The news

Why do I have piles of newspapers again? What enticed me to subscribe to Ha'aretz and have newspaper/coffee in the morning? There it is at my gate on the second floor - does the delivery man wish I forgot my stair light so he could leave it in the box downstairs? Almost first thing in the a.m. I bring in the paper, save the long slim plastic bags to protect the planet and find something to make with them, and sit down with the paper and coffee. I skim my way through the pages and think what a good citizen I could be if I were involved enough to make a difference ( yea, how aside from cursing quietly as I read?) . Coffee and browse over, the paper gets dumped in the pile behind the sofa (somewhere underneath there is a pretty wrought iron newspaper holder crushed by the weight) to be recycled as papier mache maybe, or when I can carry the heavy load downstairs. Then thanks to this interlude I weave through the day with the residue of unease but hardly a memory of details.

Back and Forth

Another medium is creeping into my life. Going back and forth between clay and canvas is strangely stickier than I would have thought. I haven't yet found the method of parallel work in both 2 and 3 dimensions.
Its a different gut feeling - well of course its a different language. As part of the learning and discovery process - I am finding out where clay and canvas fit into different moods and modes of self expression.Its a bit like translating or writing in two languages with very different cultures.

Is this in MY studio?

Barter is a wonderful way to open up possibilities and enrich one's life. Exchanging sculpture classes for painting classes with Nira Ben-Hur is giving me an opportunity to see what I can do with two dimensions with someone who knows me, knows how to teach and is an artist who's work I have always wished to hang where I can see it all the time.
Its so great to have a studio where I can freely go between clay and paint. Such different kinds of mess! Such different kinds of approach and possibilities. Eventually I hope to find a way to combine the two more than I have done.
But for now, experimenting with brushes, rags and fingers is very rewarding. And oh well yes, lots more clean up.

Living la vida pasa(da)

The excitement and intensity of preparing for the pre holiday fetes, fairs and shows has subsided. The "loca" is gone for the moment. The ebb and flow, up and down can lull me into a false sense of relaxation during the quieter periods.
Time passes though there is a constant pull of the tide to get things done - I function so much more creatively and energetically with a deadline. Its hard to stay driven all the time.
This small town lets me live the time passing. Taking the days as they unfold.
It seems that I have ditched my tent and my gypsy ways and am settling down in my house of bricks.

The joy of being undersood

The Open Studio weekend is over leaving this satisfying feeling ringing in my loft/lounge/gallery : people do get me !!!!
Its one thing communicating verbally and being understood - its quite another when someone actually wants to own my art. The intuitive, controversial pieces - the ones that visually voice my soul, people got them and purchased them.
Validation!
These are an example.
Thank you all who visited, enjoyed and shopped!

Ever love a dress?

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Did you ever have the perfect dress as a little girl? Wedding dress? Ball gown? Party dress?
I often see dresses I would love to own, so sculpting them in clay is a lot of fun.
Still love designing too, but its more fun in clay than making a pattern and sewing it up!!! Sometimes I hang them on the wall as in the wedding dresses and other clothes on my website, now I have started letting them stand alone.

I was thinking, there might be others who would like to have a sculpture of their wedding dress for example?

Come one, Come ALL :Open Studio Friday 11th and 12th

This coming weekend you are all invited to come and see the artists of Pardes Hanna opening their studios - and do start with me. You can get the brochure from me or look at the website of Omanim Bamoshava in advance.I am #35 under sculpture.
( Ha Oranim 2 Pardes Hanna)
I have been working on lots of projects over the past few months and the results are a very diverse collection. I have had so much fun!!! Some are at the exhibition *
but a LOT is here for you to see at the Open Studio.

*The mask exhibition opened with a bang at Gan Shmuel gallery and will continue through September-if you missed the opening, thats ok, still got a few weeks to see it

Putting on a face

I am totally enchanted with masks in clay. Preparing masks for the exhibition uncovered more thought about layers of consciousness, identity questions, social habits and lots more. Art as therapy? No, but questions do surface.
Covering up, putting on a front, disclosing some but not all - how aware are we of the masks we use ?
A tray of masks - during my work process:
to keep at the door, along with your car keys or in your drawer ? So choose what you want to wear today.
The Masks exhibition is opening on the 4th of September at the Gan Shmuel Gallery, curated by Dorit Talmon.

One thing leads to another

Teaching has the wonderful reciprocity factor, where your students give back as much as they get.

My students inspire and challenge me through their own wish to learn. My goal is to keep them daring to create their visual fantasies, by giving them my support to find ways to realize them.

The very small wedding dress collection started when I was demonstrating how to make clay look like folded fabric. I made a sample and the other wedding dresses followed .

Never too late - a work of growth in progress.

