Painting the family Bible in Bolinas

     Point Reyes Light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            David Briggs

 

ARTS: Janis Yerington describes her exhibit—which interprets the illustrations in the 19th-century Bible with which her great-grandfather escaped from Europe—as folk art inspired by Chagall. 

 

By Samantha Kimmey

10/30/2014

 

Janis Loewengart Yerington, an artist who has lived in Bolinas for four short years, recently painted a dramatic rendition of the biblical story from the Book of Exodus—Moses breaking the tablets given to him by God—on a huge piece of driftwood in her backyard. The piece, she said, hasn’t been inside her home yet; instead, it’s sitting on an easel outside, valiantly surviving recent deluges.

The painting, her own version of an illustration from a family bible brought to America by her great-grandfather during World War II, will be the centerpiece of her upcoming exhibit at the Bolinas Gallery. The paintings help tell the story of how her great-grandfather, Max Loewengart, left his family village in Rexingen, Germany, and traveled around Europe from port to port, attempting to escape the Nazis. He finally managed to leave the continent from Spain in 1941, building a new life in New York City and escaping the fate of six million Jews.

The exhibit will feature about a dozen driftwood paintings inspired by the illustrations, of Genesis and Exodus verses, by the famed 19th century illustrator Gustave Dore. 

She originally meant to cover the first five books of the Torah—which is still her ultimate goal—but it worked well to start with the first two because, she said, “my great grandfather’s journey…it was an exodus.”

Mr. Loewengart carried the 25-pound Bible, published in 1874, with him for the entire journey from Rexingen to New York, and Ms. Yerington’s parents still have it. (She purchased another one on eBay to help with her project.)

Ms. Yerington’s paintings range from the large-scale Moses to a tiny sliver—just an inch or so wide and roughly a foot long—of Cain’s murder of Abel. 

The driftwood recalls her great-grandfather’s journey, she said. “He was tossed and turned by history, and sometimes the waves were crashing down on him.”

Echoes of water comes from the driftwood, but also from many of the paintings themselves; a few feature deep blue curlicues of turbulent rivers, others the flowing blue robes of Moses or God that recall the waves off the beach just a minute’s walk from Ms. Yerington’s home. (In one or two, the blue actually came from a bottle of nail polish, she added.)

But the beauty of the pieces, each saturated with bold colors—textured greens for the Garden of Eden, a striking red robe worn by Abraham during his faith trial—belies the sometimes violent imagery: Cain killing his brother, Jacob wrestling an angel. In some pieces she leaves the faces blank to cope with the depth of the pain; for one, she dipped her finger in red paint during a seder and dabbed a splotch on one side, to mar the painting’s beauty, an echo of the tradition to dip one’s finger in red wine each time a plague is mentioned at the Passover table.

As a girl, Ms. Yerington said, she often flipped through the family Bible, marveling at Dore’s theatrical depictions of the verses. As an adult she’s tried to understand just exactly how her great-grandfather got the weighty tome across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean during the onset of a war. Recently, she was invited by the village of Rexingen to exhibit there next summer. “It’s poignant that [the village] invited me,” she said. “It’s healing for pain I don’t even have.”

 

An opening reception for “Max’s Bible” takes place from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8 at the Bolinas Gallery. During the same hours on the following Saturday, Nov. 15, a cellist will play Jewish melodies from 3 to 5 p.m. and on Nov. 22, Ms. Yerington’s daughter, Hannah, will recite four poems. For information, visit maxsbible.com.