arts&life

fairs and festivals

A necklace by Ayala Naphtali

Four-In-One

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Ann Arbor Art

Fair features four

separate festivals —

meet a few of the

artists who will be

showing their work.

details

The Ann Arbor Art Fair, which
includes four fairs in one, runs July
20-23 throughout the city.
For complete information, visit
theannarbortartfair.com.

30

July 13 • 2017

T

wo artists with Israeli backgrounds
are returning to this year’s Ann
Arbor Art Fair — one showing
paintings that include Jewish themes and
another showing an array of jewelry with
Jewish themes available by special order.
They will be among 1,000 artists spread
out across 39 city blocks July 20-23,
when some 400,000 visitors will be able
to browse and choose original designs
worked through many media, including
glass, wood, metal and photography.
Mira Raman, who makes her own paper
and is known for “happy” images, often
sits on her Tel Aviv balcony creating
outdoor scenes with small flowers and
animals and indoor scenes that reflect a
Jewish household.
“My paintings have a three-dimensional
effect because of the way the paper is
made,” Raman explains. “I’ve shown a lot
of little flowers since studying Japanese
painting styles, but the flowers are indig-
enous to Israel.”
Raman does not consider her approach
as brushing paint. Using acrylics, she con-
siders her technique as putting paint on
paper.
“As a child, I painted all the time,” she
says. “I studied art in college and taught
high school before teaching teachers.”
Raman, who lived in Maryland while
her late husband worked as a shaliach,
also studied at Johns Hopkins. She returns
to America to participate in fairs and now
travels to about seven a year.

jn

Taos Fiesta by Lisa Burge

“I’ve found that artists are treated the
best in Ann Arbor,” says Raman, who
appears at the South University Area Art
Fair and will be surrounded by demon-
strations, food services and entertainment
as four separate fairs join forces in one
large event.
Ayala Naphtali will be at the Street Art
Fair, the Original, with necklaces, brace-
lets, earrings and rings. Her brooches with
contemporary Passover symbols are avail-
able through online orders.
Giving distinction to her work is the use
of covered coconut shells combined with
silver enhancements. She has a minimal-
ist approach with bold, elegant forms.
“I’ve been using coconut shells since
the late 1980s,” says Naphtali, who works

out of a Brooklyn studio. “I like coloring
my own materials, and I don’t have to use
toxic materials with the shells. I also like
the idea of renewables.”
Naphtali, who grew up in New York and
Tel Aviv, moved around as the result of her
dad’s work in chemical engineering. He
earned his master’s and doctorate degrees
at the University of Michigan.
“I try to keep my jewelry very light-
weight so it’s comfortable,” says Naphtali,
who tracked down where her dad lived in
the 1950s and showed her son. “Pieces are
in museum shops all across the country.”
Naphtali, who comes from a long line of
metalsmiths on her father’s side, is related
to Israeli wholesale jewelers on her moth-
er’s side.
While living in New York, she took
classes at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art. She went on to the Fashion Institute
of Technology and the State University of
New York at New Paltz.
“I’ll have close to a couple hundred
pieces in Ann Arbor,” she says. “I have a
wide price range.”
Lisa Burge, also in the Original art fair,
shows abstract oil paintings and prints.
Based in New Mexico, she is in her 15th
year showcasing work in Ann Arbor.
“I use muted colors, but my images have
grown brighter over the years,” she says.
“I am inspired by nature, architecture
and what I’ve seen in travels around the
world.”
Interested in art all her life, Burge has

