Written by Rebeca Kuropatwa   

Calgary – A new artists group has been formed in the Calgary Jewish community by Winnipeg-born founder Louise Blank who moved to Calgary in 1983.

Although Blank’s focus has always been on writing, she has also grown to love another form of art – painting.

Since there was no artists group in Calgary, Blank proposed starting one to connect artists with the Jewish community and vice versa, with the help of the Calgary JCC.  

The name for the group ‘Betzalel Arts’ was suggested by one of the people wanting to join.  

“Betzalel is actually the name of the first Jewish person allowed to create images in the building of the Mishkan,” said Blank. “In early times it was believed that we weren’t supposed to reproduce images. As it happens, the parsha in the Torah related to my birthday is Betzalel.             
       
“Moses introduced the first biblical artist, saying, ‘The Lord has singled out by name Betzalel...and has endowed him with a divine spirit of skill, ability and knowledge.’”
Blank said she knew that with a small arts group, there would be no limits to their innovation.  

“We could do things like network with the business community and lease our art, or put up an exhibit for events. We could also have virtual exhibits where people could try out art at home, virtually.”  

By partnering with the JCC, Blank said both Betzalal and the JCC win.  

“We reduce our facility rental cost and they get 20 per cent commission on our sales. Part of our vision is to have an Art Week for the Jewish community where each day we’ll have something different.”  

In the fall, Betzalel will have an exhibit at the Foothills Hospital. The group plans to have exhibits and sales throughout the year. And, in the JCC lobby, they have a rotating exhibit (rotating paintings every three weeks).

“Although some group members do Judaic work, we’re not about Jewish art,” said Blank. “We’re about Jewish artists, doing everything from photography to landscape, floral, watercolour and abstract art.  

“We’ll be having themed exhibits, giving everyone an opportunity to shine. Most of us are at the professional level.  

“We’re trying to create a template that other Jewish communities can use to create such a group in their communities.”

For more information, visit BetzalelArts.com.

© Copyright (c) Jewish Tribune

Let a hundred flowers blossom – and vases and mountains and portraits and abstracts – the Calgary Jewish Community Centre is going to flourish with original art again on a full time basis.  Putting professional art on centre stage in the com-
munity is a project of a ginger group called Betzalel Arts.  They are local artists in the community, supported by the Calgary JCC, who have come up with a plan to showcase what their fellow artists are doing and to generally promote awareness of art in the community. 

If you have been to the Calgary JCC lately you will have noticed the handsome new display in the common area. It is the plan to rotate local art on a continuing basis; the exceptions being when there are major events such as the UJA campaign and others which need the display space.

Betzalel Arts is just a start-up organization, but it has lofty plans for the future. Founded through the initiative of artist Louise Blank, among the ideas they are
looking at include an annual Arts Week festival, displaying art at other community venues, perhaps even renting or leasing art to private homes and businesses, and other ideas that artists in the group may come up with.

“Our main goal is to bring art back to the Jewish community and to better connect artists to the community and artists with each other,” Louise Blank said in an interview.

Louise Blank is a writer by training, both technical and freelance, and has a fair bit of business experience. She wants to use that experience, and her own enjoyment as a painter, to build a long-lasting organization that will not only make the community more aware of art, but to promote the well-being of artists.

Through the website www.betzalelarts.com she wants to encourage artists to share information and ideas about how to promote themselves more professionally, how to work together to maximize their opportunities as artists, and how to better make art a part of regular life in the community.

“There are a lot of things we can do together as artists to promote our work,”  she says. “For example, we could host a business breakfast and display artists work, or arrange dinner parties in various homes where a group of artists might bring some of their paintings.”

Betzalel Arts also wants to encourage local artists to grow. This could include holding professional workshops, hosting artists retreats, and meetings on issues specific to artists. Eight artists have already signed up as members and several others are interested.  Membership will be structured to encourage participation by entry level artists and those who are already on the professional level, meaning they have exhibited previously. 

The website Betzalel Arts is developing will allow artists to have their own page to display their art and talk about it with the public. This solution has two advantages in that the public can experience the work of variety of artists in the same electronic
location, and it saves artists from the work and expense of maintaining their own
website.

“We will have an online submission process to manage the website,” says Mali
Docktor, one of the organizers behind Betzalel Arts. “By bringing artists together it definitely works to their advantage because it can be hard work and costly to mount and curate your own shows.”  She says Betzalel Arts, with the support of the
Calgary JCC, will definitely provide more frequent and more cost effective exhibi-tions for local artists.

© Copyright (c) The Jewish Free Press