It’s not every day that schoolchildren get to scribble graffiti on a wall with the enthusiastic blessing of their teachers.
But elementary school students at Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito did exactly that recently under the guidance of Yehuda Goldin, a visiting artist from Israel.
“In Israel,” Goldin noted, “we don’t use the term ‘mural.’ Instead, we call outdoor wall paintings ‘graffiti.’ So at home, I’m a graffiti artist.”
Meanwhile, at Brandeis Hillel Day School’s San Rafael campus, Goldin helped students create banners for display at “Israel in the Meadows,” Sunday afternoon’s Israel Independence celebration at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
Goldin, a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Israel, takes a humorous, lively approach to teaching art to children. “I’ve had a number of experiences that shaped me,” he said.
“In art school, I made so many troubles that they sent me to the Ulster Fine Arts School in Belfast for a semester to cool down,” he recalled, grinning. “I also studied gymnastics and juggling. I think this has given me the feeling I have for art as performance.”
While Goldin is well known in Israel for his work with youth, he has also achieved fame as a member of a popular flamenco dance troupe. While the dancers perform a piece based on the opera “Carmen,” Goldin paints madly on a huge, bare backdrop behind them. These “action paintings,” as he calls them, take shape according to how the music and dancers move him that night. The result is images filled with whirling dancers and colors and wild spirals of graffiti-like scribbles.
Tehiyah’s mural project scene, honoring Israel’s Independence Day, depicts old walls, buildings and rolling hills of Jerusalem, fanning out from a colorful arch.
“There was an old synagogue in Jerusalem that was destroyed in the Six-Day War,” said Goldin. “Instead of rebuilding the entire synagogue, they rebuilt only the arch. This is the arch the children painted.”
Murals on the school’s walls are nothing new. Tsipi Gabai, head of Tehiyah’s Jewish and Hebrew departments, cites art teacher Janet Lipkin for her key role in bringing these paintings to fruition. They “bring life into the building,” Gabai commented. “The walls tell stories when you walk by.”
Dynamic and full of energy, Goldin infused the project with his creative experience and skill, but he says the children created much of the design.
Initially, the artist showed the older children postcards, photographs, posters and paintings of Israel. He then asked them to draw images that most inspired them. The sketches were laid out on the floor so the children could move them around and create a pleasing and balanced design. Goldin chalked out the major lines on the wall, with the kids filling in the rest.
Several classes participated in the project. As the children painted, Goldin talked to them about the history and geography of Israel and art.
“He’d say, ‘See, we are drawing the smooth hills of Israel — not the jagged snowcapped peaks of Switzerland,'” said Gabai. “He talked about the colors of the countryside and how to mix paint colors.”
Goldin described his painting methods at Tehiyah as “fast-food art,” as he typically has more time to plan and paint his own graffiti.
Goldin observed a disparity between art instruction in American and Israeli schools. “I am shocked how little art there is in American schools,” he remarked. “Here, schools think that math is more important than art, that science is more important than art.
“In Israel, we understand that art teaches children to think abstractly, whatever their endeavor in life.”
Goldin’s visit was facilitated by Nitzan Aviv, director of the Israel Center at the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay. Aviv is the father of a first-grader at Tehiyah. Aviv and Goldin grew up together in Israel.
The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation also played a hand in spreading Goldin’s talents — such as the recent banner project at Brandeis Hillel.
For Aviv, “Part of my job is to bring Israeli culture and art to the East Bay. I was looking for a way to attract kids to learn about Israel. What better way than through art? So I turned to Yehuda.
“It’s important for kids to make a connection between themselves and Israel.”
That “connection” was clear to Sharon Gannot, one of the young muralists at Tehiyah Day School. “Last summer I was in Israel,” said the eighth-grader. “I visited some of the old buildings in Jerusalem,” she continued excitedly, “And now I’m painting them!”