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.
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