About Me

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Joy Serves G*d in Joy as a passionate performing percussionist, poet, publisher, photographer, publicist, sound healer, spiritual guide, artist, gardener and Gemini. "Ivdu Et Hashem B'Simcha" -Psalm 100:2 ....... Joy Krauthammer, active in the Jewish Renewal, Feminist, and neo-Chasidic worlds for over three decades, kabbalistically leads Jewish women's life-cycle rituals. ... Workshops, and Bands are available for all Shuls, Sisterhoods, Rosh Chodeshes, Retreats, Concerts, Conferences & Festivals. ... My kavanah/intention is that my creative expressive gifts are inspirational, uplifting and joyous. In gratitude, I love doing mitzvot/good deeds, and connecting people in joy. In the zechut/merit of Reb Shlomo Carlebach, zt'l, I mamash love to help make our universe a smaller world, one REVEALING more spiritual consciousness, connection, compassion, and chesed/lovingkindness; to make visible the Face of the Divine... VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE and enjoy all offerings.... For BOOKINGS write: joyofwisdom1 at gmail.com, leave a COMMENT below, or call me. ... "Don't Postpone Joy" bear photo montage by Joy. Click to enlarge. BlesSings, Joy

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

NOT SO HOT, only 110*

NOT SO HOT, only 110* in Northridge.
Last year I shoot same thermostat at 115*.

© Joy Krauthammer 2011, Northridge

RIVKIN female family



Maternal grandma Rivkin and some female grandchildren.
A "Vision of Joy".
Partial family portrait taken prior to Shabbat when Toba celebrated her 3rd birthday by
lighting Shabbat candles with family & friends present at Chabad of Northridge.
I remember when sister, Mushka, celebrated her 3rd birthday in this meaningful way,
taking on Jewish ritual, shared by women in the world.
MIA, Mama Rebbetzin Rivkin was greeting guests and preparing candles for all women.
MAZAL TOV
© Joy Krauthammer


4 Generations
Tzippy Rivkin, daughters, Mrs. Rivkin/mom and her father
Chabad brit for son of Rabbi Meir and Simi Rivkin, Tzippy's brother
Mazal Tov
© Joy Krauthammer
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Monday, August 29, 2011

CELEBRATING a BRIS

Vision of joy on 8th day.

Rabbi Nachi and Michelle Klein & family
Young Israel of Northridge
MAZAL TOV
© Joy Krauthammer

Monday, August 8, 2011

ART IN THE STREETS

ART IN THE STREETS




Jammin' with JOY at MOCA's ART IN THE STREETS
Photos of drummer Joy by Stephanie Buffington (c)

The Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A.
On closing day, 8-8-11, 8,424 visitors attended, and I was there!
It was FUN DRUM time for me.
Photos of drummer Joy by Stephanie Buffington (c)
http://www.moca.org/pdf/press/Art_in_the_Streets_Record_Attendance_Release_.pdf

Museuming with my 'Sista'
Photos & collage by Joy Krauthammer (c)

After spending a day with 'sista' Faye
 to view Tim Burton's wild, imaginative characters at LACMA,*
and enjoying his Hansel & Gretel fun animated movie,
making sure we arrived from far away
at the museum the moment it opened,
we then drove miles east on 6th Street all the way downtown to MOCA,*
in LA's rush hour to see
ART IN THE STREETS.
MOCA would close in less than an hour, 5 pm,
and the ticketless line went around the corner.
It was the last day, the last hour, and with intentional power,
WE MADE IT!
I loved finding a parking space only two blocks away from MOCA,
(thank you Parking Angels)
after sista navigated us perfectly to downtown.
(Parking was half block from LACMA!)

I loved the huge cross-cultural crowds filling the galleries;
8,424 visitors that one last day.
I loved that in every direction, there were a zillion cameras being used;
So many people with cameras and phones.
Out came my camera!
(Enjoy my Graffiti collage.)

I loved the painted red real ice cream truck inside MOCA.
(My camera censored one side of artistic truck.)
When I was a child, the white Good Humor truck in NY, did not have graffiti.
On MOCA shelves, I loved the rows and rows of paint cans.
On walls, I love the anti-graffiti posters.
I, too, am a graffiti artist.
I loved wall filled with LOST dog signs.
(Where the animals found?)
I loved the ceiling-high comical sculptures which sista Faye pointed out to me.
I loved lady visitor with red hair.
(At times mine is sparkly purple.)
I loved walking upstairs on the ramp,
 and looking down and surprised to see
a lady standing at a grimy sink in a dark alley inside.
She didn't see me.
I loved the huge murals painted by now renowned, graffiti artists.
I loved it that my sista wanted me to photograph the inside street art
otherwise,
 I probably would not have created this photo collage,
ART IN THE STREETS.
Faye's high school students would enjoy my photos, she said,
 and she'll hang them in the class room.
(Costly posters would be torn, taken.)

Outside MOCA
I loved the green sprouts growing on back of a red bike.
I loved the vegetable farm where the bike was parked.
(Do downtown's homeless eat the veggies?)
There were two 'gourmet' food trucks.
(Many more outside LACMA.)
I loved the countless, long colorful cloth and thin paper ribbons,
heart-felt messages filled with blesSings and prayers,
swaying in the breeze
hanging from the trees
in Little Tokyo, across the street.
We happily recognized the outdoor eatery we ate at last time.
Sitting by an outdoor sculpture
watching a child playing upon it, singing to herself,
I loved eating Japanese spirulina green pastries with Sista,
delaying our trip home, whiling away time.
I loved the easier rush-hour drive home.

