For me, art can be a vessel for connection, self-discovery and storytelling.  Below is a story about how I named this space and my art studio.  You can read on or just browse the art...either way, thank you for visiting! 

A few years ago, I started to sketch an idea for a painting in an attempt to process some personal challenges in my life--it took me three years to complete the painting because the images kept evolving as I tried to evolve, but the idea was always anchored by a tree. A teal tree. Colors make us feel. In color theory, teal is associated with clarity, introspection, and emotional healing—it combines the calming feelings we associate with blues with the rejuvenation qualities of greens.
 

So I started to sketch a teal tree. I have always been drawn to painting trees.
They fill my sketchbooks and watercolor pads, and there’s a mural of a tree in my art studio. Trees are peaceful, giving, quiet; they yield to their environment and the seasons but remain firmly planted; the life within is dormant when the winter is harsh, but protected for better times; they make space for other beings to take shelter and find sustenance. Maybe, subconsciously, I want to be like what I see in trees. In Tanach, trees are sometimes used as a metaphor for human beings and for Torah itself.

In the painting that grew from my tree, the mask reflects our Creator being hidden in the world, especially during a period of darkness and doubt. In that period of darkness, the mask is hope—it implies that we know He is there, but we just can’t “see” His involvement when the good is not revealed (to my limited intellect).
 

During those times that feel dark, we are often told there is a hidden opportunity
to grow and connect, but it can be a slow and uncertain process—like planting seeds in the dark soil long before they will sprout in the spring. The image of a seed transitioning to a sprout in the painting is intended to reflect the process of planting seeds (of emuna and connection) in times of darkness—even when (or especially when) those seeds are watered by tears (“ הַזֹּֽרְעִ֥ים בְּדִמְעָ֗ה בְּרִנָּ֥ה יִקְצֹֽרוּ” / “Those who sow with tears will reap in glad song”). Eventually that seed will break the dark surface of the soil, even if it feels so unlikely now.
 

A tree is the ultimate outgrowth of a seed planted in darkness. The sprout can
become a tree with solid roots when we cling to truth (“עֵץ חַיִּים הִיא לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ. וְתמְכֶיה מְאֻשָּׁר”). The image of the empty har habayit in the tree’s branches is meant to illustrate the ultimate goal of this planting and building: the personal and communal geula we are waiting for…that can come in the blink of an eye.
I named my art studio and this space for the teal tree in this painting. We should
all be fortunate to have clarity and strong roots.

Thank you for taking the time to view my art—some of the art posted here
reflects my thoughts; some was created just to make someone happy; some was created to hang in someone's dining room or decorate a sukkah; and some of it isn’t really “done” yet. That’s okay.

When is art “good”? When it is “sophisticated”? When it looks like what it is
“supposed to look like”? When someone savvy thinks it could sell? When it’s “pretty”?  I’m not sure.
 

When little girls come for paint workshops, they often ask me, wide-eyed and
holding up their work, “Is it good?” I like to ask them how it makes them feel when they look at it and that when I watch them create it, I see something beautiful. I like to tell them they shouldn’t worry about painting inside the lines. So much of their lives must be conducted inside the lines.
 

When they ask “is it good” and they glance at other people’s art, I think back to
the days when I looked in a mirror, at my Creator’s work, comparing what I saw to the images I saw plastered everywhere in the world, and asked myself in my insecure little heart, “It is good?” Or when my schoolwork was compared to the work of others that we were told was “good” and I wasn’t sure whether I also merited a “good job” sticker.  Sometimes, as a grown-up, I still ask myself whether what I’ve done or what I have is “good.” Compared to what?