Artist Deborah Goldman presents “Turning Over a New Leaf” event at her private Big Coppitt Key studio

In anticipation of an upcoming relocation out of the Florida Keys, artist Deborah Goldman, whose work includes widely collected painted wooden constructions and photographic assemblages inspired by her love affair with nature and fascination with counting, has announced a “Turning Over a New Leaf” art event where she will be selling her works directly to the public from her private Big Coppitt Key studio, 625 US Highway One, Unit 106, April 7-13 from noon to 5:00pm each day.

American artist Sol LeWitt wrote that conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. To observe Goldman, one might not immediately suspect a mystic – her energy is much more sparkling than one would expect of a mystic. But her effervescence is just one facet of a deeply empathic and creative soul in possession of an elegant mind. She conveys her reverence for the mysteries and cycles of life through the language of art.

Artist Deborah Goldman surrounded by her work. Photo by Barry Fitzgerald.

The two-time South Florida Cultural Consortium fellowship winner’s career originated some five decades ago with clay, and excited by the engagement and channeling of both mind and body, thought, “This is it.  This is what I want to do with my life.” But it wasn’t long before she found herself beginning a new chapter, this time with wood—creating large environmental works. “Then,” Deborah said, “it was a path.” That path included launching, operating and eventually selling a successful interior plant-scape business, and marriage to husband Sidney Goldman. It was Sidney who, during the course of a 1989 Florida road trip, introduced her to the “island of the arts” at mile marker 0.

“When we first came to Key West and I saw the Mario Sanchez wood carvings, they had a huge impact on me,” Deborah said. “I started making baskets. I didn’t put fish in them, I put flowers in them, but it was a direct link to Sanchez and how his work moved me tremendously – the color, the simplicity of the shapes, the history. I was using lumber and I just started cutting, and experimenting with cutout forms.

“Then I saw the Malabar tree on the property at Francis and Petronia. There’s a sign on the tree with its botanical name and a tribute to Howard Sands, killed in France in World War I. His friends thought he would come back a hero, but he died. They planted the tree in his memory and it struck me – the tree is producing new buds at the same time that it is dropping these brilliantly beautiful red leaves. So green leaves are coming, red leaves are falling off in a constant cycle. That tree was the perfect metaphor for the life experience as a continuous evolution, and I just loved it, and I started creating these counting pieces: one Malabar leaf, two Malabar leaves, 3, 4, 5, and I incorporated a photograph of the sign that was on the tree into the cutout pieces.”

Deborah’s wooden cutouts, both with and without the Malabar theme, resulted in an enthusiastic following and advanced her stature as a rising artist of note, leading to numerous showings on a national level. Later, inspired by the discovery of discarded cuttings from a Bismark palm and the possibilities that photography offered to “tell an idea or story in a series, to document a process, an experience, or a moment,” Deborah’s cutouts gave way to a series of counting themed works incorporating botanical elements in stages of birth, life and decay, repeated patterns of numbers, and as a life-long ballet student, the five basic ballet positions.

When asked why the fascination with counting and botanicals Goldman said, “I think the counting serves as a metaphor for the passage of time and reminds us of the ever changing and ephemeral nature of our lives.”

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