Cranford Native Gives Back Through Her Artistic Vision

CRANFORD, NJ — Lisa Dworkin didn’t grow up in Summit and after calling the Hilltop Town home for 10 years, she and her husband moved away, eventually landing in New York City. And yet, regardless of the number places she has lived in the years since, there is something about Summit that has always stuck with her.

Dworkin, who grew up in nearby Cranford, has always been amazed at the way the town’s landscape captures light. So while walking her dog when she lived in Summit, Dworkin would find herself snapping photos on her phone. Now, years later, Dworkin has transformed those images into a series of 12 oil paintings entitled Suburban Vernacular that are on display at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Dworkin is donating half the proceeds from the sale of the paintings and limited edition prints of the paintings to The Other Fellow First Foundation.

The collection, which was created over five years, began with a painting of the train station on a snowy day and then shifted to other scenes from around town, including the iconic Summit Diner, which then grew into the series of Dworkin's work that is now on display.

“It’s a really pretty town,” Dworkin told Patch this week. “I kind of felt like (the series) is like everyday Summit. When I saw people in the diner, it was moms and kids after soccer practice or people connecting. When I saw the train station, is was people on the tracks, waiting for the train and it felt like those were everyday scenes that people could really relate to.”

As she created the paintings, Dworkin focused on the way she captured the light and how it impacted different places around Summit. The light, she said, provides a different perspective to places that residents may have seen thousands of times or that visitors to Summit may experience for the very first time. While Summit is a city, Dworkin also appreciates it for its small-town charm which, she said, provides her with even more compelling subject matter to recreate.

She incorporates people into her paintings if its natural, but there is something about the people who make up Summit —from the residents to the shop owners — that makes the place memorable for Dworkin even though she has since long moved on from the town that incorporates aspects of both the old and the new that she has captured on canvas.

The Visual Art Center places Dworkin’s work in a strolling gallery environment that provided Dworkin a different perspective, not only of the place where she called home for almost a decade but of the artistic journey she had gone on over the five years it took to create the collection of 12 paintings.

As she looks at some of the scenes, Dworkin realizes that some of the activity she captured isn’t happening right now due to the coronavirus pandemic. But in the way her paintings have allowed her to recreate memories of some of the places she enjoyed while she lived in Summit, she hopes her art has the same impact on people who still call the city home now.

“I would hope people would look at (the paintings) and say, ‘Oh, that time of day is really pretty in Summit’ no matter where you are. If you’re looking at a parking lot or looking at light on a building, that golden hour, this town really does show really well in that light or when snow is falling really gracefully, that is a comforting feeling to see that store or that train station or the diner in the snow,” she said.

The fact she can now give back to Summit through of the proceeds of the sale of her work is also gratifying for Dworkin. She said when she considered which organization to support, the nature of The Other Fellow First Foundation’s work was something that she felt drawn to. The fact that so much of the group’s work takes place from within the confines of the Summit Diner – one of her first paintings – made it even more meaningful, she said.

“I just think it’s very appropriate,” Dworkin said. “I felt like the community was very kind to us, it was a great place to go, there was just a lot happening in town … and so I just felt like it was a nice thing to do for the community.”

This article originally appeared on the Cranford Patch