To journal is to make use of pen and paper to record events, thoughts, emotions, possibilities, priorities, and just about anything else on our minds.  Journal keeping as a tool for self-reflection allows us to shape vague thoughts and feelings into coherent language.

It is a way to organize, prioritize, and find an outlet for the incessant chattering of the mind.  Journaling can also be a powerful tool for releasing pent-up emotions.  It is a way of making the inner voices of one’s heart, mind, and soul more  audible.

In this course we will explore the many techniques of journaling.  We will be writing and having discussions.  It will be fun and inspiring.  More importantly you will learn a new form of self-discovery as well as an effective way to calm and organize your thoughts.

Journaling Sessions with Minx Boren

Minx has been studying and teaching the art of journal-keeping for more than 40 years. Minx is a motivational speaker, a writer, a facilitator, and the author of 4 books of poetry, co-author of 5 books for women and columnist for several online magazines.

Journaling Workshop – Fall 2011 to Winter 2012

Four Sessions starting October through January, 2nd Tuesday of the Month
5:30pm – 7:30pm at the gallery

$27 per evening or $90 for the series

Room for only 30 so Subscribe Now
Call 561.743.3340

Download and view the full invitation using this link Journaling with Minx Boren.

Read the rest online at http://www.palm2jupiter.com/ebooks/P2J_OEI15_14April2011/ page 11.

Three seniors at Dreyfoos School of the Arts awarded scholarships

At this same event we will be featuring the work of well known artist Clemente Minum.

Hope you can make it!

RSVP to 561-301-9371 or 561-743-3340.

An evening of Art and Music

Of course, the longer you wait for one of them to break formation the faster you will speed up to cut past them.  You have to fight these impulses for revenge or the need to make up time, because that is when you can get into trouble.  But I have calculated that there is a corresponding, exponential increase in your breakaway speed of five miles per hour for every one minute that you have to wait for an opening.   To fight such facts of life can be difficult if not impossible to overcome.

I have often wondered what psychological reasons would prompt these do-gooders to insist on screwing with the unwritten rules of the road.  Can it be possible that they never heard of these rules?  Have they been living under a rock?  It could be that they have a ‘higher’ calling.  Maybe their goal is to prevent others from breaking the law?  Perhaps they consider themselves highway missionaries who want to convert all speeders to their way of driving!  Well, in my humble opinion proselytizing has no place anywhere let alone on the road!

Maybe, it’s because they are married to control-freaks and this is the only area in their lives where they can exert control over others?  I have no need for exerting such control.  When I see someone barreling down the highway doing more than ten miles over the speed limit, I simply pull over and let them by.  It’s nothing personal.  If they want to risk getting a ticket, so be it.  I just don’t understand why these slow pokes don’t move over when someone wants to get by them.  Cars can be whizzing by them, people are on their tails within a half-an-inch, and doggedly insist on holding their ground.  It’s like they have taken some sort of moral high ground and refuse to relinquish it for fear of going to hell.  Meanwhile, it’s the rest of us that are living in hell, a hell they’ve made with their holier-than-though righteousness!

All I can say to you drivers who insist on doing the speed limit in the left or next to the left-hand lanes is ‘to get over yourselves’ and ‘get the hell over to your designated lanes’, which according to the unwritten rules of the road would be the right or next to the right-hand lane!

I have a long list of topics that I enjoy talking about:

“The History of Print Making”

“All About Giclees”

“How to take your Art Career to the Next Level”

“Tips on Hanging and Displaying Art”

“What to Look for when Buying Art”

“The Future of the Traditional Gallery Model”

JB Lecturing to the Brandeis Group

The event lasted an hour and a half, from 10:30am till 12:00pm.  There was a 15 minute meet and greet session where all the ladies congregated in my studio while waiting for the rest to arrive.  When all were present I conducted a docent-like tour of the gallery pointing out some of the outstanding artists that I represent.  I then gave a twenty- minute lecture about my career with a ten-minute Q and A session.  After that, the women took their time taking another look at all the artworks and made some purchases.  My staff served coffee and tea and some sweet edibles.  There were even Mamosas offered, but there were no takers.  I did not charge for this.  I was more than happy to provide all of the above for free in turn for the exposure.  No one, other than the organizer of the event, Norma Kaminsky, had been to my new location so was definitely a win-win proposition.

Norma Kaminsky awarding me a donation given in my name to the Brandeis Library

Goodies offered with a Choice of Mamosas, Coffee and Tea

"Benefits Superviser Sleeping" by Luecuan Freud

In 2008 “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” by Lucien Freud fetched 33.6 million dollars at Christies Auction House in New York City.  This was a new record for a price paid for a living artist’s work.  It was bought by Roman Abramovich who is ranked the 4th richest man in Russia and the 50th in the world.  He is a self-made man of questionable business practices who today is perhaps most well known for owning the Chelsea Football Team.  In that same year he set another art world record when he bought Francis Bacon’s “Triptych” for 86.3 million dollars, the most ever paid for a post-war work of art.  These purchases were most likely bought to help promote his new gallery that he and a partner opened in Moscow, a very smart marketing move.