Being responsible to others, taking work seriously, committing and meeting deadlines - these are easier for me than taking responsibility for myself.
Were I my friend, my boss, or my student for example, I would be taking far better care than I do of just me. I am not unique in this, I know.
My finances, my food, my exercise and my paperwork - ugh what an irresponsible person takes care of these. As though waiting for someone else to manage them better for me, to take over.

The outcome of years of living in defense mode,living up to expectations and trying to appease the 'everyone' God instead of staking a claim on who I can be, are not going to be resolved completely.

But its never too late to become the person you want to be.

In some areas I am already on my way. In others - I am hereby committing to MYSELF as my friend, my boss, my student and my reliable one and only self - to do unto myelf as I would unto others.

Been away and come back

Yes, I have been away.

Not just in another country, but in another life.
A break from my studio, my home, my clay, my students, my family and my friends in Israel. Three weeks in LA with my American Branch. You can see them on Shani's website too.
It was a relaxing, loving and fun break.
Now I am back and well.... kind of awake.

I have set up a small gallery just outside my studio; you are welcome to pop in and take a look, have a cup of coffee (COLD) Monday and Wednesday mornings, On other days just call first.
Classes are ongoing and lots of new things are happening in them, some of which you can already see on my website in the Class gallery
If you would like to join a class or try out some of your own ideas, just give me a call.
I am starting work on new pieces and new ideas for the September " Artists of the Moshava" around Rosh Hashana and I am planning to be working in the studio a lot this summer.
Welcome!

Balls continued - The Abacus

This abacus is a pretty, non-functional one. I never learned to use them. Only once did I see it being used: a restaurant owner ( in Greece perhaps?) adding up the day's takings, using an abacus and not a calculator. Their order and dependability are engaging.
Like the abacus, so many things from our past have become irrelevant and non functional. We look back with nostalgia and smile and shrug. Most of them have been replaced by faster/more efficient/better items. .
What concerns me is that soon democracy, the idea of equal rights ( some have never had it anyhow) and freedom of speech - will be as irrelevant and as useless as my ceramic abacus.
Broken.
Unlike the abacus, we will not be looking back with a smile of nostalgia. We are already weeping at the loss.
What is replacing these is not only broken and non functional at the outset, but unbearable to those of us who found equality, freedom of speech and well, some form of democracy - irreplaceable basic necessities.What is replacing these is arbitrary,totalitarian and racist and it is happening as we silently watch or chatter among ourselves at how horrible it is .
I wonder how many out there would like to stop this downhill (legislation and government ) undermining of hope for peace and equality and how we can find a way to do so before its really too late?

I got my cottle boards-thanks to Judy and Baruch

I have been ready to make plaster molds for a while now but without the simple but effective cottle boards it just wasn't going to happen.
Even with the boards and the c clamps,working with plaster is really messy and can't be done when working with clay. This means cleaning up completely before going back to sculpture. Its horrible on the hands and can't be disposed of down a drain and in short, what on earth am I doing it for? What a mess!
But remember paper clay and that mess? I am totally enthralled by techniques I haven't tried and making molds has not been in my repertoire . How can I resist trying something messy? How can I resist finding ways to improve???

Its FUN. The magic of modeling a piece in clay then making a plaster mold out of it just to repeat the piece again in clay -(nuts) its fun! Its surprisingly unsurprising to see a copy of the piece I threw away after making the mold; for some reason it is immensely, strangely satisfying.
Did I mention it is messy?

Although I have good hand cream, maybe next time I will remember to use GLOVES and try and remember to keep my hands out of my eyes !

Being Inspired is a State of Mind

There is a very addictive computer game I used to play, simply called Balls. Part of the fascination were the graphics and the sound. Recently I discovered that playing the game was what was causing pain in my Mouse Hand,( the one I used to call the Right Hand) and as a sculptor and clay art teacher I panicked when I realized my hand was cramping, making it hard to work.
As I parted from the game I was struck by the idea that there were other ways to enjoy graphic ball shapes . A hundred clay balls later ( after the excercise of rolling the balls, painting each one differently, putting them onto nichrome wire to fire the glazed beads) .....I am almost ready to go back to the computer game!
Not, however, before realizing that inspiration can turn up in any context.All you want to be is obsessively connecting everything back to your creativity....
Doodling has now become part of the surface painting of my work ( for the moment). Writing on sculptures is a way of integrating my two loves - art and language but it arose from an inspired moment when I realized that I can use language as a visual part of an image as well as layering meaning.
Inspiration for marketing the results is what I need to find now! Well. Inspiration is a state of mind, isn't it?

Learning how to blog and a bride's girls' day out

Starting a blog isn't difficult. Writing about things you are interested in isn't all that hard.
But who reads what we write? How do we find people who are interested in what we have to say? And how do we invite them to visit our websites?
I am hoping to find out - see below.

