Three contemporary artist couples
Three Contemporary Artist Couples
When art is the family business, it raises some interesting questions. Does competition enter into the relationship? Or does the financial success of one mean more money to buy both of them more time to make art? And most of all, how does it affect their relationship? To find out, we talked to three successful art couples: Sara Gay and Alan Klebanoff, Manchester; Elise and Payne Junker, Chester and Josh and Marta Bernbaum, West Brattleboro.
by Katherine P. Cox
Sara Gay and Alan Klebanoff
“I’m always over the top. I’m always told ‘you don’t blend,’” said Sara Gay. She’s right. Between her talkative, outgoing personality and her chic appearance, she attracts attention. But what really turns heads is her jewelry—big necklaces, bracelets and earrings—that, like her, are over the top and make a bold statement.
It’s wearable art; distinctive, one-of-a-kind jewelry that she fashions out of silver and other metals, precious and semi-precious stones, exotic beads, geodes, found materials, even industrial materials. With a following in Montreal, New York and Boston, Gay, who lives in Manchester, is becoming better known in Southern Vermont as she increases her profile at art and craft shows and open studio tours. At those shows, the fashionable stands that showcase her work are also one-of-a-kind, thanks to her husband, Alan Klebanoff, who creates them.
But in the past few years, they have been making a different kind of art together—large garden sculptures that combine the talents of these two former New Yorkers who met 36 years ago at a Club Med in Guadalupe. They took a welding course at the SUNY-Purchase Art School in New York seven years ago and discovered a new outlet for her artistic vision and his burgeoning creativity and desire to work with his hands. They also discovered that their unique contributions generated abstract sculptures that combine her artistry with his mechanical knowledge. They crafted a settee from rebar in that course, which still sits outside their house. “It was clear to us that we had to work together,” Sara said.
“Alan is a brilliant engineer,” she continued. “I’m a conceptual artist. He hits a blank wall at the design end and I hit a blank wall at the process end. I can design anything, but I don’t have the resources to know if it’s at all reasonable.”
Since that original project, they have created several large sculptures that decorate the beautiful gardens at their home, including a garden gate, also made from rebar shaped into graceful bends and swirls. “We’re able to make static objects live; they’re moving with the wind” Sara said. “What we do outside in sculpture echoes back to my jewelry. Some of the (jewelry) pieces move and dangle in a different kind of way.”
In one garden piece, yards of curled steel ribbon float through the air, anchored on stumps from trees that had to be removed and a large boulder that graced the property. Twenty feet long and 10 feet wide, “when the wind blows it moves,” Alan said. Another large piece that moves is what they call their “homage to Calder,” a sculpture that bobs and dances at one end of the garden. Old steel wagon wheel covers have been put to use in two sculptures in the garden. Mounted on an old marble road marker, a curved steel wheel cover was cut and finished with copper tubes going through it and black acrylic balls at the ends. The rest of the wheel covers were used to hang three sets of large steel tubes that now function as enormous chimes.
With each project, Alan said, “we’re maximizing her design with structural reality.”inside my head and I have to get inside his,” Sara said. “Sometimes what I want to do I can’t do. Then we go back to the drawing board.” The same goes for her jewelry, she said. “When I’m having trouble balancing, he’ll offer advice.”
While they are new to working together on their sculptures, they have long worked together collecting art and crafts. “We both liked art,” Alan said, “but to do it together was not a concept until we had time to sit back and chill,” which came when they retired from their jobs in New York, moved to Vermont and took that welding course together.
Alan is increasingly taking a larger role in their creations as he gains confidence. “I’m an aspiring artist,” he said. “Sara is an artist. Artists have a way of thinking outside the box. I’ll play (with a piece) until I get into trouble and then I’ll ask for her input.”
“You need someone to believe in you,” Sara said. “It gets lonely when no one gets it.”
“I would not have done this on my own,” he continued, referring to the whimsical sculptures he and Sara have produced. “Sara’s support brought it out. She gave me the confidence to do what I always wanted to do. And vice versa.”
“I feel insecure behind the welding torch,” Sara confessed. “I have total trust in the fact that if I ask Alan to do something with it (the steel), when I come back it will be the way I wanted it. If not, we’ll talk about it.”
With several shows this fall in Manchester, Stowe and Burlington, Sara’s jewelry still takes center stage in their lives, but they are enjoying the new direction their work together has taken them. “We’re kind of fearless,” Sara said. “We just do it. We’ll either make it work or we’ll scrap it.”
Elise and Payne Junker
Photo: Etched Steel Tree, Junker Studio
Gallery 103 sits at the entrance to Chester, filled with art and crafts by artisans from around Vermont and the country. Among the outstanding work in the gallery is the metal work created by Elise and Payne Junker of Junker Studio and owners of the gallery.
Their large and small chandeliers, lamps, wall art, decorative fireplace screens, fireplace tools, switchplates, even a coffee table share gallery space with pottery, glasswork, jewelry, textiles, candles, and chocolate. Outside sits Woodstock, a big, colorful moose—made of steel—and kept company by an assortment of weathervanes, garden markers, bells and whimsical metal sculptures, all designed and created by Elise and Payne Junker. They team up on most of their creations—Elise is the torch-cut metal artist, Payne the more traditional forged iron blacksmith—and have been working together almost since they met at a crafts fair 25 years ago.
“We are intertwined,” Elise said of their life and work together. “It still amazes me to watch him. He can see what he wants and gets there, with (seemingly) minimal movement, minimal work. The end piece fits and works properly.”
