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January 10, 2003/Shevat 7 5763, Vol. 55, No. 20
Beth Ames Swartz treads 'paths of wisdom'
MELISSA HIRSCHL
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 Beth Ames Swartz stands beside one of her recent works, "Visible Reminders After Light," 60" x 48" acrylic on canvas. Photo by Melissa Hirschl |
From Jan. 12 to March 21, "The 32 Paths of Wisdom: Beth Ames Swartz and the Kabbalah," will be on display at the Sylvia Plotkin Judaica Museum at Temple Beth Israel. The exhibition will showcase the work of a highly successful, prolific artist who lives in Paradise Valley.
Swartz has been painting for more than 42 years. Her dramatic work merges art and spirituality within the context of contemporary art, and her vivid creations embody multiple themes: her intense passion for Judaism (particularly the feminine aspect of God, the Shekhinah), spirituality, the natural beauty of the desert and the raw materials of the earth.
The exhibition, embodying about 20 works, includes the 11 newest paintings that were inspired by the Tree of Life. The presentation traces the interconnectedness of Kabbalah and Swartz's art from 1976-2002, including her work with both the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the 11 Sephiroth (spheres)
| Deciphering
the Tree of Life |
Before painting, Swartz meditated on the different "spheres" of the Kabbalah, keying each one to a different painting.
"In my first painting," explains Swartz, "I work with the 'Keter' sphere of energy." Keter is the essence of "radiance," and found at the top of the Tree of Life. "Because the Kabbalah is a slowly revealed body of knowledge, I wanted to convey the sense of a mysterious process by putting hidden messages in the paintings by hiding the numbers and also Hebrew words."
Swartz says her work has been inspired by the diverse beliefs of Carl Jung, Judaism (particularly the Kabbalah), Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American Shamanism, the Chinese system Shen Qi, and feminism. A world traveler who has been to Israel several times, Swartz's unique style results from incorporating surprisingly unorthodox techniques such as ritual (meditation), innovative methodology (exposing layers of paper to pigment, dirt, water and flames), and even tearing her work with a screwdriver.
Swartz has been intrigued with Jewish spirituality for many years. Twenty-two years ago, she went on an inspiring pilgrimage to Israel, where she began working with the spheres of energy. Performing processes and rituals at 10 sacred sites associated with women in the Old Testament, she worked within the context of earth and fire, resulting in her series "Israel Revisited." To Swartz, the women symbolized the message of Shekhinah: that God has many names and speaks through women as well as men.
"In addition to translating my experiences, my work has always been about healing," says Swartz. "In healing ourselves we help to heal our culture. My work explores the role of ancient wisdom in our lives and how can it be helpful to us. I hope that by exposing people to beliefs and showing the interconnectedness of one belief system to another, each of us may experience a common compassion."
Swartz is still inspired by the Tree of Life, though her new work is very different. "The life/death/rebirth process ritual was connected to my work in the late 70s and early 80s. That was called my fire-work," explains Swartz, "and it was on layered paper and developed as a result of my first trip to Israel, my trips down the Colorado River and my mother's brush with death. That work ended in 1983 when I began working once again on canvas."
Swartz says she hopes the new paintings will "read like a window into our awareness and will help in our understanding of how we fit into the world."
Swartz has long been recognized as a major talent in the art world; she has had more than 70 one-person exhibitions, including a solo show at the Jewish Museum in New York and three traveling museum exhibitions. Her work has the distinction of being included in many museum collections, including the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2002, the Phoenix Art Museum mounted a 40-year retrospective of her work and co-published a monograph on her work titled "Reminders of Invisible Light: The Art of Beth Ames Swartz."
Aspiring artists who are looking for inspiration may want to consider the words of Alan Watts, a writer who greatly influenced Swartz's search for meaning: "Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. It is surely absurd to seek God in terms of a preconceived idea of what God is. When you realize that you live in, that indeed you are this moment now, and no other, that apart from this there is no past and no future, you must relax and taste to the full, whether it be pleasure or pain."
The Sylvia Plotkin Judaica Museum is located inside Temple Beth Israel at 56th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale. Call 480-951-0323. The institution's permanent collection of Judaica houses more than 1,000 artifacts from around the world, including the "Western Wall," a to-scale replica of the original in Jerusalem.