A Summary of Our 2023 Award Recipients

The 2023 Bertha Anolic Israel Travel Award:   

The winner of the Bertha Anolic Israel Travel award is Ariel Aravot, an MFA student at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating this year with an MFA in Glass. He received his BFA in Ceramics and Glass from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel. His work focuses on blown glass objects, using interlacing both as a component of glasswork and as a metaphor for relations between person and others, and within societal, cultural, environmental and historic networks. Ariel’s work is also grounded in his family, and Israel’s, history: a great uncle immigrated to Israel in the 1930’s and worked in the Gavish Glass Factory. His proposal involved applying his perspective as a glass artist in curating a catalogue documenting the history of the glass industry in Israel.

The 2023 Naomi Anolic Early Career Jewish Visual Arts Award:   

The winner of the Naomi Anolic Early Career Award is Jack Lumer. Jack earned a BA in fine arts at the University of Arts in London. His work includes compelling and ethereal installations, paintings and sculpture. His current work involves installations based on biblical events and Jewish mysticism, with a goal to make his work alive and dynamic: trying to escape from the stillness that he feels exists in traditional western art – bringing his work closer to movement and with it closer to Jewish philosophy. His proposed project is an installation based on the concept that the act of creation began by shining a singular ray of infinite light, containing all the elements that would make up a pure soul. The light, meant to be held in vessels, was so strong that the vases broke, mixing the purity of souls with darkness, giving birth to the dichotomies that exist within humans, "good" and "evil". It is up to each person to partake into the slow process of "fixing the vases", both within oneself and within society. The installation is about that process of reconstruction.

The 2023 Isaac Anolic Jewish Book Arts Award:   

The winner of the Isaac Anolic Jewish Book Arts Award is Roni Gross. An accomplished book artist, Roni’s work can be found in many collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, Princeton, Columbia, Yale among other Universities, library of Congress and many others. In her proposal Roni states that many artists have produced versions of The Book of Ruth, preserving the accepted doctrine that its importance lies in the tracing of the lineage of King David. In contrast, her proposed book, entitled As Much My Daughter, gives primacy to the voices and thoughts of Ruth and Naomi, who make commentary as the biblical story unfolds. The imagery will be of fruited branches, a dove, a sturdy tree trunk, a plant beginning to flower, the land beyond the threshing floor - lush and evoking the fragrance of the flowers in the fields. This is a story about internal growth: a love that crossed all boundaries, that provided renewal and the preservation of a family. The names of the characters will be in Hebrew calligraphy, done by Shel Bassel, an Israeli Torah scribe, using the old Askhkenazic script. According to her proposal, As Much My Daughter is something that Roni has worked on, on and off, for 20 years. The Isaac Anolic Award will be used to make it a reality.