Lynne Bernfield: psychotherapist / author / consultant / speaker / musician / performer and media artist

5-3-2011 Interview

Steve Alpert is a Renaissance man; musician, jock, writer, performer, documentary film producer, and perhaps above all a painter. A high lottery number kept him from fighting in Vietnam but many years later an unplanned trip to the Vietnam Memorial Wall showed him something he had not previously known about himself; a deeply felt connection to those who serve in the military This experience triggered a series of paintings on military themes; a Blackhawk helicopter; soldiers escorting a transition case (coffin); and most especially the painting he calls Legacy. Steve donated many of his paintings and the posters created from these paintings to raise funds for organizations which help soldiers and their families; for example Fisher House, which builds housing for military families so they can be close to their convalescing children. Always evolving Steve is about to publish a book based on his own transformation and has commissioned director Wes Grantom and playwright Matt Smart to create a play based on his Legacy painting. This moving piece called The Steadfast is currently in development. See a tiny representation of that painting here.

Legacy by Steve Alpert

2-15-11

Interview – Bobby Neel Adams grew up in a town with the “most boring public high schools.” He had no exposure to art except Life magazine’s coverage of the Viet Nam war, which he says “told a bigger story” and clearly had an impact on him. Luckily when he was in high school an acquaintance gave him a camera; he began taking pictures and rapidly became obsessed, but still had no idea that photography could be a career. He so hated high school that he didn’t plan to go to college until another acquaintance assured him that college was different from high school. In college Bobby not only found that photography would be a career, but discovered his own very unique visual style. Now he is one of the artists chosen to work at the Hermitage artist retreat in South Florida. Bobby, who has always been interested in the way things alter and decay, is working on a series called ”Drowned”, which features all things underwater. You can see Bobby’s unique vision at his web site Bobbyneeladams.com

January 26, 2010

Larry Forgard is an artist, he makes both his living and his life with his art, but it took him a while to find the perfect outlet for that art. For many years Larry employed his skills, as a graphic designer, hear the remarkable way he stumbled into teaching at the Ringling School of Art and Design and created a life in which he can not only teach but create his own paintings.

January 05, 2010

Eleanor Merritt began to draw when she was five years old and from then till now (at over 70) she has never stopped making Art. Even when she had to do it “in the bathroom after midnight” having taken care of her responsibilities as wife, mother and teacher, Eleanor never stopped exploring her own very personal relationship to painting. Somehow she learned to “compartmentalize” all of the things she wanted and needed to do with her life, without having to sacrifice her beloved Art. Eleanor Merritt is a poster child for ‘self-actualization’ and listening to her story tells us all how it can be done…

December 15, 2009

Gail Fulton-Ross is an artist with a capital A. She paints, sculpts, writes, and acts, and would sing if she could. Knowing as a very young child that she would be an artist “when she grew up,” Gail’s parents had to hide her coloring books in order to get her to go out and play. But as she points out life doesn’t always go in the direction you have chosen for yourself. Married and a mother by the time she was seventeen Gail powerfully describes the difficult challenge of balancing an unquenchable thirst to produce Art with an equally powerful need to be “a good mother, wife, daughter, student etc.” When Gail says that she has the “richness of being,” she is right.

December 08, 2009

Discussion – Continuing the discussion of our Undercover I tell the story of Donna, whose Cover Story of I don’t work for money, but for the good of my family and community, was making it impossible for her to get the job she badly needed and was endangering her financial security. And how she discovered what she called her invisible ink reason for not doing what she needed to do. I talk about how we can all begin to discover and then recover the Undercover qualities we once had to hide.

Interview – Sue Kutno says “many years ago when I was a child, before I remember, I was an artist!” and it is the truth. Sue was born bursting with creativity. Whatever art form she was exposed to, be it stained glass or petit point; she embraced it, expanded on it, and improved it. Her Art is everything from fused glass – about which she wrote a book which is used as a text by other teachers and carried in two museums gift shops, gardening, home remodeling or the creation of websites. A poster child for being yourself, Sue’s gregarious exuberance is contagious. Listening to her makes you want to go out and create something!

December 01, 2009

Discussion – Do you know all that you are? Do you realize that the way you have been behaving, the way you think of yourself, may only be a part of who you are – that there is really much more to you? In this show I am talking about the Undercover qualities which we have hidden, not only from others, but from ourselves as well. I tell the story of a client whose I must be conscientious Cover Story, and her inability to benefit from her I can be lazy Undercover was endangering her health and I describe one of the ways to uncover what you may have hidden Undercover.

Interview – Vicki Rollo is a graphic artist, maker of one-of-a-kind pieces of Jewelry and the owner of Heart’s Desire a unique boutique where you can purchase her not only her Jewelry, but one of a kind purses and matching jackets, designed by local artists, as well as the kind of clothing and art “which you cannot find in the mall.” Vicki’s story is unusual because it took many years for her to discover an Undercover talent she “didn’t know she had.” But having discovered it, she embraced, nurtured and ran with an explosion of creativity, which is even now looking for its next expression.

August 26, 2008

When we are in conflict with ourselves – that is we want to do (or stop doing) something but we are unable to get ourselves to behave as we wish – I call this being in Civil War. Civil Wars are not only a waste of time; they can endanger us by undermining our belief in ourselves. In this show I talk about how to identify your Civil War and how to achieve a successful Cease Fire. I also air the second delightful half of my interview with Judy Lyons Schneider.

August 19, 2008

More about the Unconscious, and the first half of my interesting interview with multi-talented artist Judy Lyons Schneider.