By DORIS RUBENSTEIN
For most Jewish World readers there’s seldom a reason for us to visit the campus of the Baptist-related Bethel University in New Brighton; but there are three reasons to go there through Dec. 19: Jewish artists will be well represented in a new exhibit of letterpress printmaking, “Just Letters.” You can give a shalom greeting to all of them at the opening reception 10 to 11:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 31, in Bethel’s Olson Gallery, CLC Building, second level.
Headlining the program is my friend, Detroit-based Lynne Avadenka. She is an American artist/printmaker. Her works explore text and image, the physical and philosophical idea of the book, and the mystery and beauty of visual language.
“I fell in love with letterpress printing in 1981. I have been making prints and artist’s books since then, with English and Hebrew type, in both wood and metal in my studio,” she explained. “I will be exhibiting artworks using type (letters of the alphabet) as image,” she said about the Bethel show. “My Foundation Gate prints incorporate Hebrew wood-type, along with metal-type decorative elements, in a nontraditional format.”
Avadenka’s art is exhibited and collected internationally, including at Bibliotecha Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; the British Library, London; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Jewish Museum, New York; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York; the New York Public Library; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin ; and in over 50 special collections and university libraries.
If Bethel University is not on your art map, you can sign up for Avadenka’s workshop at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1011 S. Washington Ave. in downtown Minneapolis from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1. She will share her work and letterpress printing techniques.
Works by local artists Robyn Stoller Awend and Elana Wolowitz Schwartzman are integral to the exhibition, too.
Awend has been a mover and shaker in the Twin Cities Jewish art scene for some 20 years and currently is director of arts engagement for the Minnesota JCC. (Editor’s note: A print by Awend appeared on the cover of the AJW’s 2008/2009 Community Guide, a directory of Jewish resources in Minnesota that was published annually for 17 consecutive years.)
She said, “Words and word fragments inspire my letterpress prints and mixed media installations, exploring identity and various cultural influences. I invite the viewer to get up close and personal to experience the delicate nature of my work, and oftentimes I leave work unfinished for the viewer to complete.”
Awend’s artistic work is often exhibited at Form + Content Gallery in Minneapolis, where she is a founding artist.
Elana Wolowitz Schwartzman has her small Font Love Studio in the Casket Arts Building in Northeast Minneapolis. “I like to think that I found my way back to being an artist as an adult, after being an artist in childhood and then slowly losing it as I progressed through school,” she recalled. “I took a class at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in letterpress printing and from the moment I first touched it, I knew this was what I was meant to be. For me, letterpress printing from hand-set type combines my interest in using words and language to connect, challenge and mobilize people with a physical process of design and building that is very satisfying.”
Aside from her artistic efforts, Schwartzman leads a life of tikkun olam, repairing the world: She serves as the head of audience engagement for the Center for Victims of Torture, and previously was the communications director at Wellstone Action among other local nonprofits. She said, “I was … deeply influenced by the visual impact of the 2008 Obama campaign and the power of words to build movements.”
(American Jewish World, October 2025)
