Santa Rosa artist wins fans with joyous Jewish imagery

Throughout history the Jews have born a heavy burden of loss and tragedy. But Nina Bonos chooses to train a brighter lens on the Jewish experience.

The Santa Rosa artist has carved out a specialty creating watercolors and mixed media collages that reflect not the sorrow but the upside of her faith.

Her works are rich with imagery drawn from nature and Jewish traditions, from olives and pomegranates to the Tree of Life. Look closely. For holidays, such as Passover, which began at sundown Friday and ends this Friday evening, Bonos plays with familiar images in unexpected ways, like the traditional Passover seder plate or a kiddush cup for celebratory wine. A Star of David becomes a triangular shape, with a red camellia in the center or is concealed in a leaf. Familiar shapes can be worked into pieces almost like those Hidden Object pictures that children love, some so subtle you don’t necessarily know they are Jewish in theme.

Bonos, 67, has long depicted the beauty of the Wine Country through landscapes and stylized interpretations of vineyards and grapes. But she has also carved out a strong niche for her Jewish-themed art. Collectors and Temple congregations across the country seek out what she calls her “Joyous Judaica,” which can range from simple greeting cards for fundraising to stunning Torah mantles for synagogues.

“My mother’s family left Berlin in 1936. That colored her life and it’s colored my life, too,” said the artist.

“Having a mother who survived Nazi Germany and a father whose family was from Poland and who grew up in Dallas, Texas, I was always aware of anti-Semitism, even though as a child growing up in Daly City and going to synagogue in San Francisco, I personally didn’t experience much of it.”

Lighter approach

Perhaps it is that freedom from the direct pain suffered by her forbears that permits her to take a lighter approach.

Hers is a fertile world of sunshine and abundance. She frequently incorporates into her work the “Seven Sacred Species.”

The Torah describes Israel as “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey.” Add to that, grapevines.

These were the staple foods of the Jewish people in Israel in ancient times and carry deep metaphorical meaning. They also flourish in the fertile Sonoma landscape, blessed with a Mediterranean climate.

Bonos, the mother of two grown children, said she is basically a very happy person who, even when challenged, aims to see the bright side of things.

“I paint what I feel, which can be pure joy,” she said, “or sometimes it is joy triumphing over pain.”

One of her earliest Judaica pieces was a tree of life, done in the early ’90s, right after the death of her mother. It is a metaphor for Bonos; the roots under underground, but the strong trunk and branches reaching upward.

“I wanted to make a painting to really commemorate her life,” the artist said, from a cheerfully sunny sitting room off her open studio that is filled with art and Judaica she has collected over the years.

“Everybody sees this as really happy and right. But it’s really solving a problem for me.

“While it’s commemorating her, it’s also recognizing that her Judaism was underground. I don’t want to have my Judaism underground.”

Architecture degree

With a degree in architecture from UC Berkeley, Bonos had a long career in city planning, historical preservation, map-making and real estate before she fully embraced what would become her life’s passion.

Yet, she always felt a call to art, from the age of 9, when, after a trip to the circus, she was inspired to paint a picture of a lion on a big top platform as soon as she got home.

“It was my ‘Ah ha’ moment,” she recalls.

Her father, an engineer and licensed architect, indulged her interest in art with good tools and by example.

“He didn’t do art, but he had a really great color sense,” she recalled.

“He did plan checking for the city of Daly City, where we lived. We would go to buildings he had plan checked and we would critique them. This how I developed my eye.”

In a high school art class she was compelled to do a piece that involved a series of human figures trapped within wine bottles arranged like pins facing a bowling ball.

As the figures got further from the bowling ball, the more they expressed the ability to take action, going from self absorption and praying to meditation, to an open stance as if they are actively fighting to get out.

She called it, “Thus Sayeth The Lord, Let My People Go,” from Exodus. She wasn’t specifically thinking of it as Jewish art, but she understands in retrospect that it was an underlying theme.

Bonos took what seemed like a practical and parental-approved path in college, studying environmental planning at UC Davis and then finishing up at UC Berkeley with a degree in architecture.

Historic preservation

After college she worked as a planner for the city of Novato, a staff member for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and as a planner for Sonoma County, where she became a specialist in historic preservation, writing the first guidelines for the county’s General Plan back in the 1970s.

It was during that period that she met her husband, Dino Bonos, a private land planner who at the time worked in the parks department.

She sold real estate for a few years, then stepped back when her children, Lisa, now 37, a reporter for the Washington Post, and Peter, 34, a musician who works for a Jewish nonprofit in San Francisco, were tiny. Still, she had not fully claimed herself as an artist.

A pivotal moment came after her mother’s sudden death in 1991. She was giving a live painting demonstration at a store in Railroad Square.

She was inspired by a large, raku urn that caught her eye. She said she emulated the urn’s pit-fired feeling.

She applied bright pigments, watercolors, acrylic and ink, with some sea salt at the end. As they dried they flowed and mixed on their own. The result was a ghostly figure with arms raised, almost entering the heavens.

Bonos said she felt the painting was almost channeled through her. It was such a powerful experience that she decided it was not enough to merely paint spiritual or healing themes. She needed to paint Judaica.

“I wanted to explore what life is all about in a Jewish context,” she said.

“After all, my mother’s survival and 1936 escape from her Berlin birthplace in Nazi Germany, meant that my life is testimony to my family’s good fortune,” she reflected.

“Now that she was gone, I truly realized that my mere existence could be considered somewhat of a miracle.”

Trip to Israel

It would be another decade, however - following another professional foray working as an appraiser in the county assessor’s office - before she really claimed herself a true professional artist.

She had taken her first trip to Israel and the experience was powerfully moving and affirming, being in a country where Judaism predominates.

Upon her return she submitted winning art for a Jewish festival in Palo Alto and her art life took off.

She did a lot of pieces for J, The Jewish News of Northern California, which led to national awards.

Among her specialties are custom Torah mantles, which she has designed for a number of synagogues, from the Congregation Beth Shalom of Napa Valley to Congregation Beth Israel in Vancouver, Canada.

For her own Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa, she designed a pair of Torah mantles featuring her signature stylistic sacred species set within ribbons of blue, the color of the Israeli flag.

Among the figures is the pomegranate; it is said that the 613 seeds of the fruit represent the number of commandments in the Torah, Bonos said. Fellow congregant Marcia Gladstone translated the piece into needlepoint, a painstaking and meticulous process.

She spent five to 12 hours a day not just recreating the design, but matching colors with multiple threads and creating a sense of motion and brushstrokes.

Bonos has done other special art for synagogues. For Congregation Shir Shalom in Sonoma her original “Dove over Sonoma Vineyards” watercolor painting was digitally transformed into a banner for the wall.

A recurring theme of her work and something she practices in her life is Tikkun Olam, a Reform Jewish teaching which stresses the importance of healing the environment.

She sees her work as an artist, and as a member of Santa Rosa’s Art in Public Places Committee, as her own contribution to Tikkun Olam.

Appreciation for life

Bonos said there is much to draw from in the rituals and blessings and appreciation for life that comes from her Jewish faith.

She is now expressing her own experience, not from a place of pain, but as a artist gratefully living amid the beauty and bounty of Sonoma County.

“The Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history but our challenges and difficulties have strengthened us; have made us resilient, resourceful, creative, intelligent, appreciative and thus, joyful,” she said.

“To know the depths of sorrow, as an individual, family and as a people, develops our ability to feel positive emotions as well.

“When I am happy, I create beauty to express my happiness. When I am unhappy, I create beauty to transform my sorrow to joy. It’s a very useful skill.”