ITALIAN GRILL at the time of her personal discovery. Another work at The Jewish Museum, Study for Mourning Requiem with I needed to speak because I had spent Kaddish, is a detail from a painting a lot of anxiety-ridden years as a child and teenager. Having seen nothing or owned by the Rose Art Museum at then knowing not much about art, I Brandeis University. It's from the years her attention was focused on the world- took a course and suddenly started wide abuse of children, whether maimed making expressionist paintings. by land mines or sold into slavery. "I went to graduate school, and I Snyder's paintings also reference her painted and painted and showed my work to one gallery [director]. He kept companion, and her daughter, Molly, a college senior who has picked up on her looking at it, and every six months, he would tell me to bring more paintings. mother's political fervor and is studying He would come to my studio, and, at one point, said I was ready to be in a group show. That was really thrilling because it was a big gallery, and that's how I got started." Earlier paintings by Snyder are being featured at Revolution, but 1997's A Sad Story Told by an Optimist is the exhibit's centerpiece. Ultimately about Snyder's mother, with a text identifier in the bottom right corner, the work is a large triptych with a sea of masks at the cen- ter, patterned squares to the "Tracking the Angels," 1994; silk, oil, acrylic on left and a garden of red flow- canvas. Snyder's paintings reference aspects of ers at the other end. her life, including her Jewish heritage, femi- Landscape paintings also nism, love, sex and the cycle of life and death. hold their own at the exhibit. Summer Painting 1991, for to be a documentary filmmaker. example, is loosely based on a pond in Concurrent with her exhibit at the the woods but becomes very abstract. Revolution Gallery, another segment There are a few paintings that deal of Snyder's work will be featured at a with mourning, referencing the death New York gallery. of her parents, the AIDS crisis as it "I think I probably am kind of a affects people she knows and the loss revolutionary because of the different of a friend's children. themes that I've addressed and because "When I was doing all these mourn- of not being afraid to leave the ing paintings, the theme of the Kaddish abstract metier and go to Jewish kept coming up," recalls Snyder, who places, feminist places, angry places works out of a studio in a converted and places of mourning and grief," carriage house behind her Brooklyn says Snyder, who slashed, stuffed and home. "I actually used the words from sewed her canvases in the early years. the Kaddish in quite a few of my prints "I am still seeking clarity, a purity, and quite a few of my paintings. an essence, but have never been will- Requiem, one print in this show, has ing to sacrifice the ritual, the need for some Hebrew at the bottom of it. the deep, the rich, the thick, the dark "Religion is not important in if,y — the wild wake of the brush and the life, but I think I have a very strong often organic application of materials Jewish identity and certainly roots from my Orthodox Jewish grand- — and [I'm] always working con- sciously to be in control and out." ❑ mother. Once in a while, I go to syna- gogue, but I think [the connection] is cultural more than religious." "Joan Snyder: Paintings and Snyder has made cultural connec- Works on Paper" will be shown tions with The Jewish Museum in 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays- New York, where she was commis- Saturdays through May 26 at sioned to do a print still sold in the Revolution Gallery, 23257 museum shop. Based on considerable Woodward, Ferndale. An opening research, Our Foremothers represents all reception will be held 5-7 p.m. the women in the Bible, Jewish or not. Saturday, May 5. (248) 541-3444. Brightly colored, it names each one and gives a little bit of history. .aummizmmim ammum A LIVELY NEIGHBORHOOD BAR & GRILL WHERE LARGO'S TRADITIONAL MENU IS FEATURED ALONG WITH SANDWICHES, PIZZAS AND AN INNOVATIVE "PASTA GRILL" SECTION. - Open 7 Days Monday-Thursday 3:30-11:00 ... Friday 6- Saturday 3:30-12:00 Sunday 3:30-9:00 FOR EASY ACCESS: ■ ■ ■ ■ USE 15 MILE ENTRANCE IF YOU ARE COMING FROM 14 MILE ROAD. USE 15 MILE ENTRANCE IF YOU ARE COMING FROM MIDDLEBELT ROAD. 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