Artists paint dinner plates for lone soldier charity

Tel Aviv exhibit ‘A Plate of Hope and Color’ includes work by some of country’s best-known artisans

More than 180 Israeli artists, including some of the country’s most renowned creative spirits, contributed works to “A Plate of Hope and Color,” a week-long art exhibit supporting lone soldiers.

Participating artists included painters and sculptors, ceramicists and graphic designers, such as Michal Rovner, Micha Ullman, Larry Abramson, Jan Rauchwerger, Eli Shamir, Shai Azoulay, Boaz Noy, Vardi Kahana, Michel Kishka and the recently deceased Yair Garbuz.

Musicians took part as well, including Riki Gal, David D’Or, Yehudit Ravitz, Yehuda Poliker, Ivri Lider and Arkadi Duchin.

Each artisan created an original work, whether photography, drawings, or paintings on a white ceramic plate, chosen as a symbol of family meals and a place at the table, a concept that lone soldiers can’t take for granted, said Drorit Nitzani, president of the Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin, which put together the project.

The term “lone soldier” refers to an IDF service member who lacks familial support. While it is often associated with young immigrants who arrive in Israel alone, it also includes Israeli-born soldiers who are orphaned, estranged from their families, or whose families have relocated abroad.

Nitzani brought together curator Ronit Reik and Israeli designer Tami Chomski to plan the exhibition.

Each of the artists received a ceramic plate and was asked to create their own personal “serving” on it, said Nitzani.

When the exhibit closes on May 8, the artworks will remain available for purchase online, with overseas shipping available.

Each plate is priced at NIS 2,000 (around $688), and all proceeds will be donated to the Lone Soldier Center, supporting lone soldiers from the moment they receive their draft notice until after their discharge from the army.

The center is in the name of the late Michael Levin, a lone soldier from Philadelphia who was killed by sniper fire in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta al-Shaab during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

The artists were challenged to step outside their comfort zones and engage with plates, a less familiar medium, and one that has no beginning and no end, said Reik at the opening event on Friday.

“For most of the artists, this was their first experience creating on this kind of surface,” said Reik. “In a certain sense, the process they went through in the studio echoes the experience of adaptation and the challenges faced by lone soldiers.”

“This is our way of embracing them and saying: ‘You are not alone,'” added Reik.

“A Plate of Hope and Color,” Uri Lifshitz Studio, 2 Abarbanel Street, Tel Aviv, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.