Since I was a child, my earliest memories are of my grandfather, and our strong connection. Meaning and understanding were always very important to me. Ancient traditions attracted me. Mystery, worlds we could only imagine, filled my mind. My Russian Jewish grandfather’s storytelling captivated and sustained me in 1950s’ dreary Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He instilled in me a belief in myself and my will, to do anything I set my mind to.
My passion for art began in my teens, when I discovered the art museums of my native New York City. Collections of Ancient Greek Sculpture and European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum drew me in and Francis Bacon's intensely expressive work at the Guggenheim jarred my vision into the present. I began studying art at Brooklyn College, but did the major part of my undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960s, at the peak of the Bay Area Figurative movement.
My own artmaking was generated within this figurative tradition during a very exciting time, psychologically, spiritually and artistically, in the San Francisco Bay Area. In my early sculpture I responded literally to the Figurative emphasis on bodies in connection with nature. Surrealistically, my torsos, heads, arms, and feet, sprouted wings, flowers, cacti and roots. Ceramic sculpture was my main medium from 1969-1989. That year my father passed away and the Berlin Wall came down. The times signaled a switch in focus for me, from sculpture to painting.
photos by CM Illgen
Hardened Heart, 1979, ceramics, 16 x 13 x 7"
Gold Winged Receptive Bodyscape, 1981, ceramics, 13 x 21 x 5"