ABOUT ME: PERETZ SCHMUKLER
ARTIST • TEACHER
For as long as I can remember, I have been creating.
Some of my earliest memories are of holding a pencil and drawing on paper shopping bags, even before I was old enough to write. Creativity always felt natural to me.
I grew up seeing art being made. Although my father Shlita is a lifelong Rabbi and Sofer, I remember occasionally seeing him paint at the dining room table in the late evenings.
As a child, while other children sold lemonade on the sidewalk, I was selling my drawings. My older sister, Devorah, acted as my accountant, helping me keep track of our twenty-five-cent sales of hand-drawn portraits and sketches. Some of those drawings still remain in people’s homes today.
What began as childhood doodles became a lifelong pursuit.
Over the years, I have worked in painting, drawing, illustration, music, animation, education, and visual communication.
I attended the Academy of Design in Montreal, where I studied digital art, animation, and multimedia. While those studies expanded my creative toolbox, my painting style developed independently through years of observation, experimentation, and practice.
Throughout the years, my work has appeared in schools and camp programs, educational projects, exhibitions, publications, Lag B’Omer public displays, and private collections. Long before going into painting full-time, creativity had already become the language through which I communicated ideas and taught concepts.
Beginning even before my Bar Mitzvah, at around age twelve, I participated each year in the design, painting, and preparation of artwork for the annual Lag B’Omer parade in Montreal.
During the day we studied, but in the weeks leading up to Lag B’Omer we would often spend long nights working on the artwork, sometimes continuing into the very early hours of the morning.
Among my most vivid memories from those years was seeing my teacher and mentor, the renowned Chassid, kabbalist, and mashpia, Reb Volf Greenglass OBM, join us in the creation artwork and posters for the parade. He was also a gifted artist and musician, and each year he would personally create signs and artwork that accompanied the parade.
What left the deepest impression on me was not merely that he painted, but that he chose to spend his precious time doing so. Despite being a great Torah scholar, educator, and servant of HaShem, who was exceptionally careful with his time, he would come and join us during those late-night sessions. I still remember seeing him remove his hat and jacket, roll up his sleeves, and enthusiastically join the work with genuine joy, warmth, humor, and encouragement.
As a young student and artist, I cannot overstate the impression this made on me. Here was a person whose life was devoted to Torah, Chassidus, and serving HaShem, yet he chose to spend his precious time with us, painting signs and helping prepare artwork for a Jewish educational event.
A major early highlight of my artistic career was serving as the senior artist in charge of art development for The Jewish Expo, a large traveling multimedia Jewish educational experience developed through the Shluchim Office. The project combined art, education, technology, and hands-on learning in an effort to bring Jewish ideas to life for children and families. Media reports at the time described the Expo as an interactive educational museum featuring exhibits, games, workshops, and immersive learning experiences. The project ultimately traveled through Canada, Europe, Australia, the United Kingdom, and 40 U.S. states, reportedly reaching more than one million Jewish children.
Another meaningful chapter of my early artistic life involved creating educational artwork and public displays for Jewish community events and Chabad programs. Several of these projects were presented in photographs presented to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In particular, I once had the extraordinarily meaningful opportunity to have a major exhibit of my work seen by the Rebbe on Lag B’Omer, as a long flatbed tractor-trailer carrying the exhibit that I directed and created with yeshiva colleagues passed before the Rebbe at the main Lag B’Omer parade in front of 770, Chabad World Headquarters.
As you can imagine, for me as a young Rabbinical Student and artist, this occasion was deeply meaningful, especially because it was the Rebbe’s teachings that shaped my understanding that art could serve a purpose greater than self-expression alone, but rather become a personal channel dedicated to the service of HaShem.
One of my largest creative undertakings was The Kneidles, an animated musical series developed over many years. The artwork, animation, characters, stories, music, lyrics, and production were all created personally. The project was an opportunity for me to combine art, music, education, and meaningful ideas into a unified creative contribution.
Throughout my life, I have been privileged to see my artwork find homes in private collections, schools, camps, community institutions, and family spaces where it continues to be enjoyed years later.
WHAT INSPIRES ME
My artistic life cannot be separated from my spiritual life.
Alongside decades of creative work, in addition to receiving my rabbinical ordination from Canada’s distinguished Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung OBM, I have spent much of my life studying and teaching the inner Torah teachings of Chabad Chassidus.
From childhood, I was privileged to be directly influenced by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I was fortunate to be present at many Farbrengens, as well as having the merit to serve as his emissary as a student Rabbi to Caracas, Venezuela, and other places in South America, while also receiving his blessings on many occasions, BH.
The teachings of Chabad Chassidus have profoundly influenced how I understand life, education, creativity, and serving HaShem with inner purpose in everyday life, as well as how art and music affect the way we experience life.
As a result, I believe art has the power to educate, inspire, communicate, elevate, and transform the atmosphere of a space.
Many of the ideas explored in my paintings have their roots in Chabad Chassidus.
My goal is that although my paintings are intended to stand on their own visually, I try to give voice to invisible ideas and express them through words, color, art, and music.
TODAY
In recent years, as I healed from cancer, Baruch HaShem, I had to step away from much of my artistic work. Yet that experience changed me and gave me a deeper perspective on life in many ways. I had time to reflect more deeply on life, gratitude, purpose, family, serving HaShem, and what truly matters.
Now, returning to my art studio does not feel like simply returning to an old hobby. Rather, it feels more like returning to a meaningful calling and one of the unique ways I can serve HaShem using the gifts that have been entrusted to me by the real, unmatched Artist and Creator of all, through the gifts of art, teaching, and music.
Today I work out of my studio in Jackson, New Jersey, where I live with my family.
MY GOAL
To create artwork that brings beauty and meaning to beautiful spaces and to the people living within them.
The Talmud teaches that beautiful homes and beautiful things broaden a person's mind (Berachos 57b). I believe our minds and moods are affected by the environments in which we live.
For that reason, I see art as more than decoration. At its best, it can bring beauty, inspiration, reflection, and a sense of elevated purpose into everyday life.
Thank you for taking the time to visit.
If you would like to keep in touch, hear about new artwork, upcoming collections, music, lectures, or some of the ideas that inspire my work, I would be happy to hear from you.
You are welcome to join the conversation by sending me a message through the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Peretz Schmukler
