T

emple Beth El Rabbi Mark 
Miller and artist Lynn Rae 
Lowe agree it was bashert 
— meant to be — for her to return 
to her roots to create a seven-panel 
art installation in the temple’
s Maas 
Chapel. 
Lowe is an award-winning artist, 
whose art pieces, often in metal, are 
enjoyed by individuals and museums 
nationally. She is best known for 
Judaica, including her popular meno-
rahs, tzedakah boxes and mezuzot, 
and for more abstract visual art.
Miller became familiar with Lowe’
s 
work through his mother, who 
owned some of her pieces, and rec-
ognized her work when he visited a 
Tucson art studio. It turned out to be 
Lowe’
s studio and he began collecting 
her work almost 20 years ago. Early 
on, he thought about commissioning 
artwork from her when he had a 
congregation of his own. 
Fast forward to when Miller 
became senior rabbi at Beth El and 
he was holding a pre-bar mitzvah 
meeting with bar mitzvah boy 
Max Morganroth in his study. Max 
noticed some of the artwork there 
and said it was created by his aunt 
— Lynn Rae Lowe. The coinci-

dences expanded when Lowe 
returned to Detroit four years 
ago for her niece’
s bat mitzvah 
and reconnected with Miller 
and Temple Beth El, where she 
spent much of her childhood, 
singing in the choir at Beth 
El’
s former Woodward and 
Gladstone building in Detroit. 
Miller reconfirmed his 
interest in commissioning a 
work of art for the temple and 
began planning for it. Beth El 
members Dr. Laurence and 
Maxine Baker of Ann Arbor 
committed to funding the 
project. 
Miller showed Lowe three 
potential spaces at Beth El for 
an art installation. One was a 
large white wall in the Maas 
Chapel, which she felt called 
out for a multi-panel instal-
lation. Immediately, Lowe 
thought of the seven days of Creation 
and she began her work.
Then tragedy struck about a year 
ago when Lowe’
s son Bradley Swartz, 
a Detroiter, was badly injured in a 
car accident. Lowe visited him often 
while working on the Beth El art 
project. “It helped me and provided a 
space of hope,
” she says.
Her work was completed this year. 
Each panel is activated aluminum. 
Lowe used this process to prepare 
the metal “to catch the dyes” that cre-
ate the images. A hand-held device 
grinds the base of the panel before 
the dyes are applied. Lowe uses sten-
cils, hand-painting and engraving to 
create the images. A powder coating 
creates a sense of movement, she says
The art installation, Seven Days 
of Creation, was dedicated Sept. 21. 
Miller read the biblical description of 
each of the seven days of Creation as 
each unique panel was unveiled for 
temple members. Lowe was pleased 
viewers saw different symbols and 
images within each abstract panel.
“Each panel has a center of light. 
We are the light of the world and it 
is our job to take care of it,
” Lowe 
says. She will return home to Tucson 
for the High Holidays to sing in the 
choir at her temple — Congregation 
Or (“light” in Hebrew) Chadesh. 

SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

PHOTOS BY JERRY ZOLYNSKY

Arts&Life

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Detroit Native Lynn Rae Lowe 
reconnects with Beth El through 
her art installation.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Rabbi Mark Miller congratulates artist 
Lynn Rae Lowe on her Seven Days of Creation series in 
the Beth El chapel. Lowe discusses the central theme of 
light that each panel in the series shares. Benefactors 
Dr. Laurence and Maxine Baker (third from left) with 
artist Lynn Rae Lowe and Rabbi Mark Miller.

44 | OCTOBER 10 • 2019 

