By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – By day, Carleigh Gold is a commercial contracts attorney, a precise occupation in which she must examine every clause to weigh its legal meaning and possible ramifications. It is exacting work. After work hours and on weekends, Gold gets to unleash her creativity. For nearly 13 years now, she has painted in oils and acrylics, and over the past three years she has developed a new specialty: resin art utilizing minerals and gems found in nature.
Twenty of her creations will be on exhibit at Nordstrom UTC on Saturday, March 11, beginning when the store opens at 10 a.m. She chose to exhibit a range of her works that will be priced from $100 for smaller pieces to $3,000 for a much larger one.
Gold purchases such minerals as pyrite, quartz, sphalerite, opalite, lepidolite, citrine crystals, tourmaline, amethyst, and agate at the Pacific Beads store on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, and as the mood strikes her, she comes up with a color scheme.
She mixes colored mica powder into resin, and onto wood panels, she shapes the mixture to mimic natural stone. “Once that has dried a bit you can place the actual stones,” Gold explained. “Resin is really strong – it is a hard and durable material when it cures. The stones need to be placed when it is half cured to prevent shifting during the curing process.”
Some people are attracted to her art not only for her designs but also because they believe in crystal powers with different energies, Gold said. According to the My Crystals website, for example, “amethyst has the ability to convert lower vibrations to higher frequencies, which then transforms negative energy to love energy.”
Gold’s website (carleighgold.com) pictures numerous resin creations as well as some of her commissioned paintings, with subject matters ranging from ocean-inspired art and portraits of pets to mouth-watering presentations of various foods, including sushi, sashimi, and cakes.
“I have always loved color and considered myself to be a ‘sparkly’ type of person,” Gold writes on her website. :I was that kid who always had the most elaborate projects in school, from my science fair displays to dioramas to creating travel brochures in my Spanish class. Over the years, life took over and I strayed from my creative roots. Then, about thirteen years ago I decided that I needed an outlet for creativity. I started oil painting and eventually expanded into different types of media, including acrylic and resin. Creating art truly is my passion and I hope to share it with you.”
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‘Bagel Boys’ Schmooze on Fridays
A group of Jewish men who regularly played at the Lake Murray Tennis Club used to drive after their matches to Einstein Brothers Bagels outlet on Lake Murray Boulevard to kibbitz about their games and about life in general.
Bill Sperling, who was one of the originals in the group, said the others were Bill Friedel, Simon Lonstein, Alex Feldman, and Pepe Blatt.
Fifteen years later, some of the same fellows continue to meet together for lunch every Friday, but the group has expanded to 25 men, most of them now retired. They don’t play much tennis anymore, but they are still quite accomplished at schmoozing. On any given Friday, 12 to 15 men on Sperling’s growing mailing list might show up.
“When COVID came, things closed and we didn’t meet for a while, and then I said let’s meet out at Lake Murray Community Park,” recalled Sperling, who is a retired Kaiser Permanente pulmonologist. “Now, we bring our chairs, we sit apart, bring our lunch and something to drink. Once a month, we go to a restaurant like The Trails, or Einstein Brothers, or the restaurant out at Santee Lakes, but other than that, we go to the park.”
The men linger over their lunches, typically staying 90 minutes to two hours. “We share our stories, our backgrounds, issues about families, what’s going on, good things, bad things.” Before Lonstein died, the men were a support group, calling him, talking to him, Sperling said. “We’re a group of guys who are important to each other, who share things from their lives.”
Typical conversations might cover “illnesses or upcoming medical appointments, but most of the time it is fun stuff like upcoming weddings and bar mitzvahs,” Sperling said. “We try to stay away from political discussions. There were several people who were on the right and some on the left, so it became uncomfortable, and we did away with that. Now it’s a matter of what came up this week, or where they went. ‘Oh, I took a trip to Palm Desert last week; we had a great time.’ Or, ‘I went back East to see my family in Florida.’“
Recently the group met at The Trails in the Keil’s Shopping Center, and while the men schmoozed, a woman came up and said how lovely it was to see men getting together for friendly discussions.
“Most of the time you see women getting together, but it’s rare to see men getting together,” Sperling reflected. “I’ve gotten phone calls from people [in other parts of the county] who say, ‘I’m trying to find a group of Jewish men to get together.”
While many of the Bagel Boys are affiliated with Tifereth Israel Synagogue, there are some who are members of Temple Emanu-El, and one who drives up from Chula Vista, where he is affiliated with Chabad, according to Sperling. Several of the men are widowers, who find in the informal group welcome companionship. There are no formal memberships, no fees, just guys getting together.
Bagel Boys started with a group of men and continued that way, said Sperling. He does not recall any woman ever asking to join the group.
He said the group likes to meet most of the time at Lake Murray Community Park. “The weather is nice, we go outside, and get some fresh air,” Sperling said.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com