Only One Way Up

Photos: Ben Canter

First impressions are everything, and it’s nearly impossible not to be taken when you first meet him. As he walks through the door, the first thing that grabs you is how much taller he is than everyone around him, but if at 6’10”, it’s easy to get distracted by his size, former NBA superstar Amar’e Stoudemire — Yahoshafat ben Avraham — has a much higher story to tell.

I met Yahoshafat when he came to town to pick up a painting he had commissioned from Lakewood artist Libby Klein. He told me he was captivated by it the moment he saw her rare technique on social media, and that he appreciates the unique twist Mrs. Klein is able to give her pieces, and her clients.

“Art,” says Mrs. Klein, “is not merely a display of someone else’s talent and handiwork. It’s a part of you. Not just the artist, the buyer too. But in most art pieces, only the artist is reflected in it. What’s missing is a piece of the buyer.”

She fixes that.

In Libby Klein’s art gallery, the buyers help out. Think, l’havdil, of how a sefer Torah is completed, with each person joining together to fill in a letter to complete the Torah. That’s how she completes her paintings. A brushstroke here, a dab of paint there, and the buyers become their own artists, putting their soul into the art they will display.