I discovered there is an equivalent to speed dating - in clay art classes. Three girls came for a bride's day out, a two and a half hour speeded-up lesson which was very fast, fun, educating for all of us, and a wonderful idea. They got to spend time with each other, doing something they had never done before and they will come and collect their works of art in two weeks time.
Mazal Tov Maya - and her friends Lena and Rina.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Fascination with line drawing

Perhaps it is the order, the fine clarity, the surprises within a confined area, or the clean contrast of the black on white. Maybe its the meditative, repetitive and unplanned flow of the activity itself. I am not sure what it is that fascinates me more. But I would love to doodle some of my environment (one wall? a sofa?) and have this as a backdrop for people and art.
Here is a rendition on Photoshop - a nude sculpture on a line drawn background.

Living with Transience

Unlike Change , Transience is not a choice - its a fact of life ( and of course death).
We are here for as long as we are here, and 'seize the day' is not a cliche to be bandied as a justification for wild and irresponsible living. It is the only way to enjoy life to the fullest.
As we get older, parting from friends becomes a more frequent reality, and part of the pain of loss - aside from the loss itself, involves all the things we missed out on, never said or thought we had time to do.
Another part of the pain is the drum roll of our own end - the sound which is heard a little more loudly when we say a final goodbye to someone dear.

Transience is there all the time. It sits on my shoulder and whispers about time wasted and things still to be achieved.
Its there when I create a fragile piece of art. It surrounds me when I visit my 90 year old mother. Its there when I look in the mirror.

Its there when a friend dies.

But living with Transience you still have to recognize and remember that there is a past, present and a future and that today is yesterday's tomorrow.

Taking the Random Papers out of doodling

Tons of newpapers, phone sticky notes, random papers and plenty of black ink, have been thrown away covered in my doodles for years. "Kids dont leave any important papers near where I am sitting - you wont recognize them once I am done."
Suddenly it occurs to me to use paper intended for the doodling, and the right kind of permanent ink, and hey, I love the results! This one is clearly, "SMILES"
More on the Doodle 2d page of my website.

Suddenly today - change as a way of life

Suddenly today I needed to change the look of my website

Does the need for change creep up on us, simmering slowly till is bursts out - manifesting itself as a need for immediate action? Or, are some of us just brats in terms of immediate satisfaction?
I have moved house about 15 times, not all of them through need. Somtimes - well, after moving rooms and furniture enough times, one needs something more Novel. A new city, a new country, and new job, a new life..
Living in Jaffa was enough of a challenge, the house never got finished . I could probably have stayed there forever...but I can't prove it.
Change, change, change.
It has taken me six months in Pardes Hanna to realize that I don't want to move.
I will have to make all the changes within the area I own, and plenty can still be done. Unless I have to make a change, I can really imagine living my life here. ( I might deny this later...)

But change is a necessity for me and so, for today, I had to go with a change to my website. Satisfying for now. Probably not the final look.
Hope you like it.
Any ideas for more changes?

The Open Gallery

My vision realized. I wanted to turn the unused landing into an open gallery, and that is what it now is. It's a nice entrance to my apartment and studio, and I am going to set up the kiln room just off the landing, to have a permanent display/shop. I will advise opening hours and of course just call to set up a time to visit. Its a loft above a commercial building. New York in Pardes Hanna ...

Leonie Barel's Ceramic Art: Open Studio Thursday morning to Saturday Night

Leonie Barel's Ceramic Art: Open Studio Thursday morning to Saturday Night
www.oman-ph.co.il

Open Studio Thursday morning to Saturday Night

This guy keeps his own secrets, would you trust him with yours? You are invited to check him out.
Most of my secrets, passions, loves, hopes and even disappointments-are all out there to share with you this weekend.
Looking forward to seeing you !

The Mess 3 days before

Every time before open house exhibitions-where ever it is, Los Angeles, Ramat Hasharon, Pardes Hana - there is this incredible mess that seems like things are never going to find their way together into a coherent presentation. Its the mess before it all comes together, hopefully.... I look forward to that moment on Wednesday night - Thursday morning, when everything will be spic and span ( looks like I will be cleaning myself...) marked and tagged, everything properly placed, and I can see the whole picture of what I have been working on.
So welcome you all, I hope you like it too.

Depends on the light and the angle

As I was photographing some new pieces today, I realized that how the light falls and changes the look of my sculptures, so it is also with how we look at life, the people around us, the things they represent. Move the piece around and look at it from a different angle, in different light - and it can be either lovely or unpleasant.


So many times we take one quick glance and make decisions about things.
Do we often stop to ask what it is that is effecting us? Are we not influenced by how the light is falling? Or the angle we are seeing it from?

