Artist Spotlight: Ginger Balizer-Hendler

Glen Head artist Ginger Balizer-Hendler likes color. She really likes color. The dramatic impact of color seen in her Sea Cliff Library exhibition, Inner Journey, results from the artist’s experiments with the movement and play of colored inks. To achieve movement in her abstract canvases, Balizer-Hendler works with inks of many colors, dripping them onto the canvas. She then sprays the colors with water to create a dynamic flow of color.

Balizer-Hendler – a former English teacher  – always had a passion for the arts, interior design and fashion. Four years after retiring from teaching, Balizer-Hendler remerged as an artist who was ready to embrace the next chapter in her life.

A long-time resident of the area, Balizer-Hendler is known to many as the daughter of Ethel Telesca, the founder and original owner of the restaurant, Once Upon a Moose (now Olives by the Sea). Always active in the Long Island arts community, she serves on the advisory board of the Great Neck Arts Center, on the board of directors of the Art Guild of Port Washington, and is a member of the Long Island Crafts Guild.

This fascination with color is only one of Balizer-Hendler’s artistic sides. She’s also drawn to trims — sequins, glitter, feathers, buttons, bows, and other decorative items that she began to apply to T-shirts early in her career. From trims, she went on to experimentations with textiles and textures.

“These become the history of our lives, the things that comfort us," Balizer-Hendler said. "When we look at them, we feel at home.”

The allure of these collaged materials was very much to be seen in Female Totem, a work Balizer-Hendler brought to a recent Sea Cliff Arts Council event at Olives By the Sea where she discussed her art with guests of the arts council. The totem, constructed on a column of chicken wire, encompassed a wide variety of fabrics, trims and other materials to create a complex, engaging work of the kind that once was dismissed as “women’s art,” but now is seen as a full-fledged artistic expression.

Balizer-Hendler, who has studied design at C.W. Post and New York Institute of Technology and painting at Nassau County Museum of Art’s Art School, said she began to develop an interest in the many facets and possibilities of color when she studied with Huntington artist Stan Brodsky at the Art League of Long Island. Brodsky, himself strongly influenced by the use of color in Milton Avery’s art (works by Avery are on view at Nassau County Museum of Art through May 8), guided and inspired her through new ways to think of and use color.

“I don’t paint with the intention of deep meaning,” said Balizer-Hendler. Instead, she says, her present art expressions arise from her love of the interplay of colors and watching how those colors move as she works with them.

Balizer-Hendler said she welcomes reactions when people come in contact with her art: "At one exhibit, a woman came over and said, 'I just came from a grief support group and when I saw you art, it made me smile,'” Hendler recalled.

As a former Long Island correspondent for the Art Time Journal, Balizer-Hendler said that playfulness is crucial to her work.

“Keeping the play alive means not necessarily being in control of what lies ahead," she said. "As with life, it is a journey that takes us into unknown paths.”

After attending a workshop where a woman used a dress as an art form, she said she came to the conclusion that “Art as fashion equals fashion as art.”

This artist plans on having a rich life by working on her art: “My art has been in me since I was a baby, and my art is now taking me to other places. I want to continue to create art that is free from self-censorship,” she said.

In five years, she sees herself in a larger studio with lots of room to add to her Mixed Media, Inner Journey abstracts and wire sculptures.

“Don’t be afraid," Hendler advices other inspiring artists. "Don’t put too many expectations on yourself. Don’t listen to too many people. Listen to your gut; trust yourself.” 

Inner Journey is on view at the Sea Cliff Library through April 30. The library is located at the intersection of Sea Cliff and Central avenues. Call (516) 671-4290 for library hours. To contact Ginger about her artwork and to see where she will be exhibiting next, visit Ginger Hendler.