1. What made you want to come to Ramah Darom?
I came to Darom originally in 1996 to provide a Jewish camping experience for my two nephews, Jeff and Kevin Hast. Quickly, I realized I was having a great time myself!
2. How has Ramah Darom changed you as a person and as an educator?
As a university art professor, I had never initiated nor built an entire art program for children. And certainly, not a program based on Jewish themes, ideas and projects.
Camp also provided me with wonderful friends and community. I also learned so many things at shiurim, discussions with rabbis, rabbinical students, cantorial students, and college students from all over the country. I also know I learned so much from the campers.
3. What do you hope your legacy at Ramah Darom is?
I hope that the art projects we all created together survive into the future and that campers and staff enjoy the things I helped create.
4. What was your proudest moment at Ramah Darom?
Seeing my nephews have a great time every summer.
5. What is your favorite art piece that you created while at Ramah Darom?
This is a hard question.
There are so many of the pieces that I still love, but I guess my favorite is the Yeriah, the machsan (shed) that holds the siddurim down next to the Beit Am. It was amazing to transform an old t-shirt shed into a beautiful space.
I also really love the candle lighting station especially when all the candles are lit!
6. How does art play into Jewish education?
Making everything we use ritually as beautiful as it can be, hiddur mitzvah, is a powerful concept. To create something that allows someone else to perform a mitzvah in a glorious way is amazing. To be an artist who contributes to making the performance of reading Torah with a pointer I made is humbling and powerful.
7. Where were you born? What did you want to be when you grew up/what are you still wanting to be when you grow up?
I am originally from Pittsburgh. I grew up in Squirrel Hill which has a large Jewish community and was a great place to grow up.
I went to college at the University of Cincinnati and have been teaching at Georgia Southwestern State University since 1978! I am the chair of the dept of Visual Arts and teach painting and drawing.
I spent 20 summers at Darom and retired in 2016.
As a kid, I vacillated between wanting to be a lawyer, a biologist, a medical illustrator and an artist! I still want to be an even better artist when I grow up…although I am 71 which might seem pretty grown up! I’m still teaching and still mostly having fun!