The Israeli artist, Yael Erlichman, won the “Lorenzo il Magnigico President Award” at the Biennale for Contemporary Art in Florence 2009.

800 artists from 76 different countries participated in the Biennale, and over 2500 artworks were exhibited, during a show that was held in the old Fortezza da Baso fortress that was built in the Renaissance period.

(in the photo – one of the 5 bronze sculptures of Erlichman)

Erlichman was invited to show at the biennale, after exhibiting in the last few years in various important shows in the world, including exhibitions in Canada, Holland and the United States, as well as important shows in Israel. She showed five of her Bronze Sculptures at the Biennale : “it was a great surprise for me, since it is a serious panel of judges, and overall it is a great pleasure” said Erlichman.

Besides Erlichman the following Israelis exhibited at the Biennale: Yael Kaplan (fifth place in photography), Patricia Abramovitch, Akiva Huber and Yasmin Hadad.

The artists were selected by a panel of international judges, with one of the important objectives of the Biennale since 2001 is to promote “ the dialogue of civilizations”. All together, as every time there were artists from the different fields of painting, sculpture, photography and multi-media.

We used to have a futon in our back room of our first location on Murray Hill Road and needed the space for more art work. I visited Nordic Futon on Coventry Road in hopes of begging someone to please disassemble the cumbersome piece of furniture for me. A soft spoken guy named Tom Maxwell was sent the next day to do the job. During our conversation, he mentioned that he wanted to give his longtime girlfriend an engagement ring, but did not have a clue how to make the event special. I suggested that he plan an evening in Little Italy and end up at our gallery where we would have the ring in our jewelry case. A trusting man he was since he gave me the ring to hold until the night of the proposal. First was dinner at Trattoria. Then the couple went to the Badawang Gallery in the Murray Hill Schoolhouse. Carol, the gallery owner signaled with her blinds when they were on their way. At that moment, everyone in the gallery was let in on the secret. No one could leave (and why would they want to). The couple entered, I greeted them and pretended this was our first meeting. I asked Holly if she would like to see some of the jewelry that we just received. I took out a ring box and as it was opened, Tom was on his knee asking for her hand in marriage. Her favorite singer, Faith Hill, was blasting out of our sound system, my husband Rodger was taping the moment with his new video camera, everyone was toasting the couple with champagne while we all enjoyed Cassata Cake from Presti's Bakery. We received pictures from their honeymoon, visits whenever a new Maxwell child was born and a Christmas photo every year of the Maxwell family.

Tom is presently serving our Country in Iraq. I hope that each of you will keep him in your prayers.