When we are impatient and react negatively to something, how often do we ask what shadow it casts in us to make us dislike it?

The way the light falls, the shadows that it creates, internal or external, these so often make us love (or dislike ) what we see in others.

The Rain came down

So this is a deluge. A flood in the making.
Non stop rain for days , something has to give in a house made of plaster walls and who knows what on the roof.
I have already established that had I brought an engineer I wouldnt have bought this place, but anyone who has been here knows this would have been a sad mistake.
So, dust yourself off ( ah, so you think there is no dust here when it rains ? hmmm) pick yourself up, ( after slipping on the wet floors) and wait for the rain to stop to find someone to fix the leak in the roof in all three places, and find out why the drains are not working if they arent blocked, so that the water is seeping through the wall to the window frame.

OR, wait till the rain stops and summer comes and worry about it next year.

Whatever.


Oh and by the way if you have a recommendation for someone who fixes this kind of thing in Pardes Hanna area, do tell. I might do it before next winter then.

"Do I look ok?"

This images are of prefire, wet painted greenware

The internal dialogue of self image, comes up in various degrees of understanding and depth, for most women, at various stages of our lifetime.
The weight issue I have been dealing with for so long keeps surfacing and it is partly to do with self image, and much to do with many other elements of emotional status.
Today it popped up in the studio with these two whimsical pieces asking "Do I look OK?"
Realizing that everywoman asks that question regardless of how thin or fat she is, how beautiful and young, or old and worn she is, is not something that happened today.
Working on these two women with many faults, assymetries and insecurities, is one more step towards self acceptance and enjoying my life.

My Ceramic Keepers of the Secrets

These clay "bottles" hold and guard treasured secrets.

Secrets are a huge responsibility. If you are given one to keep, sometimes you might be tempted to give it away at a crucial moment, buying a moment's grace and losing trust forever.
People might like to own a keeper of secrets so that they can better contain and hold those secrets entrusted to them, or those moments they hold dear and do not wish to share or lose.

These guards of the bottles are not necessarily scary monsters, frightening away secret snatchers.They are reminders of innocent trust and therefore a little primitive and somewhat childishly wide eyed.

Stormy, bleak election day

The storm that blew through election day yesterday, hailed, hammered and rained - the only storm we have seen this winter. The universe warning us of things to come . The storm knocked over more than my sun umbrella and hailed on more than my pot plants, ruining any hope we had of change . It blew in, (along with the broken branches, garbage and mud) Bibi .

Today the sun is shining with no sign of yesterday's stormy weather aside from the windswept surfaces. Blue skies. Wiped clean. Just like the collective memory we have of Bibi as prime minister the previous time.

What other explanation is there for him being voted into power again?

Early morning Sundial

These are the sun spots that hit this wall in my bedroom when I wake up with the blinds partially closed, at various times of the early morning during the 4 months that I have been here.
The sun strikes that wall between 6 and 8 am with a slightly different shape each time. From the day I first woke up in this bedroom, I couldn't resist grabbing a pencil and marking the spots - thinking that it would be a sundial to tell the time as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning. The variety was so great that a difference of a few seconds meant a whole new shape and placement.
Sometimes they had moved by the time I could mark the row from top to bottom.
When the sun got too low in the winter , I painted the ones already marked.

The sculpture is simply on an existing screw in the wall but I like her there with her imperfection

Bottled Up

These over-sized bottles suggest undefined origins and mystery surrounding their purpose and use. They could be giant perfume bottles, or used by healers and medicine men. They have no obvious tradition and no known religious symbolism.

They are inspired and evolve from a memory, a dream, a recognition that they have deep meaning for me. A watcher of the treasure. Keeper of the secret.

Leonie's art is enlisted: Can we Start Over

Castra and the old road to Haifa

Driving to the Castra mall in Haifa on the number 4 road, is like taking a chunk out of the past and jumping back to the sixties, when living at Alonei Yitzchak. The old road to Haifa was the only way to go and it hasnt changed much. Going past Ein Ayala, Kerem Maharal, driving through Feradis, oh what memories this brings back of the hope and dreams when Israel was so uncomplicated and so untrafficked, that the single lane to Haifa was fine for us.

Well its fine for me again. It reminded me of the way things used to be, and revived the hope that perhaps we havent lost our way completely.

I took some pieces to the Castra Gallery which has just reopened today, and discovered the beautiful Castra mall. The ceiling of the dome is gorgeous and its been a while since I have seen such a lovely commercial building. Its situated right next to the grand mall of Haifa so I am not sure how many people are there on a daily basis, but Friday morning is pretty busy. There are galleries and inependent stores rather than the regular chain stores and I do recommend it!!