Wendy Lamm

From the Land of Miracles

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Wendy Sue Lamm is a two-time World Press Photo Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer. Her photographs are striking by their ability to express the duality of both objective yet profound artistic statements simultaneously. Her first book, From the Land of Miracles, published in Europe and North America, is a figurative and artistic reflection on the fragile balance of the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians in peace and in war. Within days of its release American Photo Magazine and the Scandinavian Book Fair in Gothenburg, Sweden, selected From the Land of Miracles as one of the best books of the year. Ms. Lamm’s photographs are exhibited in numerous museums and galleries worldwide, including Stockholm Stadsmuseet, Milan’s FORMA International Center of Photography, the Louvre in Paris, and Japan’s Asahi Museum; her work is published in international publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Elle, Geo, Der Spiegel, Le Espresso, Republica, Figaro. Her portraiture is highly sought after by major artists in recording and entertainment. In 2018 her food photographs were featured in the cookbook published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Flavor Bombs: The Umami Ingredients That Make Taste Explode. After earning a BA in Humanities from the University of California at Berkeley, Ms. Lamm accepted photographic assignments for the next eight years that spanned America--from the border towns of El Paso, Texas & Juarez, Mexico, to metropolitan daily newspapers & magazines in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Subsequently, she was based in Jerusalem as a foreign correspondent/war photographer for the French wire service Agence France-Presse, and then European photo agencies. As a member of the Los Angeles Times team reporting on the 1994 earthquake in Northridge, CA her photos were part of the coverage that earned the Times a Pulitzer Prize. From 1996 to 2005 she was based in Jerusalem, Paris and Stockholm. Her reportage spanned Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Acclaim for her work in those years includes World Press Photo Awards and the National Press Photographers Picture of the Year Awards.

Corrie Siegel

New Cuts 

“Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition,
for speech is what makes man a political being” - Hannah Arendt

New Cuts is an exhibition of flat and sculptural works created from single sheets of paper. Alternately delicate and spiked, the works are formed by overlaid matrixes of texts that are incised to obscure the original message and reveal a pattern composed of symbols.  Each piece is built from statements made during the rise of the Third Reich or the Trump Administration. Through the form of a traditional paper-cut; these loaded texts are abstracted into jagged landscapes and fragile lace.

Corrie Siegel is a Los Angeles based multimedia artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally. Mining individual and collective histories, she uses labor intensive approaches to occupy a position between objectivity and interpretation. Her projects have been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, Mousse Magazine, Droste Effect, and Flash Art International.  Siegel is currently an Armory Fellow, she was also awarded a Word Grant, Dream Lab Fellowship, Culture Lab Fellowship, and Six Points Fellowship. She is the director of the artist run gallery and community space Actual Size Los Angeles. Actual Size collaborates with established and emerging artists to animate the exhibition experience and engage the public.  She received her BFA from Bard College and is currently pursuing an MFA with a concentration in Curatorial and Critical Studies from University of California, Irvine.

Lobby

Sandra Lauterbach

Walls of tears and hope, 2015

Exhibits is ongoing

“Thread and fabrics are my paints. Instead of brushstrokes, I stitch.” With these words, contemporary textile artist Sandra Lauterbach deftly describes her work and inspires artists and appreciators alike. 

When creating a piece of art Sandra searches for pieces that can share a dialogue. In the words of curator and critic Peter Frank, “Lauterbach is making a political statement with her fanciful works….. By working with materials and techniques associated with domestic life and women’s practice, Lauterbach argues for the full validation, as fine art, of women’s creative work in general…. Her work, sprightly and unpredictable, advances Lauterbach’s feminist premise rather than the other way around.”

Known for her original use of fiber and textiles and careful expression of detail, Sandra has exhibited across the globe, from Paris to Krakow to the United Kingdom. In the United States, her work has been shown at the Textile Museum at George Washington University and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., the International Museum of Art and Science, McAllen, TX, the Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, MA, the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History. Her work has also been published in numerous catalogues and books.

Sandra’s roots in textiles run deep. Her family was in the textile business for over 4 generations, starting in the Austrian Hungarian Empire, then Poland and finally in Los Angeles. After studying art at Pomona College, she earned a JD degree at USC Law School. She eventually left the practice of law and focused on her art. She has attended various art schools, including Otis College of Art and Design. She is an active member of both the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art and the Los Angeles Art Association and exhibits at Gallery 825. She is a juried artist member of the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA). She works from her studio in Los Angeles.

Artist Statement

This piece was inspired by my visit to Remuh Cemetery in Krakow, Poland, which dates back to the early 1500s. In World War II, the Nazis desecrated the cemetery. They tore down its walls, destroyed tombstones, and hauled away some gravestones to be used as paving stones. In the 1950s, restoration of the cemetery commenced.  When possible, tombstones were restored.  The fragments too small to be resurrected as tombstones were painstakingly cobbled together to form one of the walls around the cemetery.  This wall is known as “The Wailing Wall of Krakow”.  

Both of my parents lived within walking distance of Remuh Cemetery until the start of World War II.  On September 1,1939---the date Hitler invaded Poland—miraculously neither of my parents were in Krakow 

On my visit to Krakow, I walked from my mother’s and my father’s family homes to Krakow’s medieval town center and on to Remuh Synagogue.  It was a trip through the past realizing that my parents and grandparents had very likely walked upon the same cobblestones. Upon entering Remuh Cemetery, I saw the Wailing Wall.  The Wall is a poignant memorial that inspired me to make a piece of art honoring the lost, but still showing hope for the future.

I took numerous photographs of sections of the wall and then assembled different portions of the wall into one fabric montage. To honor and remember not just the names, but also the lives of those lost, I overlaid family letters, photographs, Polish passports and other wartime documents. 

Bridging the past with the future, I included photographs in color of our two sons to express my hope for the future and to render the wall into a living symbol that the past is not forgotten.  This a life affirming work.  Just as survivors attempted to patch their lives together after the war, my hand stitching in this piece connotes to me their lost families, homes, hearths and daily lives.  Each stitch connects me to my past.  This wall commemorates mankind’s ongoing struggle for personal and collective dignity.  It reflects the lives of some of the individuals who perished in this continuing effort.

 Small Dining Room

Selected Works from the Jewish Artists Initiative

by Ellen Freidlander, Monica Marks, Corrie Siegel and Nancy Kay Turner

Exhibit is ongoing

About JAI

Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI) is a Southern California organization committed to supporting Jewish artists and arts professionals. JAI aspires to be an agent of transformative change by organizing provocative exhibitions and thoughtful programs promoting diverse dialogue about Jewish identity and experiences. Founded in 2004, JAI remains committed to fostering Jewish culture in our community and beyond.

Mission & History

JAI was conceived by the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles in 2004. It was originally in partnership with the University of Southern California Casden Institute and the USC Roski School of Art and Design. For many years we have been under the fiscal sponsorship of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity. Members include primarily artists, as well as curators and art historians based in Southern California. The artists go through a jurying process to be admitted as members.

We have collaborated with a great range of Southern California institutions including American Jewish University, Hebrew Union College, UCLA Hillel and USC Hillel as well as a variety of art galleries and public spaces. We have also worked and exhibited in institutions in other parts of the United States and Israel such as the Jewish Art Salon, Hebrew Union College, New York, the New York UJA and the Jerusalem Biennale.