Into the Vortex Painting

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland in 1946, Lee Rubenstein was barely aware of the arts until, while attending U of Md Law School at night and working as a Probation Officer during the day, he got his first apartment on returning from military service in between the Peabody Conservatory of Music and the Maryland Institute of Art. After about six months exposure, there was no going back. Since that time he has made his way doing community theater and photography back in the darkroom days, then woodworking and fabric constructions, designing and making velvet covered candy boxes for Godiva Chocolates and music boxes for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. After a fire put an end to that, he spent the next 25 years making pottery with his late wife, Carolyn Leung, whose artistic influence cannot be measured. His other influencers are other artists who's freedom of expression unleashed that freedom in himself, like John Waters and Frank Zappa from his Baltimore days ,to all the jazz artists he's listened to in his various studios all these years as well as the incredible artists he's met and learned from at art and craft shows for 25 years. After losing their Brooklyn studio to the Barclay Center and then Carolyn's death, he has landed 10 years later with a new love and a home and studio overlooking the Hudson River and a gorgeous view of the Catskill Mountains in Germantown NY. Those are the colors he hopes to capture in his paintings.