Finegood Gallery Volunteers Give a Hand and a Heart to Jewish Art : A Committee of 30 Chooses Artwork, Runs Exhibits on Bernard Milken Campus

As openings go, the one at the Finegood Art Gallery six years ago wasn’t exactly grand.

In a small trailer on an empty West Hills lot, a few volunteers pushed aside stacks of chairs, pounded nails through cheap wooden panels and hung some paintings and prints. The only people who viewed the art show were members of the Valley Region of the Jewish Federation Council of Los Angeles, who were using the trailer as a temporary boardroom.

“We used to try to cram an awful lot of art in that small space,” said Carole Friedman, one of the gallery’s four founders.

Today there’s no need to fit anything into cramped quarters. The Finegood Gallery is a well-lit, 2,500-square-foot room with plenty of space for displaying art and plenty of volunteers to organize exhibits. It is located on the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus, a 6.5-acre complex that houses the West Valley Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Federation Council’s Valley Region office. The council is the central coordinating and fund-raising organization for 15 local Jewish agencies that offer health, education and social services.

David and Rae Finegood of West Los Angeles donated the money for the gallery, which opened, with the campus, in 1987. “Viewing and appreciating arts is an important cultural activity,” David Finegood said. “I think it’s a valuable contribution for people who come to the center.”

The gallery is run by a committee of 30 volunteers, who call themselves the Valley Region Arts Council. The members choose the exhibits, serve as docents, help mount the works and hold receptions for the artists.

The Arts Council’s goal, says committee co-chair Marjorie Sievers, is to educate the public about the contributions of Jewish artists, although the gallery does not exhibit exclusively Jewish art. “We try to have exhibits of sophisticated, avant-garde art,” as well as religious art, Sievers said. “We like to have the newest modern art as well as ancient pieces.”

So far, the gallery has only shown the works of Los Angeles-area artists, but the volunteers hope to exhibit the works of Israelis and Soviet immigrants in the next year. Artists can submit slides to the Arts Council for consideration. Prices of works in the gallery range from $100 to $10,000. Commissions are usually 25%.

The gallery’s present exhibition is “Jewish Art: From the Hand and the Heart.” The six-artist show features elaborate, hand-painted ketuboth , Jewish marriage contracts; huppoth , canopies under which marriage ceremonies take place, and hand-woven tallits, Jewish prayer shawls.

The colorful huppoth , made of hand-woven silks from the Far East, are crafted by Shoshana Enosh, a weaver from Woodland Hills. Some are subdued, made from light pink, blue and cream-colored silks and trimmed with lace. Others are more festive, with stripes of magenta, aqua, orange and green and trimmed with fringe. All are inscribed with the Hebrew words for “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine.”

“Color is really an expression of happiness,” said Enosh, who made her first huppah two years ago for her daughter’s wedding. “I think ceremonial objects for an occasion should be joyous, not solemn.”

The show continues through Nov. 26.

The Arts Council pays its expenses though donations and revenues from exhibits. The council also raises money by holding tours of Los Angeles artists’ studios and collectors’ homes. The cost of maintaining the gallery is absorbed by the building’s operating budget, which comes from Jewish Federation Council funds.

The days of cramped quarters and cheap wooden panels are over, but Arts Council members say the gallery is far from complete. They still need moldings to hang works--now they use nails, then patch up the holes--and they would like permanent display cases. They’re hoping to find sponsors for entire exhibits and eventually have a full-time gallery director.

“We’ve come a long way,” said Shoshana Hirsh, the Federation Council’s Valley Region staff member who oversees the gallery. “But we’ve still got a long way to go.”