When Irena Gobernik gazes into a piece of wood, she sees more than the texture and the grain. Like other artists working in wood, she is connecting to the soul of the tree. Where some of us may see worm holes, Gobernik sees eyes. While others might observe a curved branch, Gobernik sees the undulations of a human body.
Gobernik, who creates puppets she carves from wood, will be leading a four-hour puppet-making workshop Jan. 21 at the West Windsor Arts Center to benefit the Artists for Ukraine fund at Direct Relief. Participants will come away with a 12- to 15-inch wooden puppet.
A one-time mathematician and gallery owner, Gobernik studied puppet making in Prague, known for its rich tradition of puppet theater. Not only does she see things in the wood as she is carving, but as an artist she is able to create personalities in her characters. This comes from both the carving and painting of the features, as well as the movement of the head and body. Modeled after people she knows, Gobernik’s puppets are portraits, she says. Her puppets are the kind operated with strings and a controller.
Irena Gobernik with two of her woodcarvings (photo by Ilene Dube)
The Kazakhstan native has created puppets on commission, and has also given them as gifts to the people they were modeled on, but keeps a few, including Rivka. Rivka wears a beaded necklace, a blouse with a sash, and a blue and white patterned skirt, all made by Gobernik.
“We couldn’t buy any clothes (while living in Kazakhstan) so I learned to sew and weave,” says Gobernik. “When my daughter was a baby I made her clothing.” That daughter, now 46, is a glass artist living in Israel. Gobernik’s front window is filled with a collection of her daughter’s glass mosaic trees which capture the light as the sun settles for the day.
Puppets “Rivka” and “Yossi” by Irena Gobernik (photo by Irena Gobernik)
Another of the puppets Gobernik has kept is a man wearing a tuxedo and a green bowtie. “He is Yossi,” she says, “a musician in a small shtetl in Ukraine where Rivka lives. He studied music in Kyiv, came back, and fell in love with Rivka.” The third puppet, an older man with a gray beard, looks grandfatherly. During a demo at the West Windsor Arts Center in fall, Gobernik enacted a marriage proposal by Yossi to Rivka. Yossi first had to ask permission of the older puppet, Rivka’s father, before getting down on his knees.
Gobernik began carving wood at the age of 16. Her father, a career military officer, and mother, a teacher, had encouraged her to become an architect, a career that combines art and engineering. “I knew I was good in math – I had won competitions and prizes in school -- but I wasn’t sure if I was an artist. If I were to become a bad mathematician that was no so bad but a bad artist is really bad.”
Later, while earning her master’s degree at the Akademgorodok in the city of Novosibirsk, Russia, considered to be the educational and scientific center of Siberia, Gobernik found herself drawn to the fir trees in the mountains. There was a kind of growth on the trunk, she says, that you could pull off without doing harm to the tree.
In these knobs of wood she began to see creatures, and would free them from the wood by carving them.
A selection of woodcarvings by Irena Gobernik (photo by Ilene Dube)
They look like wood spirits, little elves curled into themselves with large hands that can grip a human finger. After Gobernik’s adept use of a knife, she sands, oils and polishes them to a high gloss. They resemble the diminutive Japanese carvings known as netsuke, although Gobernik’s align more with her heritage. One of her characters has intricate Hebrew letters carved on its back. Gobernik says she doesn’t speak Hebrew, she found the words in the Torah, about how God created woman so man would not be alone.
Since moving to the U.S. in 2000, Gobernik has used wood from trees felled by hurricanes. In her Princeton home these wood carvings are displayed on glass shelves.
In 1999, Gobernik left Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, with her daughter and grandson because of an inhospitable climate toward Jews. Both women left dysfunctional relationships and were seeking a fresh start in Israel.
Gobernik, who had earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1979, was unable to find sustained work in Israel at age 49. A colleague helped her to obtain a position as a financial analyst for Markov Processes International in Summit, New Jersey, and Gobernik settled in Morristown.
