmaking. After graduation, when she was thinking about making a living, she switched her atten- tion to jewelry and essentially taught herself the skills. As business grew, she devel- oped unconventional designs and added assistants to help craft them. "I started out with very simple shapes — circles, squares and triangles — and gradually my work became more complicated," says Sucherman, 49, whose jewel- ry sells throughout the year at the Selo-Shevel Gallery in Ann Arbor, Zyzyk in West Bloomfield and Emery's in Farmington Hills. Sucherman, who takes her designs to about 15 art shows a year, likes color and has added that to sterling silver by using fused glass and semi-precious stones. "I like meeting the customers at the fair," says Sucherman, who is assisted at her booth by a cousin. "Their comments have led me to make new designs. For instance, someone's asking for red stones encouraged me to use them."