Mary Linda Schwarzbart » Individual member directory

http://jewishknoxville.org/ajcc-schwarzbart-gallery – The Gallery is open!!

http://www.knoxnews.com/entertainment/family/new-gallery-at-arnstein-center-honors-artist-arnold-schwarzbart-2a54d096-ccde-60dc-e053-0100007fbe99-366744171.html

http://www.schwarzbart.com (Arnold’s website)

Featured image: Omer Counter by Arnold Schwarzbart

Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture by Ori Z. Soltes Jul 19, 2016, includes Arnold’s omer counter: The Time’Til Sinai With the following text:

“The principle of creatively blurring ceremonial objects and fine art is also exemplified by a work that counts down the time between Passover and Shavuot—between the departure from Egypt and receiving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai—created in 1997 by Russian-born Knoxville Judaica artist Arnold Schwarzbart (1942-2015). To the untutored eye, this 14”h by 18”w slightly curved clay work—through which 7 bronze rods pass, hung with small copper triangles, and with a repousse gold backdrop—would surely present itself as an attractive abstract table sculpture (FIG 592). But its function is to mark the seven weeks between the second day of Passover and Shavuot; its division into seven sevens—the triangles are shifted one each day, from side to side of the bronze rods—its gold embossed with 49 pairs of Hebrew letters as a reminder of the obligation for the Jewish mystic to meditate on each of those days as s/he prepares him/herself for the Sinai moment. Thus the work—a distinctive multi-media semi-abstract sculpture called “The Time “Til Sinai”—is, in fact, a functional omer counter.”