Adi Braeman was a fashion designer in Israel, creating patterns and supervising production in a small kibbutz factory near Caesarea.
Lori Greenblat-Wick, a fourth-generation San Franciscan, worked for 16 years in the advertising department at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Now 53 and living in Davis, Braeman transforms molten glass into jewelry, fashioned from her one-of-a-kind beads. Greenblat-Wick, 52, also has shifted gears, creating collages that incorporate Jewish symbols and blessings.
They are among some 25 artists and designers who will show their work at Israel in the Gardens.
For both, this career change has given them a new perspective on their connection to Judaism and the Jewish people.
“When you live in Israel, you don’t have to think about what defines you as a Jew,” said Braeman, who teaches in Davis. “Here in the United States, I had to work harder at it.” Now she takes her inspiration from the landscape of her homeland, giving it new shape in her beadwork.
Growing up near Caesarea, surrounded by the images that inspired the poet Hannah Senesh, Braeman “absorbed the colors of the desert and the sea, the biblical history and the magnificent ancient ruins, dating more than 2,000 years ago,” she writes in an artist’s statement. “This natural beauty and spiritual legacy are part of who I am,” and they continue to color her beadwork.
After studying fashion design and art history at WIZO Haifa Academy of Design and Education, Braeman returned to the kibbutz, where she ran a clothing factory for 13 years. She married an American from Cupertino and they continued to live in Israel, where their children, now 19 and 21, were born.
A move to Yakima, Wash., 10 years ago put her on a different path. “I was lonely, very lonely,” she said. “My husband was working many shifts and I was home with the kids. I had a lot of time on my hands and nowhere to go.”
But she found a place to go, taking a weekend class at the local community college in lampworking, a bead-making technique that employs a torch to melt glass around a stainless steel mandrel. Blowing and shaping the glass, she then plays with colors and textures, working with both opaque and transparent glass. The process gave new shape to Braeman’s life.
“I fell in love,” she said, setting up a workshop in her open garage, where she wore boots and two sets of sweats so she could work while it was snowing outside.
Some beads reveal swirling, marbleized patterns, with necklaces crafted from a variety of shapes. A pair of earrings, for example, shows a three-layered pattern, with molten lava textures at the base and clear amethyst-colored glass atop. No two beads are alike, even in a pair of earrings, and Braeman likes “slight imperfections,” she writes. “I feel that they give a soul to a bead …”
She says the landscape of Israel continues to influence her work, and she recently began adding more figurative ideas into her beadwork, including the Star of David. Prices range from $20 to $500 (the highest prices are for necklaces with gold inclusions). She also sells the beads.
After moving from Yakima, Braeman is happy to be closer to the Bay Area, where she participated in last summer’s Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival. She also enjoys living in Davis. “You just go outside and people talk to you. It’s just the right place for me.”
Chances are, Braeman will also find plenty of people to talk to at Israel in the Gardens. So will Greenblat-Wick, who will likely encounter familiar faces from San Mateo, where she lives and belongs to Peninsula Temple Beth El; from Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco and Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, where she is a substitute teacher; and from a number of local ventures. Her newest is gocitizengreen.com, “repurposing” used plastic containers and filling them with products for hair, body and home.
With 9/11 as the catalyst, Greenblat-Wick began to repurpose her own life after working in advertising.
“Maybe I had a midlife crisis, but I was too young for that,” she said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of sending kids off to school and going to work” in San Francisco. At the time, her children were ages 5 and 10. “I wanted to be home for them.”
Finding work closer to home as a school computer instructor, she also made collages as a way of “calming my nerves down. … Doing artwork brought me some peace,” offering tranquility in a world that was no longer tranquil. Tellingly, she calls her operation Peace in Mind Gallery.
Creating collages that she says are designed to produce a calming effect, she incorporates handmade papers, ribbons, metals and found objects. Interweaving Jewish symbols, such as a hamsa or a chai, into the collage, she borders the perimeter with handwritten prayers. Some come from the Reform prayerbook, some she has written herself. “There’s kind of a mishmash of blessings in my work.” Her work, she added, has also become more “free form” in recent years.
In addition to showing at Israel in the Gardens, Greenblat-Wick sells at area Judaica shops. Her work is priced from $36 to $325. “I feel very lucky that my work is in demand. It’s hard for me to keep up with it. I can’t make it fast enough,” she said. But she wants to “keep it as a joyful thing for me. I don’t want to turn it into an art factory.”