Unlike many Jewish actors of her generation, Lisa Edelstein never pronounced her name. “So, I’ve always been openly Jewish, and that definitely had an impact on my career,” she says. “It made me unable to be other things, and often when I got a job, my personality became Jewish.” Some of her most famous roles are as members of her tribe: houseDr. Lisa Cuddy, Relativityrhonda ruth, Kominsky methodPhoebe, and currently, Long story shortNaomi Schwartz’s mother.
In her second career, as an emerging visual artist, her Jewishness could not help but inform the work as well. Since the pandemic, the self-taught painter has been producing watercolors that seek to interpret a collection of her family’s snapshots of domestic life in New Jersey. They provide a window into the vanishing existence of the American middle class in the twentieth century.
“When I started, I was exploring suburban life and the secrets we tell,” Edelstein explains. “But because I grew up in an Ashkenazi Jewish home, there was the kippah and stuff [visual] These signs became political after October 7. It made me want to bow down to it and demand the right to exist as a Jew in the diaspora. There are other versions of Jewish life, but this is my version.”
The works are on display now until September 6 in a double exhibition, Shortness of timeWith her husband, painter Robert Russell, at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. His works focus on Jewish ritual objects such as kiddush cups and yahrzeit candles. It captures fleeting moments of social togetherness.
Edelstein, 60, notes that the dated nature of her photographic reference materials is key. “We no longer have the same naivety about the camera,” she says. “We know our photography steps. The images I’m interested in are the ones that have a story, and that narrative is often unintentional.” “Now, we’re editing things we don’t mean to,” Edelstein adds. “And that gets in the way of how we express ourselves and what we leave behind.”
For Edelstein, her paintings provide an opportunity to connect with audiences, which is different from her endeavors in Hollywood. “When you draw, you have to have an idea and produce it,” she says. “This is very satisfying for someone who has been in the entertainment business for a long time, where there are a lot of people and a lot of money and a lot of things that can go wrong. I can start my story and finish it. There it is, it’s out there in the world.”
