The Environmental Crisis: Art & Conversation

Every time Jews pray in community, we say Aleinu – it’s incumbent upon us to continue the work of creation. For centuries, human industry has disregarded the environment we are spiritually tasked to “till and tend.” Now, we find ourselves in a critical moment, when our practical activities need to align with our deepest values in order to protect and preserve the world we have inherited.

Join us for an opportunity to explore these themes through art and have the opportunity for community and conversation.

Artists:

• Ellen Alt is a mixed media artist. She has exhibited her work in the U.S, Israel, Germany, Russia, China and England. One of her pieces was presented to Hillary Clinton on the occasion of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan and is in the collection of the White House. Ms Alt holds an MA in studio art from New York University and a BFA in art education from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
• Lisa Goren’s watercolors show an unfamiliar landscape in a new light. By using vibrant colors and taking risks with different surfaces, she makes the viewer reevaluate their understanding of both these landscapes and their beliefs in the potential of the medium. Her works create questions about the nature of abstraction and our planet as many of her pieces are representations of unfamiliar, threatened terrains. She was awarded a place on the 2013 voyage of The Arctic Circle, an artist residency sailing near the North Pole. This “trip of a lifetime” was chronicled in an article she wrote for the New York Times and led her to her next phase of her Polar work.
• Ian Todreas is a Boston-based artist who sketches and paints to capture the color and character of the world around him. Working primarily in watercolor, he is especially inspired by local landscapes unblemished by modernity. Ian has enjoyed solo exhibits in Boston and Washington, D.C., and has been honored by local arts organizations.
• Deborah Putnoi is a visual artist, educator and researcher. Putnoi has an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a 5th Year Graduate Degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and a B.A./B.F.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (joint degree program). She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions nationally to critical acclaim and her worked is included in many significant collections. She has taught in many settings over the past ten years including elementary and secondary schools, universities, and community outreach organizations. Putnoi also worked for many years as a researcher with Howard Gardner at Project Zero working on research projects focusing on community art centers, museums and school learning. Putnoi is the author of The Drawing Mind and is currently producing a film series to accompany the book.