In partnership with the Canadian Studies Center (Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies), we are hosting Linda Dayan Frimer, a Jewish artist with Eastern European roots from Vancouver, Canada whose art focuses on the dignity and preservation of both culture and nature.

This event will start with a happy hour and art exhibit, followed by a lecture. As part of our Stroum Center 50th Anniversary events, Frimer will present on her new book, Luminous: An artist’s story as a guide to radical creativity. She maintains that “radical creativity in this sense reaches the foundational core of self where real change occurs, through the sharing of story, art, nature and culture in a global, Canadian and Jewish context.”

In conversation with faculty member Galya Diment.

Note: This event has been postponed to a TBD date later in the 2023-24 academic year. Check back soon for more information.

Co-sponsored by the Canadian Studies Center, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

About the author and artist

Linda Dayan Frimer is an internationally recognized artist and celebrated facilitator, whose esthetically powerful works of art address memory, trauma, culture, and the environment. Born in the wilderness town of Wells, British Columbia, Frimer was immersed in the wonder of the surrounding landscape. At a young age, she overheard stories of the Holocaust and became determined to champion and protect the sanctity of all life forms. She turned to art as her natural medium. Her work with the Gesher Intergenerational Holocaust project made an astonishing contribution to healing trauma through creativity while her work with Cree artist George Littlechild resulted in a book entitled “In Honor of our Grandmothers”, sharing reverence and championing dignity of those who have suffered. Frimer’s artworks have supported the work of environmental organizations such as the Trans Canada Trail, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “Some paintings beg comparison with Emily Carr’s famous forests, but Frimer’s light-filled spaces and Post-Impressionist/Fauvist palette will hit a stronger emotional chord with many people” – in British Columbia Reviews by Michael Kluckner. Her new book, nominated for many awards, “Luminous: An artist’s story as a guide to radical creativity,” reaches the foundational core where real change occurs.

About the moderator

Galya Diment is the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor in the Humanities and Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington. Her teaching specialties include Russian literary and cultural history, the works of Vladimir Nabokov, and Russian Jewish film.

Prof. Diment received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and is on the editorial boards of Nabokov Studies, Russian Studies in Literature, and Studies in Russian and European Literature. She has authored and edited eight books, among them “Pniniad: Vladimir Nabokov and Marc Szeftel” (1997; Paperback 2013), and “A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury: The Life and Times of Samuel Koteliansky” (2011; Paperback 2013).

Her essay about her grandfather, who was a rabbi near Vitebsk, and his family was featured in a Vitebsk publication, “Mishpoka,” in 2013. Her articles have also appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, New York Magazine, and London Magazine.

She is currently working on a book about Jewish painters from Vitebsk at the turn of the twentieth century — “Vitebsk and Beyond: Yehuda Pen, Marc Chagall, and Leon Gaspard.”

The University of Washington is committed to providing access and accommodation in its services, programs, and activities. To make a request connected to a disability or health condition contact Grace Dy at (206) 543-0138 or jewishst@uw.edu at least 10 days before the event.