PAINTING • SCULPTURE • CERAMICS • PUBLISHING • WORKSHOPS
STANWOOD HOUSE
CHAIM
Objects of Veneration
An artist’s homage to the anonymous artisans of the past. As a boy, I collected handmade objects from all over the world. Only later did I begin to learn the meaning of these objects within their culture or religion. Many of these paintings are from objects in my own collection and some from artifacts I have seen in other collections.
Santo Angel (19th Century Philippines)
gouache, charcoal and chalk on handmade paper, 32 x 22 in. (2012)
Don Quixote
mixed media with crayons, gouache, and soft pastels on handmade rice paper, 26 x 18 in. (2020)
Imagination (from Hisham’s Palace, Jericho)
oil pastels, graphite, chalk on handmade paper, 27 x 20 in. (2016)
Heaven and Earth (Philistine Temple Model)
oil pastels and crayon on handmade paper, 26 x 20 (2015) private collection
Netsuke (Kabuki musician)
The background is from a block print of Mt. Fuji by Hokusai. Gouache on handmade paper. 22 x 32 in. (2023)
Ivory Horse with Miniature Screen
oil pastels, gouache, and gesso on handmade paper, 21 x 31 in. (2017)
Eskimo Effigies
oil pastels on handmade paper, 21 x 28 in. (from the collection of Jacques Lipchitz now in the Israel Museum)
NYC – Return for Redemption
In 1975, at the age of 25, I returned to New York, the city of my birth, to decide whether to become an artist or a stockbroker. I had been living in California with a woman who would become my first wife. On a road trip to Chicago, too late to attend her father’s funeral, we had argued and she had let me out of the car in the middle of the night in the middle of Wyoming, a mile from the Greyhound station. I decided to take the first bus, east to New York or west to L.A. The bus brought me to L.A., but after a short visit I decided to return to New York. I was broke, and the city was experiencing a crisis, facing the prospect of bankruptcy. I did become a licenced broker, a job which I pursued for ten years. In 1988, I left the United States for Israel with two suitcases. Ten years later in New York, I came into possession of several boxes of slides which I had taken in 1975. These slides served as subject material for a series of paintings which I began in 2019 and which is a continuing body of work. Also in this exhibit art paintings by my wife, Yonnah, and also our collaborative works.
5 1/2 minute video of paintings by Chaim, by Yonnah, and by our collaboration accompanied by original song, “You Can’t go Home Again” and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
TIMELINE
Paintings from time-stamped photographs taken by the artist and used as subjects for paintings done in 2020.
My First Grandchild at Far Rockaway Beach
oil, sand on paper mounted on panel, 17 x 23 in. (9/7/17, 4:37 p.m.)
Saint George and the Dragon (UN Plaza)
oil on paper mounted on panel, 17 x 23 in. (5/29/18, 9:27 p.m.)
NYC, Moon at Daytime
soft pastels and polychrome crayons on handmade paper, 14 x 20 in. (5/27/18, 4:19 p.m.)
Hudson Line to the City
gouache, gesso, and graphite on Fabriano paper, 19 x 24 in. (1/12/11, 4:23 p.m.)
Roosevelt Island from Astoria Ferry Dock at Hallet’s Cove, Queens
oil pastels, 18 x 24 in. (11/20/19, 11:54 a.m.) private collection
Yellow Cab Refraction from a 5th Avenue Window
oil pastels on canvas, 28 x 21 in. (5/3/21, 11:43 a.m.)
Liberty Under Construction
oil on burlap, 26 x 14 in. (from a photograph of Lady Liberty with scaffolding from the studio of Bartholdi)
Grand Central Station, 8:11 a.m.
mixed-media with acrylics on paper mounted birch, 22 x 39 in. (2011)
St. Patrick’s Day Parade from the Steps of the Metropolitan Museum
mixed-media with water based oils on paper, 11 x 25 in. (2002)
World Trade Center
ceramic sculpture with fired in laser decals of brand mascots, 14 x 17 x 13 in. by Chaim
Assemblage and Installations
My grandmother, whom I loved, was neurotic about dirt, and for my first five years we lived nextdoor. So it is appropriate that I began my scupture career in such a way as to keep my hands clean. I rolled out the dryest, whitest porcelain on a slab roller and tore off pieces, to which I affixed laser slide decals to be fired in permanently. It was only after several years that I took the plunge and mixed a pail of wet, sludge clay with sawdust, getting it up to my elbows. This cured me to work with clay as clay.
1 minute video of a kinetic sculpture with a soundtrack from a televised fashion show broadcast in New York City.
Hello Strongman (antique carnival object found in the executive suite of J.P. Morgan)
oil on burlap, 26 x 18 in.
Self Reliance
assemblage with porcelain tiles and fired in laser decals with antique wrench, 15 x 15 x 3 in.
The Bible is not for Children (Sculpture & Paintings)
In 2020, we were staying in our second home in Israel, when, due to the pandemic, we could not return to America for 15 months. However, we made good use of our time. I joined a ceramics workshop in the neighborhood and was inspired to begin a series of small sculptures of Biblical characters and scenes each accompanied by a poem depicting some of the difficult parts of the Hebrew Bible. The project became a book, “The Bible is not for Children.”
The Firmament
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. – Genesis 1:3
The Dove
He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground . – Genesis 8:8
The Tower of Babel
Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven – Genesis 11:4
The Ram Caught in the Thicket
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns – Genesis 22:13
Lot’s Wife
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. – Genesis 19:26
Jacob’s Ladder
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. – Genesis 28:12
Pharoah’s Cup
Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand. – Genesis 40:11
The Seven Lean Cows
And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: – Genesis 41:20
The Divining Cup
Is not this in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? – Genesis 44:5
The Brazen Serpent
If a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived – Numbers 21:9
Balaam and his Ass
What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? – Numbers 22:28
Jephtha’s Daughter
Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. – Judges 11:31
David and the Head of Goliath
David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head. – I Samuel 17:51
Jezabel
Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I:will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. – I Kings 21 :7
Elijah and Elisha
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. – II Kings 2:11-12
She Bear
And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children. – II Kings 2:24
Ruth
And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz. – Ruth 2:3
Song of Songs
I am black, but comely, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. – Song of Songs 1:5
The Preacher
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. – Ecclesiastes 1:2
Life Masks
These are all life-masks. The wet clay pressed against my own face and then takes on a life of its own. Here is a sampling of the many masks I continue to make whenever the mood strikes.
Encaustics
I work with encaustic wax, sometimes with other mediums such as pastels or even crayons.
If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth – Ecclesiastes
melted crayons on wood panel, 8 x 10 in.
Sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Ayalon – Joshua
melted crayons on wood panel, 8 x 10 in.
MUSIC
My musical background began in the bathtub, when I was a baby. My mother would sing to me, "The headbone's connected to the neckbone..." She had a collection of 78 rpm records of folk music, mostly from the 40's, when she had hung out with some of the artists. I was also steeped in classical music from the radio, as well as every other kind; you name it. As a teenager, I hung out in Greenwich Village, where I learned to pick guitar and listen to jazz. Yet, it wan't until I was middle-aged that I began to write my own songs. I spent 10 years in a string band and then assembled my own groups to record and perform. I have written about 50 songs to date.
