Welcome...

to the Jewish Artists' Laboratory, an arts initiative that began through the Sabes Jewish Community Center. The lab explores specific themes through study and art making, bringing together a diverse group of artists who have an interest in  the relationship between Jewish thought and creativity.

Our topic in 2020-2021 grows out of our current climate: Brokenness and Wholeness. It differs from our past labs in that we are working in a Hevruta style of learning, in partnership with a person of a younger generation. Each month we meet first with the lab and then separately with our partner, each learning from each other.

Past topics have included Muddy Waters:Climate Change, the Environment and Jewish text, Crossing the Threshold, Boundaries and Otherness, Wisdom, Water, Light and Text-Context-Subtext. 

We began the lab with a multi-year grant from the Covenant Foundation and deeply appreciate their generosity in supporting the birth of this gathering. 

We were part of the Midwest Jewish Artists' Lab, a group of six organizations in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Madison, Kansas City, Chicago and Cleveland. Each group  engaged in similar programs on a common theme. Minneapolis is the only site that is still actively meeting as a lab, but the artistic community that developed out of this effort has continued to stay connected more informally in other sites.  You can read more about the project eleven years after that first grant in this article from the Covenant Foundation.

The original groups that were involved with this effort included The Sabes Jewish Community Center, Minneapolis, The Harry & Rose Samson Jewish Community Center of Milwaukee, the University of Wisconsin Hillel of Madison, Wisconsin, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership of Chicago and the Beachwood Mandel Jewish Community Center of Cleveland.
           
This website is the creative initiative of Artists’ Laboratory participant, Susan Weinberg. Since 2013 I have served as the Resident Writer of the Laboratory, documenting each session through our blog.  I share the rich material that our facilitators introduce, material that triggers much discussion and ultimately our creative efforts.   I invite you to share in our past journey by referencing our blog.

Facilitators


Robyn Awend is the Twin Cities Jewish Cultural Arts Director of the Sabes Jewish Community Center and the St. Paul JCC as well as the Coordinator of the Minneapolis Jewish Artists' Laboratory.  She is a practicing artist who uses her Jewish identity as a focal point of her work, and is a founding member of Form+Content Gallery in downtown, Minneapolis.

Meryll Page is a teacher and writer who rejoins us to guide us in exploration of Jewish text. She has taught history and Jewish studies for many years. Meryll is a consultant to the Minnesota Humanities Institute and writes about the connection between food and the weekly Torah portion at the Tasting Torah site.  Meryll is also the co-author of the non-fiction work, Jewish Luck.


*header on this website is based on an image of a cut-paper sketchbook by lab artist Rani Halpern

Artist Updates

In the fall of 2019, Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin did an independent artist residency at the Grand Marais Art Colony. She also was invited to the annual meeting of the National Oral History Association in Salt Lake City. There she sat  on a panel that explored the power of interactive reality (including augmented and virtual reality technologies) to influence how we perceive our environment.

Josh Awend joined us to record a podcast with lab members on the theme of Jewish identity. You can find it here as well as other podcasts he has recorded.

Carolyn Light Bell published I Heard a Fish Cry (Adlaidebooks.com-Nov 2017). Carolyn's work can also be found in  three different publications. Stories from Old Pines,  in Cottonwood Review, a print literary magazine, is a small collection of vignettes of amusing and eccentric people in rural Wisconsin.

Hansel and Gretel, is in an online journal, Stickman Review, and is about a woman who is seduced by her old addictions as embodied in a neighborhood character.

Stuff, in Penman Review, another online journal, is about a woman who is trying to fill the empty spaces in her life, surrounding herself with objects.

Other published work includes You Ain't Got the Brains God Gave A Goose,"  on Storyteller Lit Mag site and The Saga of the Missing Guitar  in Somerset Magazine Fall 2015.

Suzanne Fenton published a thoughtful piece on the fragility of life, Funeral for a Friend, in TCJewfolk.

Susan Weinberg released her book We Spoke Jewish: A Legacy in Stories in October 2017. 

