Kabbalat Ohr | Receiving Light 

Camille Davidson
Spiegel Art Gallery July 14 – September 6, 2016

Opening Reception with Artist: Thursday, July 14, 2016, 5pm – 7pm
First Friday Art Walk: August 5, September 2, 5pm-8pm
Monday – Friday 10am-2pm + Sundays 1pm – 5pm or by appointment

A new body of work by Camille Davidson, conceived and designed for the Maine Jewish Museum. Three new series of paintings – Kabbalat Ohr, the Sefirot series, and Jacob’s Pillow are infused with the ancient mystical practice of remaining receptive to receiving the shards of light, the sparks of Holiness, the remnants of Divine energy from Genesis that are still present in the ordinary moments of our daily lives. Ms. Davidson’s paintings seek to receive, hold, and liberate such moments. Boldly rendered, they are less didactic and more experiential, less literal and more expressive. With this new body of work our beautiful museum and synagogue space invites all to participate in the possibility of Kabalat Ohr, receiving light.
Camille Davidson received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Maine College of Art. Ms. Davidson has the good fortune to live in Maine where she has both a summer and a winter studio. During the summer, she lives and works in the small lakeside town of Readfield where she is inspired by the woods that surround her small cabin and the lake nearby. In the winter she works in Brunswick. The long hard Maine winter provides her with the time and space to delve into her work both literally and figuratively.

Lichens Juliet Karelsen 

July 14 – September 6, 2016
Fineberg Community Room | Curated by Nancy Davidson

Opening Reception with Artist: Thursday, July 14, 2016, 5pm – 7pm
First Friday Art Walk: August 5, September 2, 5pm-8pm
Monday – Friday 10am-2pm + Sundays 1pm – 5pm or by appointment
These stitched “paintings” are metaphors, forest jewels and small green messengers that call attention to the beauty of the environment and its need for preservation and protection. They are sketches of changing light, hues, textures, and lines of the plants, lichens, mushrooms, mosses, and the landscapes small and large around us. Like nature they provide surprises–unexpected juxtapositions, odd compositions, tiny startling detail. They cross genres between painting, stitching, tapestry, rug making, and embroidery and reference abstract art, fantasy, landscape, textile, miniature worlds, and even science, from botany to mycology. They were inspired by Karelsen’s time spent at The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts last summer.
Juliet Karelsen studied painting and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has been experimenting in various forms of stitching for the last few years. Her work has been shown in Maine, New York City, Boston, Ohio, and abroad in Spain, Argentina and Switzerland. She was born and raised in New York City and has been living in Maine (mostly) since 1991.