Goy Paints Jewish Calendar

This is the second part of my two-part post on working with Scott Lyon on the permanent exhibit recently installed at the Mizel Museum in Denver.


This past Spring I was invited by Scott to help paint, fabricate and install pieces of the exhibit titled 4,000 Year Road Trip: Gathering Sparks. I was given the task and huge privilege of illustrating the large Jewish Calendar that hangs in the Synagogue. I had some concerns when I started, one being that I am not Jewish! I didn't know bubbe from bupkes... Although, now I know not to get the two confused.

The Jewish calendar is only similar to the Gregorian calendar in that it has twelve months. The months are lunar, which I painted a band of moon phases corresponding with observed religious holidays and their months.  Each month starts with a new moon, the first month is Nisan. Passover is celebrated in Nisan. Pictured here is a detail of the months with moons and seasons of the calendar.

 My favorite symbol that I painted here of the holidays is the Sukkah in the upper right corner of the banner, which is the wooden structure with twigs and fruit hanging from it. Sukkot is the harvest holiday celebrated in the middle of the month Tishre or Tisheri (roughly October).  Many Hebrew words have different spellings, which I was often told to change... I'm just the goy with a brush. Like the rest of the exhibit, I painted this banner in a colorful whimsical style. Here is a detail of the top half of the banner with the Sukkah.

You'll have to go the Mizel Museum if want to see the full calendar and all the other wonderful exhibit pieces. I had a blast working with Scott and the Mizel folks for those last six months, but the project is done and it's time to move on.  Now, I have seven paintings (possibly more) commissioned by Nordstrom to complete in the next six weeks. The paintings are for several store remodels. I'll be painting vintage looking mid-century styled athletic male portraits in oil for Nordstrom's menswear/sportswear department. I'm VERY excited, it's my biggest client ever! I'll keep you posted.

Derek

Sparking It Up At The Mizel Museum

This is the first post of the two-part blog about working on the permanent exhibit recently installed at the Mizel Museum in Denver.

This past Spring I was invited by Scott Lyon to help paint, fabricate and install pieces of the exhibit. There are too many projects to talk about, so I'll talk about one design of Scott's that I worked on in this post, and then I'll write about painting the Jewish Calendar that I designed and worked on in my next post.

Almost two years ago my friend and fellow Denver artist, Scott Lyon, was approached by the Mizel Museum to give the museum walls and the display cases that house the artifacts a makeover.  Scott began working with the museum's curator, Georgina Kolber, on the exhibit's theme, which is a 4,000 year journey of Jewish life, culture, art and stories.  The curator talks more about this in her interview with Ryan Warner on Colorado Public Radio.  4,000 Year Road Trip: Gathering Sparks is the educational, historic and whimsical exhibit that has been brought to life by Scott and his team that I was honored to be apart of. 

 I worked on several exciting projects, however, one of the more memorable projects I worked on was the notorious "spark" emitting disco ball, which was the most terrifying piece to fabricate and install!  Scott began this project by designing and building a rocket fin shaped wooden support covered with foam and electrical bits that would be covered by a mosaic of mirror glass. The shape of this sculpture was designed in mind with the building's mid-century modern architecture and fun funky presentation of the exhibit's theme. I remember being a little intimidated by this skeletal structure, but I couldn't wait to begin covering it. This structure was heavy and awkward, it would rock back and forth, and needed to have a separate structure built to keep it upright.  Mostly there was a lot of gluing shards of glass, which one of the shards left a V-shaped scar on my wrist after I carelessly plunged my arm into one of those pointy corners... ouch!   It took several days for Scott and I to finish, working in shifts artfully cutting glass and arranging pieces to perfectly cover the structure.  After the last piece of glass was placed and the finished sculpture was cleaned we stood back in awe of it's shimmering beauty!  Now all we had to do was figure out how to hang it, which we did quite gracefully with the help of pulleys and a very tall ladder.  When you walk up to the front of the museum you can't help notice the large atomic disco ball hanging in the lime green entrance.  Guests who visit the Mizel Museum before dusk are really in for a sparkly treat!

Pictured here is Scott, the disco ball and a few bits of other exhibit pieces I put in to collage.