Be in community and create! TC Jewfolk and the Jewish Arts Collective (JAC) have joined forces for a series of in-person meetups, free of charge, featuring art supply swaps and workshops led by local artists.
The first event will be held on Sunday, Oct. 19, from 2-4 p.m. at JCC Sabes Center Minneapolis. Drop in to donate or take gently used art supplies, connect with other creatives, and make art. All ages are welcome, no experience is required, and supplies are provided.
“The Art Materials Swap + Collage Workshop series is open to everyone!” said Robyn Awend, director of arts engagement at the Minnesota JCC and Executive Director of Rimon: the Minnesota Jewish Arts Council. “We especially encourage artists, makers, and anyone with a creative spark – whether you’re a seasoned professional, a casual hobbyist, or someone simply curious to try something new.”
Where Art and Judaism Mix
“The Jewish Arts Collective was inspired by a desire to create a dedicated space where Jewish artists can come together to explore identity, spirituality, and culture through the arts,” Awend said. “What makes [JAC] distinctly Jewish is the way it draws on Jewish texts, traditions, values, and lived experiences as sources of artistic inspiration and exploration.”
Lynda Monick-Isenberg is the featured artist for the upcoming event and has been part of the Collective from its beginning.
“It has always been a way for me to explore connections to the Jewish world, a spiritual way of looking at the world, a philosophy of living,” she said. “I have especially enjoyed the variety of thinking and work that comes from the artists and participants.”
Monick-Isenberg has appreciated what the Collective has brought her personally and as part of a community.
“I have enjoyed the one-on-one work we have been able to do, the sharing, thinking, expressing, questioning, and the linking with a wider variety of artists and creatives,” she said.
Hands-on Expression, Individually and Together
In their respective studio work, Awend focuses on letterpress print and mixed media art, and Monick-Isenberg has explored many visual arts, including drawing and tapestry. Both careers also reflect a profound commitment to community-building and arts advocacy.
The meetup series incorporates these themes by offering self-expression and collaboration. October’s projects include individual collages that participants will take home as well as a community poem using words clipped from magazines and other printed materials.
Characteristic of their synergy, Awend shared the idea for the poem and Monick-Isenberg has run with it, embracing its inherent open-endedness.
“Can I anticipate where it will go?” Monick-Isenberg asked. “No. And of course, I will not direct it other than provide materials and encouragement to find the words that fill our minds that day.”
The organizers encourage anyone interested to join and believe all have the capacity to contribute.
“Collage is a natural place to begin and explore an artful practice,” Monick-Isenberg said. “A little glue, a photo or two, a word of surprise and an idea is born. The mind – no matter what age or experience – is filled with ideas that are unknown and untapped.”
Renowned Featured Artist
During her long career, Monick-Isenberg has balanced studio work, teaching, family responsibilities, and community.
“As artists, we continue to redefine,” she said. “Especially those of us who need to take breaks from studio practice to work, for families, caregiving, as part of our lives. Balancing it all has been at the center of living for me. Finding time for making, teaching, connecting with others, supporting my children, their families and my 94-year-old parent has been a key part of understanding others.”
No longer teaching full-time at Minneapolis College of Art and Design has opened space for other pursuits, including educating in the field of arts and creative aging with the 55+ community.
“Most wonderful things are happening,” she said. “The work I do with others fuels my ideas, interests and outcomes,” Monick-Isenberg said.
Her tapestry work has been commissioned for private collections as well as the permanent collections of the Minnesota History Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Weisman Art Museum.
“I was drawn to tapestry while in college in the early 1970s,” she said. “Fiber arts and weaving were making a return. In my experience, it was a time where the work of women began to be honored and explored in new and exciting ways.”
Monick-Isenberg has brought contemporary viewpoints to an ancient artform, one inspired by her family history.
“According to family legend, my great-grandfather was an immigrant tailor in Minneapolis,” she said. “This sewing and fabric experience led my mother to learn to tailor and sew, which she taught my sister and me. My sister became a fashion designer and I found one of my lives in weaving.”
In addition, she finds a unique vibrancy of expression through tapestry.
“Ah, the way the light hits a thread and creates color and shadow – just does not happen in a painting or drawing,” she said.
With this same enthusiasm for art, Monick-Isenberg is inviting the community to her upcoming collage workshop.
“It is the creative experience of play and exploration that brings new ideas to life.” And it can happen in an instant. Isn’t that just the best!