arts&life
art fair
A
Brand
New
Fair
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The Royal Oak
Market: Spring Art
Fair offers food,
music and art in
an indoor respite
from unpredictable
weather.
details
The Royal Oak Market: Spring
Art Fair runs 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Thursday-Friday, March 2-3, at the
Royal Oak Farmers Market, 316 E.
11 Mile, Royal Oak. No admission
fee. (734) 662-3382; theguild.org;
rubeszdzign.com; razeichner.com.
32
March 2 • 2017
I
t may be a little early for
outdoor art fairs, but a simi-
lar experience will debut
Thursday-Friday, March 2-3,
with the launch of the Royal
Oak Market: Spring Art Fair.
One bonus for this peek into
new creative approaches is its
surroundings: an indoor venue
to provide shelter from any
unpleasant weather.
Some 75 juried artists, as
planned by the Guild of Artists
and Artisans, will be setting up
booths. Browsers and buyers,
freed from bringing umbrellas
or finding spots to escape the
heat, can enjoy multi-media
displays along with food-truck
specialties, entertainment, beer
and wine.
Two Metro Detroit Jewish
artists — jewelry-maker Janet
Rubenstein and photographer
Robert Zeichner — will have
new secular works to share
with the public. Both have par-
jn
ticipated in Ann Arbor fairs.
“I bring everything I have,”
says Rubenstein, who special-
izes in contemporary styles
made with sterling silver. “I find
symbols can be a boring aes-
thetic; I want my pieces to be
very dramatic.
“Because I’m taller, I tend to
make things long, but I try to
run the gamut of scale. I like
fairs because I like to influence
people’s choices so they can
be happy with what they take
home.”
Rubenstein, an artist for 40
years working out of a home
studio, has taught art at Dakota
and Chippewa Valley high
schools in Macomb County.
She earned a bachelor’s degree,
with a concentration in print-
making, from the College for
Creative Studies.
The jewelry maker obtained
a teaching certificate through
studies at Wayne State
University, and she holds
a master’s degree from the
University of Illinois.
“I started making jewelry in
high school and went commer-
cial when I was 19,” Rubenstein
says. “Besides the fairs, I’ve sold
at galleries. I really have liked
traveling to the different places
where I could show what I
made.”
Rubenstein’s jewelry regularly
can be seen at the Blaufenster
Gallery in Grosse Pointe and
Outside the Lines Art Gallery
in Dubuque, Iowa. In develop-
ing her collections, Rubenstein
uses a lot of soldering with a
fabricated torch and moves
into designs requiring hand
tools.
“I love taking an idea and
turning it into a design that
I can then cut, file, forge and
heat, creating pieces that feel
intimate, intense and organi-
cally right in the emotional
sense of that word,” she says.
“Sometimes, I use metals
and materials other than silver
as accents. I strive to keep my
approach fluid so all the pieces
stay fresh and engaging.”
Zeichner has stuck with
black and white prints made
without applying any digi-
tal techniques. His subjects
include architectural studies,
landscapes and some distor-
tions.
“I believe that black and
white photos draw viewers into
the images and beg interpreta-
tion,” he says. “Black and white
steps away from reality because
we see the world in color.”
Zeichner works with a big,
wooden, viewfinder camera
equipped with bellows and
does his own printing in a
home workshop. His film is
big, 5 inches by 7 inches, so
that he can extract an enor-
mous amount of detail. With