The book, published by the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest with support from the Minnesota Historical Society, is composed of oral history and artwork and tells the story of three groups of Jewish immigrants in the 20th century.
for more information on the book go to wespokejewish.com. Since its release, she has been speaking widely on expressing story through artwork and on the theme of Jewish immigration. In 2019 she took her show on the road, speaking in six states.

Several of Susan Weinberg's artworks in the lab have been based on Holocaust stories shared by her good friend Dora Zaidenweber.  The two share an ancestral town and had a "beshert" connection when they met.  Learn more about the engine for this work in a Duets article in the Star Tribune. In 2017 Susan and Dora began using these paintings in Holocaust education efforts.

Susan Armington and Sylvia Horwitz  first exhibited their work together at the Robbin Gallery in Robinsdale.  You can catch the video in which they talk of how their work complements each other's.

Learn more about Diane Pecoraro's work as community poet in St. Louis Park.  She is aptly described as down to earth and relatable and works to make poetry accessible.

You may remember the intriguing piece in the 2014 Artists' Lab exhibition by Allison Morse and fellow artist Rachel Breen.  Much has happened since in their efforts to expand the project "The Price Of Our Clothes," which makes connections between the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh and the 1911 NYC Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. In 2015 they went to Bangladesh to do research. You can read their blog which chronicled their travels and collaborative process. The project was also covered by the Star Tribune in 2015. Since then they have received project support grants from Rimon, The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council, to support research and production of "The Price of Our Clothes,” an exhibit that will use poetry, storytelling, visual art and social engagement to make connections between the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire and the  Rana Plaza disaster as a way to invite American consumers to consider our ties to the garment industry—especially the people who make our clothes.

The Female Gaze 
examines how lab artist Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin developed her approach to photography. For more of Ann's work.

Exhibitions and Events

The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is excited to announce its 2021 exhibition  on the theme of Brokenness & Wholeness. Each artist partnered with someone of a younger generation, expanding their learning and creativity. It has been an emotional year and we are grateful for the opportunity to explore it through creativity.

 Enter Exhibition Here
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Generously funded in part by the Covenant Foundation

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Sabes & St. Paul JCC
Virtual Galleries
​Muddy Waters: Climate change, the environment and Jewish text

Muddy Waters explores a wide array of pressing environmental issues. These new works comment both subtly and overtly on the current state of our planet, our responsibility to serve as activists and how art plays a key role in making change.

Enter Exhibition Here

and if you'd like to learn more about our journey you are invited to read our blog.


While you are visiting the Virtual JCC...
don't forget to check out Visual Prayer
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Visual Prayer
Interfaith Artist Circle
Artist Talk Video 

curated by lab artist Aimee Orkin.
Lab artists exhibiting include Gloria Cooper, Rani Halpern, Aimee Orkin, Paula Leiter Pergament and Rochelle Woldorsky


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News on the Lab

Reflections on Wisdom
Read more in the American Jewish World about how the lab has explored the 2016 theme of Wisdom through many mediums.

A Place Where Art and Culture Intersects
Read more in St. Louis Park magazine about the Minneapolis Artists' Lab and the way it brings art and culture together.  And view the photos from our 2014 closing event.

The Artists' Lab: Finding Judaism through Art
Read more about our facilitators Avi and Anat and the work that they have created for the 2014 Artists' Lab Exhibition.

Artists' Labs become an Active Part of Jewish Communities
Hadassah Magazine takes a look at the burgeoning movement of Jewish Arts Salons.

A Midwest Movement Creates and Elevates Jewish Art
The first Jewish Artists Lab began in Milwaukee and was so successful that additional labs were funded by the Covenant Foundation in Madison and Minneapolis.

A Culmination of a Year of Exploration
In 2013, the Lab did its first  exhibition on the theme of Text-Context-Subtext, exploring a range of topics through a multitude of mediums.    
And another review by the American Jewish World.

7                                                                         Site designed by Susan Weinberg
                                                                 ©Minneapolis Jewish Artists' Laboratory  2017