Is it the shock value of having a morbidly obese women commanding center stage in the canvas that grabs people’s imagination.  Is it the ’800 pound gorilla in the room’ mentality that rivets our attention and obliterates everything else from our view when it/she is present?  Is it the fact that Lucien Freud is Sigmund’s grandson? Is it that Lucien is no doubt a very painterly and accomplished artist?  I say it is all of the above.  I also say that in this person’s, artist’s, and dealer’s opinion, it is not worth 33.6 million dollars.  It is fitting that Mr. Abramovich also set a record for Francis Bacon who also specialized in the grotesque.

Please take note:  I greatly admire both of these artists, especially Francis Bacon who was an innovator of the highest order, so don’t misconstrue any of my comments as a rebuke of their talent.  What I am exploring in this article is how and when did our ideal of beauty, or perhaps better stated, what we covet visually above all else, become something perverted and grotesque.  Today, for most major collectors and museum curators there is a third factor to their adoration quotient:  The more they don’t understand what the artist is trying to convey the more they covet it.

"After Cézanne" by Lucien Freud

I could rationalize the high price that Mr. Freud’s work commands if he had started a new school of art as Bacon had, or if he had been an originator.  But he wasn’t.  “After Cezanne” which he produced in 1999-2000 is so reminiscent of Philip Pearlstein’s work, who had originated this style of nude genre in the 1960s, that it almost borders on  plagiarism …except for the fact that Pearlstein did and does it so much better.  But unfortunately for Pearlstein, his work is done so well that it almost seems pretty and we must keep in mind that the uglier it is the more money it commands.  “After Cezanne” was bought by the National Gallery of Australia for 7.4 million.

For most artists who like myself would rather paint images of beauty this whole ‘grotesque esthetic’ can put us at a tremendous disadvantage.  For us the world is full of enough carnage and injustice and what we want to provide our viewers is a respite from all that, a place to escape in these dire times.  For this we are punished and relegated to the dustpan of culturati.  This is the inside circle, a very small handful of players who control the art world.  Yes, my friends, there are literally only a dozen people out there who determine the tastes and opinions of the art world and dictate to the rest of us what we are suppose to appreciate and desire as ‘fine art.’  I could name them but I don’t want to burn any bridges.

"2 Models" by Philip Pearlstein

I was recently commissioned to do a four by ten foot painting for a collector of mine who wanted me to do one a scene of Giverny.  After 600 hours I produced “Weeping Willow Serenade.”  In a painting as intricate as this every turn of a leaf can affect the composition.  If a clump of waterlilies become too over powering or attention grabbing it would have the effect of pulling down the whole.  Every stroke and nuance is calculated to sweep the viewers eyes gently across the canvas enjoying each and every detail on its own merit but without distracting it from the appreciation of another.  It’s a tightrope dance that is very difficult to pull off.  And no offense to Lucien, but it takes a whole lot more brain cells to organize this sort of composition than placing the focal point of your painting in the middle of a couch in the middle of a room in the middle of your canvas!  For all this beauty that I created that took infinitely more synapse charges than Lucien sparked I got a measly 33,000 dollars, which is exactly one-tenth of one percent what his work fetched.

"Weeping Willow Serenade" by JB Berkow To see a larger image of this painting go to www.rosettastonefineart.com

I bring this up, not as a complaint, but more as an example of how far we have drifted from what we once cherished as our visual ideal.  Maybe it is a reflection of the times or maybe it’s the exact opposite, and it is the arts that is helping to shape times we now live in.  In the mid 1970s I remember when Truman Capote’s novel, “In Cold Blood,” was made into a movie and shown on television in a prime time slot at nine in the evening.  I was outraged and wrote a letter to the Washington Post editor complaining about this sort of violence being brought into our homes at such an early hour.  How quaint that seems now.  Today we have the most violent programing imaginable being run all day long on television, video games that teach our youth to become impervious to the consequences of violence, and an epidemic of bullying and hate crimes.

Maybe if we watched less violent programing, if the news would cover more stories of good endeavors and not relegate it to once a year around Thanksgiving, if we went to museums that were not afraid to defy the dictates of a dozen jaded art aristocrats and exhibited more esthetically beautiful work, maybe we could get our society back to one that valued compassion towards our fellow human beings.  Maybe we would be more civil to one another.  Maybe there would be less bullying.  Maybe Congress would compromise more and respect the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that if a person’s opinion doesn’t concur with their own it doesn’t mean that that person is a traitor or will go to hell.

