Two artists, two rites of passage

The young artist meets the gaze of the observer, narrowing her eyes, somehow declaring her existence as an artist. Miriam Lefkowitz, a 52 year old borough artist and photographer, painted this portrait of Rebecca George, a 15 year old Highland Park artist. She titled it Great Expectations. Lefkowitz and George are both having their first art shows together at the Highland Park Public Library throughout October. They will hold a reception on Sunday, October 11 from 2 to 4 PM for the community.

The two got to talk while traveling into New York where they were both taking classes at The School of Visual Arts and Lefkowitz was impressed with the young artist’s portfolio. Lefkowitz was attending video editing and George enrolled in Life Drawing. It was at a family pool party at George’s house that they decided to each display their work for the first time.

Great Expectations, 2009, oil painting by Miriam Lefkowitz.

Owl Eyes, 2008, digital painting by Rebecca George.

It’s no accident that they titled the show At The Library: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs.

It’s a rite of passage for artists in Highland Park to have their very first art show at the library, Lefkowitz said. “It feels safe and it is a stretch. Rebecca gave me the courage to do it, here she is a young girl working at her art and already believing in herself as an artist.”

It was a purple dinosaur that delayed Lefkowitz’s childhood career as an artist.

“I took one art class as a child and got very negative feedback for coloring in my dinosaur with a purple crayon,” Lefkowitz said. “I got straight A’s in math, science, and history and that’s where my family pushed me, towards an academic career.”

However, Lefkowitz was given a camera as an adult and found an enlarger for herself and started taking photos in New York. She ended up a photojournalist in Costa Rica for the Tico Times, an English language newspaper. She also pursued a career in computers and was hired full time to build and run the computer system at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in Rutgers University.

Lefkowitz found the public policy school located serendipitously in the same building as Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts. She took a drawing class with Lloyd McNeill and along with her photography pursued oil painting as well. Lefkowitz also joined the Print Making Council and the Highland Park Artist Collective as her home became filled with paintings and drawings.

Although Rebecca George began art classes at the age of nine with a borough art teacher, it was when she was a bit older that she began to take her work more seriously.

“It hit me at 13, the magnitude of how much can be expressed with art,” George said. “I’m hoping to pursue a career in children’s book illustrating.”

George, who has exhibited one piece with her art class at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, is looking forward to her first show and will be exhibiting portraits and still-lifes. She has also done a painting of Miriam and Miriam’s daughter that will be included in her show.

“I like drawing and painting using the computer,” George said. “You can mix colors, it’s like painting without the mess.”

According to Lefkowitz, the photos and paintings she is including explore both positive and negative space.

“Boundaries between objects, people, and nature interest me.  What divides one thing from another, visually?” Lefkowitz said.  “Do the objects blend together, or are there hard, defined lines?  I explore the sense of confusion and wonder that I often feel about what something is and where it connects to something else.”