Nostalgia Sunday – Museum memories

August 14, 2011 - 5:48 PM by Rachel Neiman

For months now, we — my significant other and myself — have been promising ourselves to get over to the renewed Israel Museum. After all, here we are, two art school graduates living not a 20 minute walk from the place. It’s a crime and a shame. Which is why, when planning a short “staycation” (new-speak for vacation at home), a visit to the Israel Museum was tops on the list of things to do and places to go. And so we did and so we went.

Of course, we drove, which is not how I used to get the museum when I was 12 and my parents enrolled me in a painting course. Once a week after school, my little orange student pass in hand, I would trudge across the Valley of the Cross and up the hill to the museum. (This architects’ rendering should give something of an idea). And then slog, up and up and up the long flight of stairs inspired, so they said, by the stairs that once led worshipers up to the Temple grounds at a respectful pace.

Once inside, I would go upstairs to the studio area where a group of us were instructed in 19th and 20th century painting by our teacher, Juki. Juki was really cool; she had long dark hair and eyes that I remember as being a deep, deep blue. Each week, Juki would show us a style of painting — Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism — and we would try our hands at the different styles. My final project, inspired wholly by Salvador Dali, was of a chessboard with a giant eye in the background, two chess pieces in the foreground, one standing, one toppled over, etc. etc. etc. It was terrible but I was totally enthralled with it.

I was less aware, at the time, as to who Juki was as an artist and the sort of work she was doing. During those months, as we kids painted diligently, Juki was working away with a thick needle and thread on some black and white photos. Someone asked her about it and she said something about having spent time in a hospital, seeing people with stitches.

Years later, when I was already in college, I went up to the museum and saw this work, part of a series by the artist Yocheved Weinfeld. Also known as Juki.

It was around that time that I also arranged a 3-month internship for myself at the museum. There weren’t internship programs in Israel at that time; I just went to the museum, asked if I could work there for free a couple of days a week, and assured them that I would get college credit for my labor if they just wrote me a letter at the end of my time there. (This ended up being true, by the way — thanks, Massachusetts College of Art!).

The first day, I was given a feather duster and given the task of going through storehouse “D”. Now, the museum had some amazing treasures neatly housed in storehouses A, B and C. But this was a dark and dusty closet-like space that was called “D”, they said only half-jokingly, for “drek”. Which, in case you don’t know, means “crap” in Yiddish.

Nonetheless, I had a great time in “D” with my feather duster, trying to uncover items that had gone amiss within the museum’s filing system, a box of black and white Polaroids stapled onto cards scrawled with some pertinent data. Most of the paintings were rolled up canvas portraits of little value. My biggest find was a small framed painting by the surrealist Leonora Carrington. I believe it’s this one:

After my time in “D”, I was transferred over to the team working on the James Turrell installation. Turrell creates optical illusions using space and low light reflected off different types of surfaces. To create a sense of infinity, he needed to have absolutely flat surfaces — apparently not a problem in other countries. Here in Israel, Turrell was flummoxed by the fact that not one wall in the entire gallery space met this requirement. He spent several nights working with plaster, clay, a makeshift tool made of a piece of plywood and fine sandpaper, just trying to get the walls right. You can learn a lot from a person like that.

I’m pleased to say that the renewed museum has very flat walls and has also eliminated a good deal of the long haul up the stairs. These are truly welcome changes. It was also fun to visit some old favorites. Needless to say, my most beloved gallery is still Surrealism and Dadaism. To paraphrase an old saying, you can take the girl out of art school but you can’t take art school out of the girl.

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