Camille Danielle Wortman
ART Habens
like a passing dream. I wasn’t allowed to play as a
child, now, I spend my time playing and playing is a
very serious business I suppose!
Well,I hope that I will beat the cancer and carry on
living for a long time, I am teaching a eight year old
little girl : painting and everything I know about art
history, culture, and mainly how to be a human being,
empathic to the others, as I tried to do with my three
boys. I didn’t look after a teaching job; this little girl
saw one of my paintings in her grandma’s house and
started to copy it and begged her grand parents to ask
me to become her teacher! Which made me feel very
honoured! I did teach in the past in the regional school,
but most of the children were not really interested in
art and I felt that it was a waste of time to carry on
with my teaching job, and that it would be much better
for the good of the communauty if I went back to work
in the children houses with toddlers, to give them the
warmth and love that they needed at this early age.
And this is what I did, mainly working with children
with special needs in groups of regular children. As I
said earlier, I don’t work any more, and apart from a
few hours teaching elderly people and a couple of
disabled friends, I spend my time playing...And now, I
feel very lucky to have a follower , eager to learn
everything I can teach her! So this is already a huge
project.I intend to carry on painting and writing poetry
and I have started to write my second book, this one
under my real name about “getting old on a kibbutz”.
Many books have been written about childhood in a
kibbutz, but none about aging on a kibbutz and I think
that this is an important issue in a changing society.
Most kibbutzim have already changed and look more
like a village than like the originak kibbutz, ours is in a
great hurry to follow this trend and this is worrisome
for the old members... Still, this is life and instead of
going mad with worries about the frightening changes I
am writing about the way old people feel! And , as I
have already said the world would have been a
paradise if everyone had what we have! I don’t know
how my painting will evolve, I have never thought
about what my next work is going to be about; Life has
a way to lead me forwards” Chi sara, sara”, what will
be will be! I love life and life loves me and this is more
than enough! I thank you for taking such an interest in
my work, please bear in mind that my mother tongue
is not english but french and this could cause my style
to be rather akward.I have tried to answer this
interview as best as I could.
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Special Issue