Aimee Golant

Endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis, Aimee Golant is an interfaith advocate, a sixth generation metal artist, and a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, originally from Los Angeles, California. Upon her graduation from San Francisco State University, she began her career as a metal artist creating Judaica and jewelry. She exhibits and sells her unique metal art internationally. Aimee has won many honors, including: being voted “Best Jewish Artisan Craftsperson in San Francisco” since 2010 from the readers of the J. Jewish News Weekly, the Jewish Museum of New York's acquisition of one of her evocative mezuzahs for its permanent collection, she created the mezuzah for the front entrance of the National Museum of American Jewish History, her Barbed Wire Mezuzah travelled into space on the Columbia Space Shuttle and on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, a NICHE Award for her Bars and Windows Menorah, and the Golden Hammer Award for her outstanding community service through the San Francisco Bay Area Metal Arts Guild. She has created the crown for the Women's Torah Project, one of the first documented Torahs scribed by a community of women from around the world. She has created mezuzot and jewelry benefiting the Darfur and Women’s Empowerment programs through the American Jewish World Service, the Children's Holocaust Memorial at Whitwell Middle School in Whitwell Tennessee, the Jewish Women’s Breast Cancer organization Sharsharet, and a special edition tzedakah box gift for outgoing board members of Jewish Family and Children's Services in San Francisco. She created a Chai pin pendant that has helped raise funds for Hadassah. Aimee had shown her art at The Legion of Honor, one of San Francisco's premier museums. Her work has been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, Metalsmith Magazine, and the book 500 Judaica among others. She founded the Metal Art program at the San Francisco Waldorf High School where she teaches classical metalsmithing. Aimee lives in San Francisco with her husband David Casella and son Kaleb. Recycled metals, sustainable, locally sourced materials are used whenever possible. Aimee's Philosophy, in her own words: When I started metalsmithing, it was as if I took the tools out of my back pocket. It felt right. Clearly this was something I was meant to do-- all the time. I was using my grandparents’ story of survival during the Holocaust for a paper in a university class on the Holocaust and Genocide when my grandfather started giving me his tools. With the help of a wonderful metal arts teacher, the idea for my first mezuzahs came into being. They had flames, jail bars, and barbed wire on them, yet they preserved an important Jewish tradition, that I was able to share. In making those pieces and explaining them to the class, I felt the importance of understanding our oneness-- we all breathe, we all bleed, we all experience pleasure and pain. Historically, organized religion has not brought us together. Yet, there are tools in each religion that have value to any human regardless of faith. I want to share Torah so that anyone can use its gifts, which I believe will help soften the lines that separate us. This art is not about converting people to Judaism; this is about understanding that we can all use the vibration of the Torah to raise our resonance, to lift ourselves, to come into peace and harmony with ourselves and the world. The word Israel means: one who has come through a challenging experience while maintaining love in their heart. This is the spirit of the Israel that I envision in the world and the one I wish to share through my art.