December 31, 2004/Tevet 19 5765, Vol. 57, No. 18
Art for breakfastHadassah celebrates women in the arts
DEBORAH SUSSMAN SUSSER
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 Photographer Lois Zuckerman has visited 86 countries in 43 years. Here is her photograph of tribesmen in Mount Hagen, a small town in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. |
To help find the four artists featured this year, Rudick turned to her mother-in-law, Chelle Rudick, who runs an informal art tour of Phoenix every month. The tours began when Chelle "got a bunch of friends together and said, 'Hey, let's go look at some stuff,'" her daughter-in-law explains. In addition to the regular Phoenix tours, Rudick senior organizes a yearly art trip to Los Angeles, which is where she met ceramist Karen Koblitz.
Koblitz, along with a sweater designer, a travel photographer and a Yiddish singer, will be featured at the Hadassah Valley of the Sun Chapter event.
Rudick anticipates that some 225 people will attend the Jan. 9 event at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa, a not unrealistic estimate given that more than 260 people attended last year, when the featured artists were a comedian, an author, a quilt maker and a painter. Hadassah is collecting arts supplies to create the table centerpieces; after the event, the supplies will be donated to the Free Arts of Arizona, a nonprofit organization that helps abused, homeless and neglected children heal through the expression of art.
This year, along with their gourmet breakfast, the audience will enjoy a fashion show of sweater designs by Stephanie "Sunshine" Pincus.
"Stephanie we had to track down," Randee Rudick says. "She used to live in Cottonwood." Pincus, who now lives and works in Tucson, has designed sweaters and knitwear since the 1960s. "My sweaters reflect my love of color, texture and glamour," she says. "Sweaters are always fashionable."
Los Angeles ceramist Koblitz has worked in ceramics for more than 30 years and is currently the head of the ceramics department at the University of South-ern California. "I've done public art pieces and one-of-a-kind gallery work," she says. She's also designed functional wares at a factory in Italy. Asked to describe her work, she explains that it "references different cultural and historical pieces. It's very colorful and textural."
Koblitz's ceramics have been exhibited throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and Italy, as well as in Switzerland and Russia. She does not have a Phoenix gallery at the moment, but her work is in several fine private Arizona collections, including that of Sara and David Lieberman, and she used to show with gallerist Elaine Horwitch in Scottsdale. Koblitz says of Horwitch, "She made my career. I owe her a great debt of gratitude."
Travel photographer Lois Zuckerman began her career doing medical photography in college. In the last 43 years, she has traveled to and documented 86 countries, and she now specializes in photographing the Far East and Africa. (Zuckerman has been on 21 - yes, 21 - African safaris.) Her work has been exhibited in galleries and private homes, and she also lectures on her travels. "I speak to anyone who would like to hear about the adventures," she says.
The final presentation of the morning will be singer Adrienne Turner, accompanied by a pianist. A music theater student at Arizona State University, Turner is the winner of the 2001-2002 Joan Frazer Memorial Award in the arts for her work researching and performing Yiddish music. David Frazer, who created the award in memory of his wife Joan, says that Turner "not only has a great voice, but a wonderful personality and stage presence." He calls Turner's interview with the award's selection committee "one of those moments that you savor."
"She had told us that her project was involving her researching and performing some Yiddish songs from Eastern Europe that she wanted to resurrect because many people were not familiar with the history of some of the Yiddish music that was so popular in America. We asked her if she would give us a small sample of her singing ability. It was at that point that she just blew away the committee."
After the Jan. 9 program, Koblitz, Pincus and Zuckerman will be "selling their wares," Rudick says, and Turner will be on hand to speak to all interested parties.
Raffle tickets to win a one-night stay for two at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort will be available for purchase. Guests becoming life members of Hadassah between Dec. 10-Jan. 9 receive a gift certificate toward two tickets to any performance of the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company.