Ein Hod Artists Village

After the long two week Passover/spring break and our trip to Greece, as well as Israel’s Independence day holiday this past Tuesday, I am finally getting back to blogging.

I had heard about the only artists’ village in Israel awhile ago and had been wanting to check it out, and finally got the opportunity to do so this week with a group tour organized for the American Embassy community.  The village was founded in 1953 by a “Dada” artist and is now home to about 150 artists.  It is in the southern part of the Carmel mountains, with beautiful views reaching to the Mediterranean sea.  We had a guided tour by one of the artists who lives in the village and visited several galleries and ceramic studios in addition to learning about the history of the village.

A second generation artist-her father was a painter

“Raku” pottery

Interestingly, when the founders were establishing the village, they wanted it to continue as an artists’ village for future generations so they put in the contracts for the houses that they could only be sold or inherited by artists.   There are many second and third generation artists living in the village.  I loved all the pottery and was very tempted to buy some (though didn’t on this occasion–I will have to go back!).

 

In the main gallery we visited, this poster of Netanyahu caught my eye.  Lately there have been many jokes in the press that he went to a new hair salon because his hair color, usually a silver gray, had suddenly developed various color hues  The Hebrew says “not everything is black or white,” which you could very well interpret as a critique of more than Bibi’s hair.

Lastly, our guide brought us to her gallery and demonstrated her silkscreen on fabric technique.  I admittedly did not quite understand exactly how it worked, but it looked great and her t-shirt making workshops would be fun to do.

 

For more information about the village, check out http://en.ein-hod.org/about-ein-hod/