From past to present, a Monmouth County artist has endeavoured to positively influence the planet

by Laura D.C. Kolnoski

Inspiration has taken a long and circuitous path to reach artist Mil Wexler Kobrinski, known globally for her paintings, ceramic sculptures, art classes, and philanthropic endeavors.

“My great-grandmother and grandparents were part of the Underground [during World War II] in Amsterdam, Netherlands,” she related. “My great-grandmother received the Medal of the Righteous Gentile [Since 1963, the Israeli Knesset has chosen non-Jews to be so honored for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust]. I listened to many war stories from family members and my grandparents’ friends when I lived in Amsterdam.”

Wexler Kobrinski’s mother’s family hails from the Netherlands. Her husband is Israeli. Her late father, Seymour Wexler, a well-known Westfield area doctor, moved to the Netherlands in the late 1940s to study medicine. She and her brother were born and lived there while Seymour attended medical school, moving to the U.S. when she was about three.

But wartime heroics weren’t the only inspirations her grandmother bestowed. A painter, she studied with Joseph Johannes (Jos) Rovers, president of Amsterdam’s renowned Rijks Academy. Wexler Kobrinski, who attended the Art Students League and the New School of Social Research in Manhattan, met the Dutch master at age 14. He invited her to study with him after high school, one of only three apprentices Rovers mentored during his lifetime. He taught her traditional studio chores like grinding and mixing oils and tempera. She also attended classes at the Rijks Academy, and spent the summer of 1973 on a scholarship in Ein Hod, an Israeli artist’s village, which led to an early stint as a painter for Lapid Ceramic Studios in Yafo. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont, and has studied and attended workshops and seminars throughout America.

Eventually settling in Colts Neck, where her home studio is located, she has traveled the world visiting relatives in Holland and Israel, as well as her grown children. Her daughter, Ronit, and her family currently live in Malawi, but she has dwelled in numerous countries through her spouse’s work with the United States Agency for International Development. Son Daniel is a lawyer for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, while son Jonathan is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Miami. Her travels are reflected in her colorful works, which include oils, watercolors, acrylics, tiles, drawings, prints, and sketches.

“My love of ancient artifacts, philosophy, and history has influenced my character as well as my work,” she said. “This melding of family history and personal cultural diversity has fused into a representative style. Loss has sharpened my awareness of who I am—a sense of sadness to be a witness in a world that can’t learn from its past, with a sense of hope and joy in possibilities. I hope to formulate a dialogue with my audience.”

That audience has included over 500 students of all ages in her home studio, in the Monmouth County Park System, where she reinstated Raku classes, at Monmouth University and Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, where she participated in the 2016 Visiting Artist Series in November sponsored by the Monmouth County Arts Council. Wexler Kobrinski shared her talents and experiences, providing practical lessons and encouragement to budding artists, including the business of presenting and selling their work.

“I love to teach, and with my special group of students that has been working with me for many years, I am really a mentor,” she said. She also teaches at the Art Alliance in Red Bank, and her work appears at Colts Neck’s Windsor Gallery. Wexler Kobrinski was an original organizer of and continues to participate in the Colts Neck Library’s Annual Benefit Art Show and Sale. She was also a pioneer in the Empty Bowls effort, beginning in the middle school across from her home and moving on to Jon Bon Jovi’s JBJ Soul Kitchen in Red Bank, where she coordinates and takes part in its effort to provide meals for the hungry. Her ceramic and pottery bowls created by artists and students make a visual statement on hunger.

“Artists will gather in my studio soon to start making bowls for the next Empty Bowl event to benefit the Soul Kitchen,” she noted. “We are always looking for donors and volunteers! The intent of my artwork is a message of possibilities and love,” she summed up. “We all have similar hopes and dreams.”

Mil Wexler Kobrinski
milwexler.com