This past Monday on May 27 I facilated and taught at an event for Queer History Month, gathering a group of people at the Spinnboden Lesbian archive to learn about Lotte Laserstein and paint our own self-portraits. Clara Julia Esclara was the guest educator, and did a wonderful job giving the participants an understanding of Laserstein’s life and body of work. After being thoroughly educated and inspired I led the group in painting ourselves. I remember being a little child at the community arts center using a mirror and my hands to create a self-portrait, and I wanted to bring this memory full circle, and lead an art class using this technique. It was to my joy that I then found this painting, and just decided it was Kismet.
Russian Girl with Compact, 1928
As part of my process these days I decided to paint the ‘poster’ for Instagram, and was inspired by the self-portraits from 1928. I see myself and my gender the most in this very androdgenous painter with a cat on their lap. Although I later learned this cat was drugged (oy vey) I still really love this painting and I took elements from the composition such as the canvases, window with the scene of Berlin’s roofs, the artist smock, the gaze at the viewer, and of course the easel.
Selbstporträt mit einer Katze 1928 , In meinem Atelier 1928.
Me as Laserstein , 2024 workshop poster
I will soon post some more photos from the workshop itself….and the fun isn’t over! I get to research and write more about Laserstein for a new podcast launching this August!! And then come the fall, we get to do more workshops at queer archives in Berlin on Queer Jewish Artists who have a connection to Mitte ! It was great fun to be with people engaged and interested in the same stories and art that I love! And great encouragement for the future that I can facilitate and create these very specific historical artistic workshops. Since this is the second workshop with this format that has gone incredibly, I know this is a pretty solid way to teach both history and artistic techniques and exploration. It was really sweet to receive kind feedback after from particpants, who enjoyed playing with the paint making self-portraits and learning the history of Laserstein!
Mycelium Memory 