Owings Mills-based artist Edy Bondroff has high hopes for her new exhibition at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts.
“I hope [visitors] see pieces of me,” she says. “I hope they see this is where I was in my headspace at this time.”
The exhibition “An Artist’s Kaleidoscope” – which began Nov. 2 and ends on Dec. 31 — showcases Bondroff’s more than four decades of artwork, spanning various genres and media.
Her artist’s reception will be held this Saturday, Nov, 22, at 6:30 p.m., and is free and open to the public.
A Northwest Baltimore native, Bondroff is a multi-faceted artist who creates across a wide spectrum of visual arts, from drawing and painting to jewelry, paper-cutting, ceramics, greeting cards and floral arrangements.
The exhibition displays 89 of her artworks across realism, colorful cartoon pop art, expressive abstract pieces and Judaica (including Jewish puns).
Bondroff says she enjoys experiencing her art through other people’s eyes.
“On one wall is the Judaica, and one is abstract, one is fashion girls, and one is oil or acrylic paintings,” she says. “And as I look on each wall, it just brings back memories of how I painted it. And sometimes I go, ‘How did I paint that?’”
Bondroff says everything in the exhibition resonates personally with her. Most of the pieces adorned the walls of her home before placed on display.
With a few exceptions, most of the works are now on sale.
“They’re all my own style,” she says. “I wake up with an idea, I go downstairs to my home studio, and I put it down on paper. I look at my paintings throughout the day and sometimes I hate it and sometimes I fix it.”
Bondroff says she collects and saves all kinds of materials and minutiae, knowing that a small item might be added to her next piece.
“I don’t throw anything out,” she says. “If there’s a little round thing, it goes down my basement. If there’s paper, it goes down my basement.”
She says it takes her about four to five months to create a realistic painting. People often ask her how she knows when a painting is finished.
“It’s a very hard question to answer,” Bondroff says. “There’s a lot of self-judging. I take photos of it on my phone. If it looks good on my phone, it looks like a finished painting. I stop painting when I sign it.”
Bondroff says she didn’t always know she wanted to be an artist.
“I never had any formal training,” she says. “Until I did the first painting in 1979, I didn’t even know I could paint. I’m not really trained like an artist who started out with learning how colors come about and what you mix.”
Previously, Bondroff worked in the events planning and decorating business.
“I loved working with parents and kids who had a lot of ideas for what they expected to see at their bar and bat mitzvah celebrations,” she says.
In addition to her passion for art, Bondroff is involved with Pikesville’s Beth El Congregation, where she helps create floral arrangements for sisterhood luncheons.
Writing is another passion; she is a member of the Baltimore Jewish Writers Guild.
Bondroff says she hopes community members will come out to see her work at the Gordon Center, “and that they like it and that some may want to purchase it. Hopefully, I don’t want to come home with 89 paintings! I just want everybody to come and enjoy themselves, and to feel the paintings and love them.”
The Gordon Center is located at 5200 Gwynnbrook Avenue in Owings Mills. For information, visit gordoncenter.com/event/artist-reception-edy-bondroff/,
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