Gathering Sparks
Spring Art Exhibit Featuring Artist Lea Goldman
Painter, printmaker, survivor; featured artist Lea Goldman shares her series of large oil paintings, “Gathering Sparks,” based on the teachings of Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) by Rabbi Isaac Luria.
A holocaust survivor, Lea spent World War II as a wandering homeless refugee, was incarcerated in British prison camps, and lived in Israel during her growing years.
This project includes a number of large oil paintings painted by Lea. They seem to grow from Lea’s Jewish and nomadic traditions. According to art historian Elyse Speaks, “Lea developed a visual language of translation, on the uses of folklore and fairy tale, to communicate a deep investment in reverie and its possibilities.”
As an artist, Lea created a large group of oil paintings called “Gathering Sparks,” based on an old Hasidic legend of Tikkun Olam and the world’s creation. In the legend, “goodness” was stored in a magical vessel that broke at the time of creation, and the sparks of good grace spread all over the universe, diluting the essential goodness in our lives. Every person has a purpose and a duty to gather those sparks of goodness and return them to their original vessel.
The exhibit is on display until Tuesday, June 4, Monday to Friday, 10 AM to 3 PM, at the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley.
Who is Lea Goldman?
Lea Goldman is a Holocaust survivor from Romania, raised in Russia, Mongolia, and Israel, and finally, a 1975 immigrant to the US. Her visual work is narrative, with close attention to abstract elements such as composition, texture, and form. Her interest in Hebrew and other cultural traditions, legends, and folklore evolved into a personal mythology, constantly developing and expressed in an array of art images, mediums, and materials.
Lea earned a BA in Art and Special Education from the University of Haifa, Israel; an MA in Art and Education from Columbia University Teachers College, New York City, NY; and an MFA in Studio Arts from California State University Los Angeles. One of her first jobs when she immigrated to the United States was teaching at the South Bend Hebrew School. She is in touch with several former students who still call her Morah Lea.
Lea’s prints and paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the country, have received many awards, and were featured in numerous solo shows. Her art is a part of The Lerner Theater Collection, curated by the Midwest Museum of Art, Elkhart, IN, as well as other private and public collections; six of her big paintings were on display in the main lobby of Century Center as a part of the South Bend Art Museum’s Sightlines Project, South Bend, IN. Her work is included in the Midwest Museum of American Art Permanent Collection, and the permanent collection of the South Bend Museum of Art.
Who is Douglas Simmons?
Assisting Lea in her gallery talk is Douglas Simmons. Douglas is a professional musician, author of six novels, two philosophy books, a book of poetry, multiple articles such as one in the local South Bend arts magazine PAN-O-PLY, and a collection of more poems in the South Bend Museum of Art’s, “An Ekphrastic—Sharing of the Muse.”
Douglas is also an American veteran who, in order to provide arms and assistance to the Israeli forces, parachuted with the US military troops into the Sinai Desert in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War.