arts & life
exhibits
Emily Beadle, Sweet Sunshine
The Enchanted Forest
Elizabeth Applebaum | Special to the Jewish News
A new exhibit
celebrates Tu b’Shevat
with art of birth and
renewal.
N
atalie Balazovich is an
extraordinary gardener.
In only a matter of days,
she is transforming a few indoor
rooms — where there is little
sun, no soil, no streams or lakes
— into a beautiful forest.
The forest will be home to
trees (of a sort) and images of
nature in all colors and sizes,
some completely lifelike and
some wild and fantastic. They
will be painted and drawn,
sculpted and made of glass.
The forest will be called the
“Essence of Life,” an exhibit
curated by Balazovich that cel-
ebrates Tu b’Shevat, the Jewish
holiday of the trees, marked this
year on Feb. 11. The show will be
on display at the Janice Charach
Gallery at the West Bloomfield
JCC from Jan. 8 through Feb. 9.
Natalie Balazovich is assistant
director of the gallery, and these
days she’s putting the finishing
touches on “Essence of Life,”
which will include more than 100
works by 30 artists, along with
a coloring event, a Tu b’Shevat
seder and a hand-lettering work-
shop.
“The exhibit is vivid and uplift-
ing,” Balazovich says. “It’s like the
gallery will be alive with themes
of renewal and rebirth.”
It began with a call for art,
which gallery staff posted on
websites and Facebook pages,
seeking submissions for works
based on Tu b’Shevat. The
responses were quick and,
Balazovich says, surprising,
because they included mostly art-
ists who have yet to exhibit at the
Charach Gallery.
Artists were allowed to submit
up to five works. Balazovich then
spent considerable time choos-
ing what to include. There were
so many submissions she loved
that “Essence of Life” will begin
Ken Axelrad, Ancient Evenings
46 December 29 • 2016
on the bottom floor, wind along
the hallway leading upstairs and
continue throughout the second
floor.
There’s an enormous range of
experience among the artists,
Balazovich says. Some are very
well known; others are “emerg-
ing artists who have never shown
before.”
The final collection includes a
father-and-daughter team, Paul
and Camille LaMontagne — one
who makes surreal images of
trees with hidden elements,
another whose paintings are life-
like roses and cats; popular local
ceramics teacher Allison Berlin;
renowned artist Brenda Stumpf
of Pennsylvania, who believes
that “creating art is a mystical
and potent act; it’s a shamanistic
environ that transcends time and
space”; Lev Davidov (featured on
the Jewish News cover this past
February); and Miriam Svidler-
Maximkov, whose interactive
typographical works are 3-D
models that include running
water and sculptures of rice
paper and string that show the
Israeli desert.
Balazovich begins the organiz-
ing once all the art has arrived.
She regards the empty gallery as
her canvas, and when she curates