I loved celebrating ART IN THE STREETS,
and TIM BURTON
with my sister Faye,
on a beautiful summer day,
knowing this week, she begins again to teach school.
Her fall semester beginning.
Together we shared the last day of the summer show!
And two musuems in one trip to LA!

Oh, yes, I LOVED my fun drum playing at MOCA. (see photos.)
I became, Art In The Streets
or
was I already?
(What do you think?
Add YOUR Graffiti COMMENT below.)
:)
- Joy Krauthammer


* LACMA / LA County Museum of Art
* MOCA / Museum of Contemporary Art


PS
Accompanying MOCA's ART IN THE STREETS show has been an internet web happening, 
the RED STICKER CAMPAIGN.
Enjoy some of my personal GRAFFITI submissions.
Because of this web happening of community's involvement as "curator for a day", I need to admit that in photographing ART IN THE STREETS, I censored what I photographed, so no one would be uncomfortable in viewing my photographs.
(The other side of the red ICE CREAM truck in not in my collage.) - Joy


http://joys-prose.blogspot.com/2004/05/universal-peace-love-joy.html




from RED STICKER Campaign GALLERY  http://www.MOCA-latte.org
On 04.21.11 moca-latte wrote these pithy words; 
Approved
by ‘curator for a day’ chopstick sidewalk graffiti sentiments & artistry 
UNIVERSAL PEACE LOVE JOY LA
(by a sixties’ flower child) photo by Joy Krauthammer ©.

for commentary see :
http://moca-latte.org/archives/514#comments
.

The local Valley adult school principal had just announced that they had been vandalized with Graffiti.:(
To congratulate the school’s computer teacher on recognition she just received, the students from many cultures and countries did their own style of Graffiti in many languages, not on the computer, but where all could see it. :)
The sentiments were APPROVED by Joy!
photo by Joy Krauthammer ©

Sunday, August 7, 2011

LUCILLE BALL's 100 Birthday

Lucy's 100th Birthday & Hare

Lucille Ball and I share birthdays. Not really, but during the week of Lucy Ball's 100th birthday, my friend Hare made me a promised, delayed delicious personal birthday party. Hare and her hubby came to my dancing and drumming party held in a bar on my birthday (because my drum pals were performing there).

Hare wanted to do something special for me, and prepared a feast, a banquet for me.
Hare's apron had TV scene images from I LOVE LUCY during Lucy's famous chocolate in the factory scene.

Is that chocolate in Hare's hand, or is it a giant fig from Joy's tree? Bringing figs as I did to Hare is like "bringing coals to Newcastle." Hare has a huge fig tree right in front of her front door. Our figs are the same variety, but hers is more condensed and cruchy in side, probably because I water mine more.

Here is Hare in her Lucy apron as we celebrate Lucy's birthday, and mine, too.
I love you Lucy, andy you, too, my dear friend, Hare.

Love, Joy

http://hare-today.blogspot.com/

http://visions-of-joy.blogspot.com/2011/04/mitzvah-for-hares-mom-zl.html

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Thursday, August 4, 2011

Holy Ari

 4 Av

Tonight is the 5 Av yahrzeit / death memorial of the Holy Ari.

Below is a photo I shot in Tsfat of the Ari's grave about a decade ago.
I had travelled to Israel with Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, z'l (died 2009) and Renewal chevre. At Elat Chayyim in 1993, I first studied with R. Aryeh, Porland, Oregon rabbi. I had greatly enjoyed his teaching, and gifted him with a percussion instrument, chachas, which he placed on his altar in the class room.


I was grateful that Southern CA dear friends, Lois and Bob Rubin, were with us. Berkeley friend, Moshe Tov Kreps, also loved Tsfat, and made aliyah. He opened a healing center, HaLevav, now also a music center. 


It felt really good being in Tsfat and we didn't want to leave. We loved visiting with artist, David Friedman, and also discovered artist, Avraham Lowenthal. Loved having Shabbat in Tsfat. Loved seeing the Breslover yeshivah. Loved visiting Tsfat resident, dear former Berkeley friend, Ida Lewis. Amazing to me that at the 1993 Kallah, Ida recognized me from Jamaica High School in NY. In 2009 in N.Y., I visited Ida and her then dying father, z'l, a Holocaust survivor.


Tonight for the Ari's yahrzeit, friends teaching at Ascent in Tsfat, Schwartzie and Olivia Schwartz, will take my prayer to the Ari's grave. I have sent them the photo I shot.
  
Isaac Luria (1534 - 1572) (Hebrew: Yitzhak Lurya יִצְחַק לוּרְיָא), also called Yitzhak Ben Shlomo Ashkenazi (Isaac ben Solomon Luria) acronym "The Ari" (The "Godly Rabbi Isaac") "Ari-Hakadosh", or "Arizal", meaning "The Lion", was a foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah, his teachings being referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah.


Grave site of the Holy Arizal, 5 Av, for the yahrtzeit of the Holy Lion.
photo by Joy Krauthammer ©


Because LA's Chai Center co-director, Schwartzie, is teaching in Tsfat during the Yahrzeit, I asked him what it says on the Ari's grave. He responded:
"On the grave is tht the Ari said tht B4 morning prayers every1 shd say, 'I take upin myslf the Biblical Commandment - Love your neighbor as yrslf'."

AMAYN.
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