Healing is an art. Paint your canvas.
– Anonymous
When is the last time you were moved to tears in a webinar?
Yeah, me neither.
Until recently, when I participated in a webinar as part of the Fodder Challenge 4 where the guest artist Jack Ravi answered questions and talked about his process for creating a multi-media Anne Frank book. Ravi selected pictures of Frank, artificially aged them and along with found, sometimes rusted objects, created a book of her. Wendy Solganik, aka Willa Wanders, the mastermind behind the Fodder School artistic series hosted the event. Ravi had gifted Solganik the Anne Frank book, in part because he was a fan of her work and in part because he knew she is related to Frank, albeit, distantly (they share a common ancestor from the year 1350). Solganik declares the book “so beautiful it belongs in a museum.”
Jack Ravi’s Multimedia Anne Frank Book as shown by Wendy Solganik
Solganik calls the monthly meetings with featured artists a Love Fest. Indeed, the webinar proved a fest with nearly 200 participants. No art was instructed nor created. It simply served as a gathering of Ravi or Solganik fans, mostly there to bestow praise or share personal stories of how their guidance impacted each artist, many new to the art-making world.
The fact that the fest lasted more than two hours surprised me, but even more, that the topic of fear merged from two veins; one from historic reality (Germans’ persecution of Jews) and one from the general inadequacy artists can feel in pursuing and creating art (I wrote about my personal experience on this subject). The juxtaposition feels obscure, but is connected.
Art is connecting and powerful and thus, healing.
During this Love Fest, Solganik, who is Jewish, shared through tears that she used to fear anything German related and that the amazing mixed media online community helped her overcome that fear.
A few people cried during the Love Fest, creating a most passionate and emotional webinar.
I feel equally and profoundly moved by the subject, having recently returned from a five-week, five-country European vacation with my husband built entirely around a tour of Anne Frank’s house and subsequently an 80th Anniversary tour of World War II sites. World War II facts and horrors seeped into our veins and forever changed how we view the world. So I understand someone’s, anyone’s, but specifically a Jewish person’s, fear of anything with ties to the events.
We should never, ever forget the Holocaust.
The whole Love Fest proved profound on several levels—connecting, effecting, powerful…the session’s insights and shared stories still linger with me days later.
But isn’t that what art is all about? Connecting? Powerful? Healing?
And true.
Art is Truth.
That’s what I love about it.
Artists lay their truth out for all to witness.
Love, light, & healing,
Deborah
Watch the whole Love Fest below.
Feature photo credit: Jack Ravi
Click here to join Fodder Challenge 4 (2024-2025) where we create fodder material via online lessons over the entire year.
And here’s Jack Ravi’s book (which I purchased years before this class). It’s a gem.
Here’s the Love Fest with Jack Ravi. Solganik speaks of her former fear of anything German and credits the mixed media community for helping her heal around 1:42 in the video. But the whole video is wonderful!