Payne is equally complimentary of his wife. “Her capabilities are pretty amazing.” She often has the artistic vision, he said; he’s the “make it work guy,” Elise said. She will have an idea and turn to him for technical advice: “Can this be done?” Payne then will think it through mechanically. “If she has an art piece in her head, I try really hard not to stifle her creativity,” he said. He said he will first ask her, “How do you envision this looking like? What do you see?”
On such collaborations, Elise said, he will be the one to figure out the materials needed, the right size and weight, while “I slip in and decorate. He’s the engineer.”
“I’m the craftsman. Elise is more of an artist,” Payne said.
They share studio space and try to set aside time to work together on projects. With the gallery taking up much of Elise’s time, Payne said, “We have to work to find a creative moment together.” Gallery 103, which they opened five years ago, provides them a venue to showcase their work as well as the work of other artists and craftspeople. But it’s been a challenge as it takes Elise away from the studio and the creative connection with Payne.
“The key is when you’re in the groove and you throw ideas around, good things happen,” he continued. When they met Payne was doing traditional forged iron work and Elise was a folk artist, painting scenes on wood, metal, “any surface,” she said.
After they’d been together a couple of years, Payne bought a torch and encouraged her to try her hand at it. She began drawing scenes on metal and cutting them out with a torch; before long, they combined their work. “Now we’re very dependent on each other,” Payne said. “Our talents are joined together. It’s what makes me successful. Her work really caught people’s attention. Traditional iron work is very limited in what you can do. She added contemporary, fun stuff.”
With such different approaches, it can sometimes be difficult agreeing on a vision. “It’s not easy being creative together if you don’t see the same things,” Payne said.
“But you have to be open and ready.”
“Artists are temperamental,” Elise said. “We don’t like to be criticized.” But she could not be married to someone who was not an artist, she said. “They wouldn’t get it. We take things in with all our senses. We don’t do well with 9 to 5.”
Marta and Josh Bernbaum
Photos: Marta’s Sumi-e bead: Prosperity — Josh’s Rapport Optique blown glass
Partially built into the side of a hill, the spacious new building is comfortable and cool—especially for a glass blowing studio. It’s also large and airy, with two stories that provide his-and-her spaces for Josh and Marta Bernbaum, both glass artists who built the studio to their own specifications and needs.
On the ground floor, several furnaces and ovens —all but one made by Josh Bernbaum—mark the space where he creates his colorful glass pieces. Looking up to the second floor, you see what look like stained glass windows at first glance, and vibrant yellow and blue walls. Up the spiral stairway is where Marta Bernbaum creates her sculpted beads and where she conducts classes for students interested in learning the craft.
“We wanted to have fun with it,” said Marta. “It is an art studio.”Much of it was constructed with salvaged materials—like the wall of old doors upstairs, and the old barn doors that came from a neighbor’s barn—and the Bernbaums were mindful to make it as energy efficient as possible. “It’s old meets new, in a sense,” said Josh. “I like the character of these components.” Having spent time scrutinizing other studios, they incorporated what Josh called “the best aspects” into theirs.
Two years in the making, the JMB Glass studio was carefully constructed and thought out by these two graduates of the Massachusetts College of Art. Graduating in 2000 with Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in glass, they set off together to Western Massachusetts where Josh worked for years with Charlie Correll, a premier furnace builder who taught Josh how to build the furnaces that are the major tool of his trade. Marta worked at the Don Muller art gallery in Northampton, where she said she appreciated the opportunity “to educate people about glass and art.”
At the time, they rented work space, but were looking for houses where they could either convert space or build a studio for both of them. The property in West Brattleboro where they finally settled provided a house and space to build, with a panorama above the hills looking out to Mount Monadnock in the distance.
Their approach to glass work is very different, in scale, design and approach. “We can be using the same color and end up with totally different results,” Marta said. They offer each other feedback and occasional advice, but do not collaborate on projects. “We worked together on finishing this building,” Josh joked. Marta, who also teaches at Snow Farm in Williamsburg, Mass., the Sharon Arts Center in Peterborough, N.H., and at the Putney School, creates jewelry with her beads, on which she paints Japanese blessings, such as patience. Prior to this she made glass flowers and glass trees, emblematic of “nature and its ability to adapt,” she said.
Josh is inspired by color and patterns, and his work reflects his constant evolution as he experiments with both. “I’m interested in color as a big part of my design, especially color relationships that enhance my designs. The forms are simple, perhaps even classical shapes, which are canvasses for what I want to do with coloration.” The intricate patterns and lines that he designs create signature works of art.
“Now that we have this place, I’m hoping to make more work and get it out there,” Josh said of his line of vases, wine glasses, tumblers and ornaments.
While they express themselves differently in their glass work, they are each other’s sounding board. “We help each other overcome technical hurdles,” Marta said. “Josh tends to be more grounded; more detail oriented. I like to experiment and stretch concepts.”
As an example of how they work together, they pointed to the exhibit at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center that features the work of basket maker Jackie Abrams with the glass work of Josh Bernbaum. Inspired by an intricate black and white basket Abrams gave him, Josh created a complementary glass vase. Marta envisioned a further collaboration between the two and the result is the exhibit Dialogue, in which the two artists “converse” in their respective mediums.
Because the Bernbaums are both glass artists, they understand the unique lifestyle that it entails. “She understands my need to work in the studio,” Josh said. “She understands why things take a certain amount of time.”
As members of Brattleboro-West Arts, they are also very involved with that organization, wearing many hats and helping to organize the annual open studio tour, September 24-25.
“We love being part of a creative community. We love being in Vermont with such a supportive community of artists and crafts people,” Marta said.
