to crystal radios in Hungary.
In Israel, he served in the Air
Force and was employed by
El Al Airlines, designing and
repairing airplane parts. After
coming to Detroit, Fox studied
engineering at Wayne State
University and was hired by
the Chrysler Corp. as a pro-
cess engineer. He retired from
Chrysler as a supervisor in
advanced manufacturing and
was an automotive consultant
for about five years.
“I think about how a work
of art can move and look dif-
ferent, and then I come up
with something,” he says. “One
of my favorite moving pieces
hangs in our dining room. It’s
made of all wires and has peo-
ple and animal replicas inside.
There’s a light installed so that
when it turns, a person or ani-
mal can be seen on the wall.”
Fox, a member of Adat
Shalom Synagogue and the
Jewish Genealogical Society of
Michigan, has a strong inter-
est in portraying stories from
the Bible. Among this series
are depictions of Moses carry-
ing the Ten Commandments,
Noah’s ark, the Tower of Babel
and Jacob’s ladder.
“Each religious project rep-
resents my thinking of what
I know about the history and
how I think about it,” he says.
Because Fox thinks about
the effects works of art have
among their surroundings, he
likes using copper.

“Copper constructions
look very good when they’re
against a black background,”
he says. “You can see reflec-
tions in certain ways. You see
the artwork and the shadows
on the wall, and they’re dif-
ferent.”
Some years ago, Estee
Lipenholtz, a friend of the
Foxes’ daughter Sandi, was
studying filmmaking and
decided that the artist and
artwork should be posted on
the web. She made a video,
Shards of Stained Glass, later
updated and still online.
“I think of my dad’s work as
timeless, and growing up was
a bit like living in a museum,”
says Sandi, who now adds lots
of her father’s artwork to her
home décor in Washington,
D.C. “I love trees, and he made
me copper sculptures of trees.”
Sandi, a librarian, also is
glad to have both functional
and decorative works that
include a menorah and a
stained-glass flower placed as
a window enhancement.
In 2015, Tom Fox started
taking pictures of his artwork
as documentation, and his
other daughter, Lori Rodner,
came up with the idea of put-
ting together a coffee table
book, made on Shutterfly,
with images and his biogra-
phy. Lori took more pictures,
and Sandi helped write the
biography for Tom Fox: A
Lifetime of Art. It turned out

to be their dad’s birthday gift
that year with copies for fam-
ily members.
“I’ve updated the book
because he keeps making new
pieces,” says Rodner, who fol-
lowed her dad professionally
by becoming an automotive
engineer and artistically by
working with him on some
projects as well as complet-
ing paintings on her own.
Together, they made a jewelry
box to give to her friend.
Rodner, who has a distinc-
tive jewelry box of her own,
especially treasures a purple
and pink stained-glass teddy
bear that she was given as a
little girl and since has placed
over a window in her home.
“I watched my dad create
his artistry, and I feel that
creativity is inside of me,” she
says.
Tom Fox’s professional
legacy emerges in the career
choices of grandsons studying
engineering at Michigan State
University. His artistic legacy
reaches further.
“All the grandchildren are
very artistic,” says Judi Fox,
who helps her husband with
color choices and even added
some of her own drawings to
their walls. “The kids like to
make things, and we have all
kinds of supplies, like paints
and crayons, for the younger
ones.” •

TOP TO BOTTOM:
Noah’s Ark; a detail
of Fox at work;
various pieces of
jewelry, includ-
ing one with Fox’s
wife’s name repeat-
ed; Moses and the
Golden Calf.

jn

July 19 • 2018

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