Fran’s family photo from the DP camp.
Sustainability Now News
by Maryann Ridini Spencer (@maryannridinispencer)
“My parents and I are survivors of the Holocaust,” said Frances Elson, fused glass artist. “My
mother and her mother, father and sister were forced out of their homes after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. My father, who hadn’t met my mother yet, also left his family behind in Poland. To escape the Nazi invasion, they all chose to assume Russian citizenship. My relatives on both sides of the family who stayed behind did not make it out alive.”
Once in Russia, Elson’s mother’s family wound up working in separate Siberian labor camps, as did her father. However, it wasn’t until a few years later, when those camps were disbanded, and their only choice was to board a train to its last stop — Kazakhstan. It was there that Elson’s parents met and married, and where Elson was born.
“My Grandfather passed away on route to Kazakhstan,” continued Elson. “Years later, my mother finally told me that my Grandfather believed the family would never make it out of Russia, and losing all hope, he succumbed to typhoid fever.”
Elson’s parents, like most of the people who managed to survive the atrocities of the Holocaust, never told Frances about what they had to endure during the war.
It wasn’t until 1994 when famed Hollywood filmmaker Stephen Spielberg established the Shoah Foundation to gather oral histories from some 50,000 Holocaust survivors, that Elson learned what her family endured.
However, when the time came for Elson’s parents to be interviewed for the Spielberg project, her father lost his courage. It wasn’t until after her father passed that Fran’s mother finally agreed to be filmed, and then the floodgates opened.
By this time, Elson had married the “love of her life” Ed Elson. In 1971, they moved to Ventura where Ed practiced medicine and Frances worked first as a social worker, and then as an interior designer, and they raised their daughter Cheri.
In 2001, curious about the art medium of glass, Elson took a class in fused glass jewelry presented by Focus on the Masters in Ventura, which led to a 4-day introductory class in Los Angeles, after which she closed her design business and committed herself to what she refers to as “one final career,” honing her craft.
The inspiration for her exhibit “Broken, a Holocaust History in Fused Glass,” currently on display at the Museum of Ventura County, came to her in a lightbulb moment after perusing many family photos and documents that had been gathered over the years.
The exhibit, which honors Elson’s parents, Joseph, and Rose Kierschenbaum Horowitz, and their families, consists of six beautifully detailed and touching glass panels as well as a book of poetry by Frances Elson’s sister and her mother’s video for the Shoah Foundation.
On Friday, April 12, the museum the museum hosts an Arts Talk and Presentation with Fran Elson in the Community Gallery. A reception will take place from 6-6:30 pm, followed by a multi-media presentation in the Martin V. and Martha K. Pavilion. Elson will talk about her artist’s concept behind the “Broken” project and share her family’s history depicted in the project. Admission is $5.00 for museum members, $10 for non-members.
“Glass is very strong, yet very breakable,” said Elson. “I hope that through sharing this project, I can share the legacy of my parents and express the fragility of our freedoms through the fragility and great strength of fused glass.”
Broken: A Holocaust History in Fused Glass
Museum of Ventura County
March 2 – April 27, 2019
April 12, 2019 – Arts Talk and Presentation with Fran Elson
Visit: fuzionbyfrances.com or email Frances at [email protected]
