arts & entertainment
Highlighting Local Talent
Congregation Shaarey Zedek presents a multimedia
showcase and sale featuring works of young Jewish artists.
Suzanne Chessler
I Contributing Writer
ebecca Goldberg has begun an
important personal project using
her artistic skills — making
jewelry as gifts for the bridesmaids in her
upcoming wedding.
Goldberg, who will wed mortgage bank-
er Zachary Silverman, isn't losing sight of
other artistic initiatives, the ones impor-
tant to her career.
Next up is completing lots of items —
jewelry, small sculptures and glassware
— for the Young Jewish Artist Showcase
(yJAS) at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in
Southfield.
The showcase, scheduled Jan. 25-26, will
feature all kinds of works by artists dis-
playing specialized talents. Money for each
item sold goes directly to the individual
artist who has made the item.
The Saturday evening program, running
7:30 p.m.-midnight, includes a dessert
reception and has admission fees. The day
program on Sunday, running 10 a.m.-4
p.m., is open to the public without any
admission fees.
Award ribbons will be given for first-,
second- and third-place works as well as
honorable mention.
"The congregation hopes that this show-
case will help retain our talented artists in
our community:' says Tobye Bello, congre-
gation program director.
Some 14 artists, whose works were jur-
ied into the showcase by event co-chairs
Barbara Cohn and Barbara Heller, are
between the ages of 18 and 45.
"I wire wrap all the time, and I'll have
32 new pendants, wire sculptures and
functional glass objects:' says Goldberg,
24, who works at Dearborn Glass Academy
R
Jews
as an assistant glass blower.
Goldberg, a Royal Oak resident who
had her bat mitzvah at Congregation Beth
Shalom in Oak Park and toured with
Birthright Israel, represents religious inter-
ests by creating tree of life impressions.
Working with copper, brass and silver-
plated wire, she is available for custom-
made projects and has shown her work at
the Rust Belt Market in Ferndale.
"When I was in third grade, I dressed up
as [artist] Salvador Dali for a career pro-
gram:' says Goldberg, who developed her
skills during classes at North Farmington
High School.
"I got a degree in elementary educa-
tion from Michigan State University, but I
wanted to work with art. I'm going to be
applying to ComicCon to do specialized
pieces for that event:"
Aaron Poris, 24, will be showing ceram-
ic pieces as well as collages and paintings.
Although he starts out with representa-
tional images, he layers them to come up
with new perspectives.
"I want people to step up and look closely
at what I've done Poris says. "I am process-
oriented, and I want viewers to spend more
time focusing on what that means."
Through The Folded Man, for example,
he uses painting on collage to capture an
individual balancing on his chest. The
work is based on a charcoal sketch.
Poris can remember his interest in art
going back to preschool, when he liked to
draw. As a student at North Farmington
High School, he developed the interest that
would take him to Wayne State University,
where his concentration was fine arts edu-
cation.
An internship with Ilana Goor in Israel
rounded out his studies, and he has been a
substitute teacher. This month, he begins
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
On The Tube
The PBS series American Masters
will broadcast the 2013 documen-
tary Salinger at 9-11 p.m. Tuesday,
Jan. 21. This film about the famous
author of The Catcher in the Rye got
a very limited theater release last fall.
There was praise for some of the new
biographical details the filmmaker
uncovered but skepticism about the
claim that new Salinger fiction would
soon be released.
Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer
are the co-stars of the new Comedy
Central TV series Broad City, pre-
42
January 16 • 2014
Jacobson
Glazer
miering 10:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Jan. 22.
The official descrip-
tion of the 10-episode
series says: "It's an
odd-couple com-
edy about two best
friends, navigating
their 20s in New York
City; their adventures
always lead down
unexpected and out-
landish paths.
"They're broke,
flawed and don't shy
away from the sticky
situations New York
City throws at them;
instructing art at Mercy High
Alexis Zimberg: Forgotten Soviet Jewry (Lodz).
School in Farmington Hills.
"Using the hamsa (a hand sym-
bol thought to ward off any evil eye)
grounds me in my culture says Poris,
who has been affiliated with Keter
Torah Synagogue in West Bloomfield.
"Much of my art involves reflections of
perceptions of the world:'
Poris, who lives in Ferndale and has
Above: Rebecca
taught Hebrew at Temple Israel, has
Goldberg: Tree of
shown his work at Detroit's Motor City
Life Pendant.
Art Market and the Art Department
Right: Aaron
Gallery at Wayne State University. He
Poris: Folded Man.
often aims to visualize emotions.
The photography of Alexis Zimberg
providing analytic and writing services,
is political.
earned her bachelor's degree at Montreal's
A scholar specializing in Russia and
McGill University, where her focus was
Eastern Europe, Zimberg has traveled to her
on political science as well as Russian and
areas of study and photographed subjects
Slavic studies.
that have historical and current impact.
Her master's degree was realized at
She recently returned from Russia,
the Center for Eurasian, Russian and
where she was a guest of the Ministry of
East European Studies at Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C.
Culture. She served as a scholar-in-resi-
dence to access the arts community.
"I began taking art photographs while
"I was raised by a family including
studying in Saint Petersburg and recogniz-
Holocaust survivors, and I'm interested in
ing public art as a form of dissent:' says
the fight against intolerance says Zimberg, Zimberg, a Walled Lake Northern High
27, who lives in Detroit and teaches about
School graduate who grew up attending
the Holocaust at Adat Shalom Synagogue.
Adat Shalom and now is active with the
"I'm also interested in how oppressed
Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue.
"By sharing my art, I can call attention
people express themselves anonymously to
overcome oppression:'
to social issues in the region:'
Zimberg's display at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek will center on three imag-
The Young Jewish Artist Showcase
es: a Holocaust remembrance in Munkacs,
runs 7:30 p.m.-midnight Saturday,
now part of Ukraine; Soviet Jewry in
Jan. 25, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday,
Lodz; and a tribute to Anne Frank in
Jan. 26, at Congregation Shaarey
Berlin. Her work has been on display at
Zedek, 27375 Bell Road, in Southfield.
the University of Michigan, where she
$18-$36 for evening admission; free
studied the Russian language.
for the daytime event. (248) 357-
Zimberg, an entrepreneur using the
5544; www.shaareyzedek.com .
business name Post-Soviet Graffiti and
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they dive right into the muck. But no
matter how bad it gets, these young
broads are always down with what-
ever hits them."
Broad City morphed from a Web-
based series of the same name
that Jacobson and Glazer created.
The show caught the eye of comic
Amy Poehler, who became a big fan.
Poehler is producing the TV show.
So Sorry!
Last month, actor Shia LaBeouf, 27,
admitted he grossly plagiarized the
work of novelist and screenwriter
Daniel Clowes, 52. A short film the
actor wrote and released online in
early December was quickly identified
as being very much like a 2007 comic
written by Clowes, who is best known
for his graphic novel Ghost World,
which was turned into a hit 2001
movie of the same name.
Many online critics found LaBeouf's
apology inadequate and piled on
in social media. So, on New Year's
Day, LaBeouf hired a plane to fly
above Los Angeles and skywrite, "I
am sorry, Daniel Clowes." However,
this stunt didn't stifle all critics:
Some said it looked like LaBeouf just
wanted more publicity while others
pointed out that Clowes lives in San
Francisco.
Last week, LaBeouf said he is
"retiring from public life."
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