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Quilters take their interpretations
of Tu b'Shevat to West Bloomfield gallery.

4763 Haggerty Rd. at Pontiac Trail
West Wind Village Shopping Center
West Bloomfield
(248) 669-2295

Clockwise
from left:

Kath Davie:
"Life," 1998.

841 East Big Beaver, Troy
(248) 680-0094

Barbara D.
Cohen: Auturni
Lace," detail

SOUTHFIELD SOUVLAKI
CONEY ISLAND
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Betty Cannon:
"7:f Chicken Sots
Grew on Trees,"
detail

FARMINGTON SOUVLAKI
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Between 13 & 14 on
Orchard Lake Road
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Farmington Hills
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JoAnn
"Evening Aspen,

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Milford
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SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

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West Bloomfield
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xpressing the essence of Tu
b'Shevat became a yearlong
project for 12 fabric artists
from Colorado. Learning,
about the holiday became an impor-
tant first step for 11 of them.
The fiber specialists, who work
independently but meet together as
members of the group Quilt
Explorations, have one Jewish mem-
ber, Barbara Cohen, who came up
with an idea for a joint exhibit that
would capture the spirit of the holiday-.
She found a lot of enthusiasm when
she suggested they prepare a display to
be shown at the Mizel Museum of
Judaica in Denver
- Before acting on their personal
design ideas, the artists looked to
Cohen for extensive information
about the holiday that marks what is
known as the New Year of the Trees.
It's a time to calculate the age of
trees for tithing, and is celebrated by
planting them or contributing to the
Jewish National Fund to have trees

planted in Israel. She gathered litera-
ture and had it copied and distributed
to participants, who have met once a
month for the past 10 years to critique
each other's wall hangings.
Pleased with the output and the
response of viewers to their exhibit
"The New Year of the Trees: Tu
b'Shevat," the quilters decided that
touring the show would be a natural
progression. The Janice Charach
Epstein Gallery at the West
Bloomfield Jewish Community Center
accepted their offer to bring 35 works
to Michigan.
The exhibit opening, with a recep-
tion for five artists who are accompa-
nying their works, falls on the holiday,
Feb. 8. The show continues through
March 22.
"It was great fun and educational
taking on this project," says Cohen,
co-curator with JoAnn Fitsell. "I
thought of the holiday as more spiritu-
al than religious,
ious and I stressed the
universal ideas of the beauty of trees."
Cohen, a professional fiber artist
who concentrated on graphics when
she started her career, will show Ha

Eretz, an abstract representation of
land, and Frutas, which incorporates
photo images of trees in a neighbor-
hood where she walks.
"I love fabric,
it and painting
it," says Cohen, who labors in a home
studio and has marketed her art to the
Jewish Museum in New York. "I work
,°y intuitively and find fiber very
spontaneous."
Not all the works scheduled for
West Bloomfield are part of the origi-
nal exhibit. Some are replacements for
items that have been sold. The ones
on view at Janice Charach Epstein
Museum Gallery will be accompanied
by text to explain the directions taken
by the individual artists, represented
by various materials in differing shapes
and sizes.
There will be many contemporary
images as well as images relating to the
Tree of Life.
Fitsell, a member of the Unity
Church who usually doesn't like to
work to themes, found the theme of
this show a close match to what she
already had been doing.
"I go to a cabin for retreat, and I

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