Israeli Artist Visits Newtown —

Found Objects, Found Friends

By Nancy K. Crevier

In Israel, artist Batia Ouziel is known as “the high priestess of crafts” and has reigned over weekly radio and television handicraft programs for more than 15 years, translated and edited craft books into Hebrew, and has taught art to the youth of that country for nearly a quarter of a century.

Much of her art is a combination of reclaimed objects assembled into three dimensional works and the found objects are a reflection of her life, losses and loves. Her assemblages have been displayed in three one-woman art shows and several gallery exhibitions in Israel, Europe and the United States.

Most recently, Ms Ouziel was in the United States to conduct workshops at the Jewish Community Center in Marlborough, N.J., from May 1 to May 11 in celebration of the 58th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. She also made time to come to Newtown to visit one of her very favorite found objects: her friend, Rita Frost.

Six years ago, Ms Ouziel visited a photography exhibit in Greenwich Village. She felt an immediate connection to the photographs and to the photographer, Ms Frost.

“Rita sees life the same way I do,” she said. Although they had just met, Ms Ouziel felt compelled to give her card to the photographer and invited her to visit should Ms Frost ever be in Tel Aviv.

The instant feeling of camaraderie was  mutual, and when Ms Frost and her husband, Frances Caro, visited Israel the following year, Ms Frost decided to call Ms Ouziel.

“I had no idea at that time how famous she was,” laughed Ms Frost. “We would show her card and say, ‘Do you know how to get to this address?’ and everyone would exclaim, ‘Oh! Batia Ouziel!”

Ms Frost and Mr Caro ended up as guests of the Ouziel household and the rest, they say, is history. Ms Ouziel has visited Newtown twice since then, and revels in the beauty of the town.

“I enjoy most the space,” she said. “The greens, the woods. [Israel] is such a small state and I live in the city. But to sit like this in a private home and look out and see the woods all around is beautiful.”

Not surprisingly, the friends always make time to visit area flea markets and auctions. “Everything is a potential material for me,” said Ms Ouziel. “I save it. Its day will come.”

“It is amazing how she looks at things and what she can do with them,” said Ms Frost. “She turns everything into art. Her eye is a movie camera the whole time,” said Ms Frost of the women’s flea market forays.

This visit, Ms Ouziel’s recovered prizes included tiny porcelain dolls, wicker doll furniture, a miniature copper tea set, belt buckles, a turquoise ring and a baby doll. The items will end up in new assemblages when she returns to Israel.

Prominent in her assemblages are the reoccurrence of clock and watch faces, springs and inner workings, and dolls of all kinds.

Following the death of her mother when she was only six years old, Ms Ouziel was sent to a kibbutz boarding school for several years, forbidden to bring any personal belongings, including the one baby doll she had clung to after her mother passed away. “It was a difficult environment,” she said.

Whether or not that experience affects the numerous dolls that appear in her assemblages, she does not know. Nor does she dwell on why timepieces reappear over and over again in her art.

“It is not what you plan, it is what happens,” she said. “I like the combination of very old things and the very new,” said Ms Ouziel. “Maybe the dolls reflect how generations change.”

When she returned to her home from the kibbutz as a teenager, she was immersed in a household that valued many guises of art. Her father, an impresario and theater director, and her new stepmother, a pianist, hosted many gatherings that included luminaries such as Yehudi Menuhim, Arthur Rubenstein and Andres Segovia. Her father pressed Ms Ouziel to become a pianist, but the intervention of an associate who realized her passion for painting opened the door to her career as an artist.

It was the Israeli Army that sent her to attend the Seminary of Art and Painting Teachers in Tel Aviv and it was during her time with the army that she taught soldiers and youth instructors creative ways to occupy the children who were a part of the new wave of immigration into Israel in the early 50s. The resourcefulness required to assemble supplies for these classes led Ms Ouziel to her own art style and instilled in her the love of reclaimed objects. “With the growth of what I was doing, I grew myself,” she said. 

Assemblages are her specialty, but Ms Ouziel’s art goes far beyond the one medium. She is a batik artist, a painter who specializes in painting on velvet and silk. Preferring a freeform style of painting on silk that uses the talents of a watercolorist, Ms Ouziel has created fabric, clothing and wall art that she hopes speaks to others. There is, she believes, a special bond created when painting on silk. “Paint and silk make love to each other,” she said.

Ms Ouziel will return to Israel on May 21, but not before she has had the opportunity to visit more of the friends she has found on the East Coast.

“Life is filled with stories,” she said. She will return to Israel with new stories and old treasures. “I never stop creating.”