Artist of the Month│Syma: Go For The Gold
Credit: Prasadachitta Gabe Branbury
Earlier this year we enlisted the help of the UJC Senior Center's members and art instructors, as well as local artists, to put together an art gallery with the hope of bringing joy to our community.
Every month we'll be sharing interviews with the artists that collaborated with the project.
Syma│Lower East Side, NYC
Syma - Go For the Gold (Detail)
Syma is a New York artist who has been working with clay and mixed media for nearly five decades. A teaching artist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1999. Primarily working from her Lower East Side home since the onset of the pandemic, she is exploring new ways of creating art.
When did you start creating?
My mom told me that she had to hide her magazines when I was a toddler, because I liked to cut or rip things out “to make my own pictures”. And that I used to make fanciful sculptures with the mud in the back yard.
What inspires you to create art?
Life events, wishes, dreams, worries, curiosity, and a commitment to my students.
Do you have a ritual to work on your art?
A brief candle meditation, listening to monks chanting, or a few deep breaths.
I have had many favorite spots in my own studio or as visiting artist. For now, during this pandemic, I am embracing my coffee-table and my kitchen table.
Do you have a favorite artist, art piece, or museum?
Many many many favorite artists... From ancient cultures to contemporary ones. Henry Moore, Beatrice Wood, Picasso, Marisol Rauschenberg, Marisa Merz, Andy Warhol, ancient Greek vase-painter Exekias...
What's your favorite memory in NYC?
At age 10, traveling on my own by bus from my Aunt’s apartment in Morningside Heights, down to the Metropolitan Museum, to wander around in the galleries for as long as I wanted…
Do you have advice for younger people?
Advice from three of my favorite teachers:
“Pay attention to what you notice…”
“All you can do is the best that you can do with what you’ve got…”
“Go for the GOLD, and then once you have set your intention, go ‘all in’ and see what can happen…”
Is there something that you would like the world to know about you?
I make art because I need to make art. I am sometimes driven to make an image of some partly-formed imagined essence, or to explore a material or a method. Thanks to many many many seen and unseen helping hands, my studio practice as a visual artist and a teaching artist, spans more than 50 years. I hope to be able to continue.
Learn more about Syma’s work:
