From Deseret News archives:
Simple art tells stories of humanity
Orna Ben-Ami got a bemused look on her face as she replied, "I hope I am not, as well.
"What I am trying is to get people to think and feel through simple objects," said the Israeli artist whose commissions of soft iron sculptures can be found in 17 prominent locations in her native land, including the walls of the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, where her submission won out in an artistic competition to communicate through art the many-faceted place that is Jerusalem.
In a city with no subway system, the central bus station, as Orna notes, is the crossroads, Jerusalem's answer to Times Square.
Orna thought and thought about how to represent a place as diverse as Jerusalem, but to do so simply so everyone getting on and off the buses could relate.
What she came up with were hats. Huge iron hats. She made a Christian archbishop's hat, an ultra-orthodox Jewish hat, an Islamic religious hat called a tarbush, a straw traveler's hat, a child's hat, a soldier's hat, a lady's hat, a Jewish pioneer's hat, a gentleman's hat, an academic hat, a baseball-type hat, and, of course, a cone-shaped yarmulke.
All of these she hung high on the bus station walls, along with four empty hat hooks — a signal that there is room for more.
"I think I won because I thought differently," says Orna. "When the judges saw my entry, I was told they smiled."
A walk through Orna's ironworks at the Kimball Art Center on Park City's Main Street — her exhibition officially opens to the public Saturday night, beginning at 7 p.m., and runs through March 27 — will probably make you smile too. Maybe not at first. But then the sculpture's simple punch line will hit you and you will have your "arty moment."
She couldn't bring the Jerusalem bus station with her, but she has brought enough sculptures to weigh down a couple of F-Series Fords.
The first sculpture she showed me on a preview tour was of a suitcase with roots extended out of the bottom — provoking simple feelings abut the conflict between the desire to travel and the desire to put down roots.
One that took a moment longer was a sculpture of a ballet shoe on top of an iron beam, and the shoe has bent the beam.
My personal artistic translation: graceful feminism is stronger than physical force.
Practical translation: women really do rule the world.
This is Orna's second "foreign" exhibition. The first was last fall in Rome. She's come to Utah, sponsored in part by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, partly because she has a daughter-in-law, Lindsey Krantz, who grew up in Salt Lake.
Through contacts, the Kimball Art Center learned about a year ago of the possibility of one day being able to display Orna's talent.
That day has arrived. "We are very lucky to have her," says Erin Linder, curator of the Kimball Art Center. "She is a major talent."
Simple, but major.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