She met Leo Vayn in 2003, a man who bears a resemblance to the puppet with the gray beard. “As he tells it, I came knocking on his door,” Gobernik recounts. Mutual friends needed a fragile item transported to Vayn and Gobernik came to Princeton with it. She did indeed knock on his door. They went for a walk along the D&R Canal and discovered all they had in common: their language (Russian -- Vayn is from Moscow), a passion for art, and an enchantment with nature and trees.
Vayn, educated as a mechanical engineer and co-founder of companies in software development and nutritional supplements, is a fine art photographer, and one body of his work looks at the shapes and forms in trees that evoke the human body. On their first date, Vayn took Gobernik to Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton.
They married and bought their home in Princeton in 2003. In 2009 they pursued their shared passion for art, opening the Dalet Gallery in Center City Philadelphia, located between the Clay Studio and Elfreth’s Alley.
“It was a beautiful space,” says Gobernik. They configured it to exhibit several artists at a time, and even hosted an artist-in-residence. The gallery held concerts during First Friday receptions. “It was a very interesting part of my life, looking for artists to show. We built a list, from local and national to international artists, including from Ukraine. They became great friends, and we were regularly reviewed by Victoria Donohoe at the Philadelphia Inquirer.” It was an environment where, talking to artists, she could improve her English. “But it was the worst time to sell art.”
(Photo by Irena Gobernik)
When the gallery closed in 2013 (“it wasn’t sustainable”), the concerts continued in Gobernik and Vayn’s home. “We had a list of musicians.”
Gobernik and Vayn contracted an architect to re-envision a part of their house for concerts and gatherings, with Grecian columns and an inset ceiling dome. At the center sits an 1880 Steinway grand piano with ivory keys and a rebuilt soundboard. Gobernik plays and sings, though demurs about calling herself a musician. “We get it tuned before every concert,” she says. One recent guest artist (“a famous one”) told her he’d never played an instrument as fine as this.
“Many musicians left Russia because of the war (on Ukraine),” says Gobernik. “They used to play on stages and they perform here now because they need to play. It’s an opportunity for us to showcase Russian musicians.” Concertgoers pay a donation to the musicians, and at a recent concert, a benefit for Ukraine that attracted 70 people, the musicians donated their take.
After closing the gallery, Gobernik made a trip to Prague to see the city and became enchanted with its puppets. She Googled puppets in Prague and found the Puppets in Prague Workshop. She applied, was interviewed and in 2018 was accepted. At age 65 she feared being the oldest in the group but two students were the same age. “The teacher is a puppet maker and his wife had a children’s theater. During the final week we performed at the Prague Fringe Festival with artists from all over the world. It was the best vacation of my life.”
Irena Gobernik prepping parts for the puppet-making workshop at West Windsor Arts (photo by Irene Dube)
Upon arriving home, Gobernik set up a woodshop in her garage, investing in power tools. At press time, she was busy prepping the parts for participants in the puppet workshop at West Windsor Arts.
Reflecting on the importance of the benefit for Ukraine, Gobernick recounts “My mother was born in Ukraine and lived in Kyiv before World War II. When I was 6 and my father was studying, we went with my mother to live with my grandparents in Ukraine. I remember my grandparents and great aunt singing Ukrainian songs together. It was the culture I grew up in.” In 2008, she and Vayn traveled to the house where her grandparents had lived.
“But even if I didn’t have a connection to Ukraine,” she says, “I’d be committed to helping because I’m a human being.”
At the puppet-making workshop at West Windsor Arts Center, Jan. 21, 1:30-5:30 p.m., participants will come away with a 12- to 15-inch tall wooden puppet to be brought to life. Participants will assemble, paint, and clothe a puppet from supplied wooden parts, a controller and fabric. $200 includes supplies and donation to Direct Relief. Donations without the workshop are also welcome to the Artists for Ukraine fund at Direct Relief.
Artists for Ukraine co-founder Madelaine Shellaby gets acquainted with one of the puppets made by Irena Gobernik (photo by Ilene Dube)
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