We have to start respecting each other and relearn what it means to be considerate and polite to one another.  This will take reeducating ourselves to a forgotten set of values and sensibilities.   Perhaps one important part of that process is to learn to appreciate beauty all over again.

My husband couldn’t understand my total disdain for Bristle and my eventual avoidance of the show.  So, when I tried to explain it to him I actually surprised myself with my answers.

Firstly, I strongly resent that Bristle has been made the poster child for sexual abstinence.  I also resent that she earns fifteen to thirty thousand dollars every time she speaks on a subject that she never practiced.  What makes her an expert on this topic?   You may be asking, “What make me someone who is qualified to speak about it?  Because I was a virgin when I married at the age of twenty.  It is precisely this sort of hypocrisy that makes me lose respect for the religious right.  It reminds me of all the religious leaders who rail against homosexuality and then leave their pulpit to meet their gay lovers in a nearby motel. It is not that I am advocating sexually abstinence.  I believe people have a right to do what they want with their own bodies.  What I do abhor is having unplanned children out of wedlock.

Also, how can she speak about raising a child out of wedlock when she is so busy doing everything but raising her child?  Between her speaking engagements and her stint on “Dancing With The Stars,” when has she had time to properly take care of her child?  I never saw her child on the set?  She is no longer living on her own and is now living with her parents.  Her mother doesn’t have time to raise her own infant son let along Bristle’s son.  I suppose a nanny has been employed to help with these duties.  How many unwed teen-mothers do you suppose have the where-will-all to hire a nanny?  How many are rewarded for their indiscretion by getting paid hundreds of thousands a year speaking about it?  And finally, how many of them become famous dancing badly in front of millions every week?  It’s simply mind-boggling and I applaud the man who shot a hole in his TV set!

This type of hypocrisy is permeating every aspect of our society.  It doesn’t matter if something is right or wrong…it only matters if it makes money or brings attention to your point of view.  I am sure that Bristle is a lovely girl and I am in no way blaming her personally.  I am reacting to what she represents and how her mother, the right wing establishment, and finally “Dancing With The Stars” have used her.

New Business Model Article

This was a great article written by Laura Hampson and published on the cover of the Business Section of the Palm Beach Post on June 21, 2010 describing JB’s new business modle that she has implemented in her new gallery location.  JB loved the tag line that reporter, Laura Hampson, came up with when she wrote that, “RosettaStone Fine Art Gallery in Jupiter is the no-frills airline of the art gallery world.”  Ms. Berkow was thrilled with her no-frill analogy because it truly captures what her new model is all about.

Clients will still have access to the same carefully chosen, high-quality, yet fair-priced ‘fine art’ that Ms. Berkow’s impeccable taste is known for acquiring.  However, they will not find the art in a fancy location with a bunch of thumb-twiddling staffers circling them with invoice pads close by.  Instead, her new 3,200 square-foot industrial space, which is conveniently located in Jupiter Commerce Park (just one mile from the I-95 or Turnpike exit at Indiantown Road is far from sleek and fancy.  There is no staff but Ms. Berkow herself.  There are no set hours precisely because there is no staff.  Potential clients have to call first to set up an appointment.  But all of the above saves her clients money because she has slashed her overhead by 75%.  In fact, everything in her new showroom is discounted from 20% to 50% all year round!

There are some additional distinctions between her gallery and her other well-heeled counterparts.  Unlike those galleries she can no longer afford to offer free home-shows or free art-consulting services.  If clients want JB to bring art to their home, they are asked to pay a fee of $50 for this service, which will go towards the purchase of anything in the gallery.  If customers want her to come to their home for a consultation session, the same fee is employed.  So far no one has objected because they know that they will be saving a lot more money in the long run.  They also seem to fully understand and appreciate what JB is trying to accomplish not only for herself but for them as well.  This approach not only saves JB time and money but eliminates people who are just wasting her time and are not really serious about acquiring fine art for their home.  So far it’s been of huge benefit for both her and her customers.

If you are not on the gallery’s email list and would like to receive invitations to events held in the gallery, call JB at 561-743-3340 and she will take care of it.

JB was very honored when local Money Manager, Regina Bedoya, and Interior Designer, Gil Walsh came to her about up-grading the annual award that Executive Women of the Palm Beaches hands out to three outstanding women in leadership.  She knew as soon as they requested her help that she had already created the perfect sculpture for their purposes.  It was a sculpture she completed several years earlier titled “Free to Be” which has since become the official nickname for the award.  To learn more about the fascinating genesis and coincidence involved with this unique collision of circumstances please click the following link…