JoAnne Berkow
Founder & President, Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts
JoAnne (JB) Berkow has been a professional artist her whole life. Her work is in many prestigious collections, including Palm Beach International Airport, Boston University’s Tsai Performance Center, and the Vatican. Dr. Walter Persigatti, curator for the Vatican Museums, after visiting her studio, wrote: “It is incredible how your spirit and soul can be expressed in such different ways and with such powerful explosions while at the same time with such gentle introspection.”
However, promoting her own work was never enough. At 26 she founded the first cooperative gallery in Washington, D.C., the Touchstone Gallery, to help emerging artists. Twenty years later, after establishing two more galleries in Florida, she is now tackling her biggest project yet, the Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which is fast becoming a major tourist attraction in our county.
Ten years ago, she took over a block-long train depot in Lake Worth Beach, and with the help of her board, generous donors and grants, she was able to transform it into a world-class, fine art glass fabrication facility. Besides an expansive glass-blowing hot shop, there are flame-working, fusing, and glass-casting studios along with a fine art gallery and gift shop. The visiting “Artist Blow-Outs” (three-hour demos) are the talk of town, and during the summer, the center hosts 1,000 children and teens free of charge.
JB has also written four books, “Shades of Love,” “What They Didn’t Teach You In Art School,” “Painted Poetry” and “Confessions of a Coffeeholic.” Even though she became well known for her oil paintings of European landscapes, she now devotes her time to sculpting, which she casts in glass and embellishes with flameworked glass and paint.
BENZAITEN CENTER FOR CREATIVE ARTS
561-508-7315
Benzaitencenter.org
