about

My name is nomi. I come from a family of immigrant refugees. Jews fleeing pogroms and the holocaust. After meeting each other on the east side of the U.S. and marrying, my parents left their families and all that had become known, for the unknown of San Francisco. Thus, it was in the Mexican, Irish, Gay San Francisco neighborhood of Eureka Valley that my siblings and I grew up.

I am an artist. Environmentalist. Animal nurse/care taker. I care deeply about the health of our planet, social justice, the welfare of the diverse human communities and cultures enhabiting this country and world, and about the welfare of animals, the wild and domesticated, who belong equally to this planet and this planet to them.

From the beginning I found connection and refuge in art making and in nature. While I lived in San Francisco until forty when I moved to Oakland to go to art school, I discovered the natural places within the cities and around them. Now I live in the Sierra foothills with my partner and a family of animals on a small patch of land where I grow food, savor the night sky and make art. And here, surrounded by the beauty of nature, I find myself missing the diversity of humanity that so enriches the urban world

My formal art education includes many years of SF City College art classes, apprenticeship with SF jeweler merry renk, BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts. I’ve created and participated in small exhibits over the years, though mostly, in surrender to my house introvert, I’ve been hiding out in my studio, in nature, in the night, in my head.

The need to process, express, release what I hold in my heart and psyche moves me to make art. Doing so, keeps me near sane and from sinking under the weight of bearing witness. Exploration of the relationships between line and space, between spirit and form, guides my way through the creative unknown.

In addition to clay, paper, ink and various other media, I often use found and recycled materials to create sculpture: Nature’s shed, such as branches, lichen, feathers, fur. Humanity’s shed, such as weathered posts, rusty chicken wire, used produce bags, shredded mail. I was raised on an ideology of no waste in an old house in San Francisco and have carried the value of recycling and creative reuse through my life.

Now, in the time of Covid 19, an online gallery of my art feels, not only in alignment with my nature, but appropriate for the times. My hope for this gallery is that it circulates widely finding connection, that work is purchased and taken away into the world, and that it joins in the greater conversation of healing our world
Welcome