Niskayuna native uses fabric art pieces to tell tales
Listening to the stories of others and then capturing their essence on silk through an inventive painting process is one woman’s passion.
Mira Nussbaum, a Niskayuna native, is currently displaying her art collection titled Silk Stories at the Schenectady Jewish Community Center until May 29. The exhibit, located in the Farber/Miness Lounge, includes paintings done on silk after listening to a person or group share their stories. The exhibit hours are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This showing is Nussbaum’s first show in her hometown, and she said she is excited to share her work with the people she grew up with ` some of them for the first time.
`I’ve been showing my work to really just my friends and people in my area, and there are a lot of women’s groups and a lot of women’s groups have been interested in having me come and they have been interested in sharing their stories,` said Nussbaum. `One woman had called me and said, ‘I got a really great story to share with you.’ It has been a beautiful thing.`
Most of her work is done on a per client basis to create a one-of-a-kind piece of art, which is inspired by her father’s stained glass artwork. Growing up with her father being an art collector allowed her to meet artists and talk to them about why they created their art. While she didn’t know how to make stained glass windows, she did something a little different to try and capture the same essence.
`My paintings are like stained glass windows, and another thing my father did was he wrote a lot of poetry and he had a stained glass window to go along with the poem,` said Nussbaum. `My paintings are an attempt to recreate those stained glass windows in a form I am able to do.`
Nussbaum attended college briefly before moving into a cabin in the woods of Massachusetts and focusing on her silk art. While she works as a cook and caterer and house cleaner, she focuses her passion into meeting with people to create her personalized art. Without any formal training in art, she has learned from her experiences.
`My paintings are specific customized pieces that are reflective of their personal experiences,` said Nussbaum. `You can wear it and you can wash it, and it really flows like water.`
She meets with various people to celebrate occasions or changes in their lives. She has even met with some cancer patients and survivors who shared their stories of struggles and overcoming adversity and what they hope for in the future.
One time, Nussbaum said, she visited the home of a woman in the middle of cancer treatment, and she sat and cried with her. She created a piece of artwork, which unlike most, can be worn since it is fabric, and the woman said she would wear it for inspiration and hope while in the hospital.
`It is really about the story telling for me. It is a really beautiful way to bring people together and share in a really intimate way,` she said.
For 11 years she’s done silk artwork and she’s created more than 150 pieces. The process of making the art starts off with her stretching a piece of silk onto a frame and sketching onto it with light dye. To keep the dye from spreading, she puts down a border around the shapes she draws. Then she fills in each little shape with a color and tries to use a slightly different color for each shape. The process of how the silk art comes together reminds her of stained glass windows.
`A cool thing about this show is I got a bunch of light boxes built so some of them actually look like stained glass windows with the sunshine behind them,` she said. `It is so alive because of how I just kind of painted while I was experiencing it.`
There are some paintings available to purchase in the show, but many of them are already sold since a majority of her work is done for clients.
`My goal from the show is for people to see what is possible and to create their own,` she said. `As I was hanging [the art on Friday, April 1] there was just this amazing energy of people walking in the door and seeing these really unique visual stories and each one has its own personalities.`
Nussbaum also went to school with the organizer of the show, Irit Magnes, cultural director for the center.
After Nussbaum’s mother contacted her, she meet with Mira to look at her pieces of art and liked the interesting approach Nussbaum took to create the work.
`It is anchored in reality, but the result has a lot to do with her imagery,` said Magnes. `I thought it was very interesting and it is really very rich in color and texture, spiritual and maybe had more of a mystic kind of feel to it. Her technique has really helped to define colors and she creates quite an interesting world of color.“
