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Adam Lovitz
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
Photo by Aaron Richter
A dam Lovitz, 36, has spent a majority of his life painting. So,
like any true artist, he has a couple of favorite works.

“Milk Moon Residue” is a lavender, creamy display.

Lovitz said it gives him a sweet and tender feeling, like a quiet breath,
a moment of purity, a moment of honesty.

“Lunch Break” is the opposite. Lovitz described it as a regurgita-
tion of “a lot of stuff” like veggies, fruit and even what appears to be a
lightning bolt. “Lunch Break” represents chaotic busyness, according
to the painter.

Together, the paintings show the duality of everyday life, the artist
explains. “A very quiet, distilled moment and a bubbly, oozy, kind of every-
thing moment,” he said.

One might say that Lovitz’s art is imitating life. It’s an effect that the
Jewish painter and Media resident aims for every day in his home studio.

“There’s a duality in us all,” Lovitz
said. In the artist’s own life, his studio
time is Milk Moon Residue — that
moment when he can slow down and
appreciate the beauty around him.

But everything else is Lunch Break. A
sort of chaotic, busy “everything-ness,”
as he describes it.

Like most artists, Lovitz makes time
for his studio work every day. But also
like most artists, he cannot make a liv-
ing on his paintings alone.

In addition to shows at Philadelphia
galleries like Fleisher/Ollman and
Commonweal, the artist works as an
adjunct professor at Temple University
and Rowan University. Soon, he will
start a full-time role as an art teacher at
the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
in Bryn Mawr.

Lovitz is married to his high school
sweetheart, Emily Lovitz, and they
have two sons under 5, Isaiah and Levi.

While his wife works as a teacher, Lovitz
needs to support their family, too.

But he pledges to never give up his
painting, either.

“It’s all out of a sense of love. I’m
going to find a way to make this work,”
Lovitz said.

Lovitz’s mother, Sandi Lovitz, was also
a painter, but she had more of an entre-
preneurial spirit, according to the son.

She would paint on the canvas, but she
would also paint furniture or jewelry.

“I’ll put my creativity anywhere,”
Lovitz said, explaining his mother’s
philosophy. The son is different. He prefers the
canvas. He became confident on it
in high school, and then decided to
make it his focus at the University of
Delaware. After college, Lovitz, who grew
up and became a bar mitzvah in
Havertown, returned to the area to
earn his master’s at the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts. Then he
lived in South Philadelphia for 10 years
and worked at restaurants and bars to
make ends meet.

The artist was a night owl, and while he
wanted to paint in his studio until 4 a.m.,
he was often bartending instead. He said
his shift to teaching and fatherhood put
him on a more normal schedule, which
he prefers. He vows to never go back to
the serving and bartending life.

Lovitz does sell paintings. But he
does not sell enough to live on it as his
income for the year.

“Since I’m a dad, I’m a daytime
painter. It’s nice to work in the sun-
light,” he said. “It’s constantly adapting
to new rhythms of life.”
The artist thanks his wife for bal-
ancing his chaotic and multi-faceted
income with a stable one of her own.

But since they are high school sweet-
hearts, Emily Lovitz was always aware
of what she was getting into, according
to Lovitz. He has warned her that he
will never just go sell insurance.

Emily Lovitz, for her part, said her
husband’s artistic path never really fac-
tored into her decision to be with him.

“He’s my partner. He’s my best
friend. So I don’t necessarily think a
career will make or break a relation-
ship,” she added.

And their dynamic has clearly
worked. Just this year, the couple
moved out of the city and into their
suburban home. It’s an ideal place for a
young family to grow up.

Lovitz didn’t belong to a specific
synagogue as a kid, though he cele-
brated holidays with his family. But
the painter and his wife, who grew up
Methodist, are starting to look into
synagogues so their young sons can
attend Hebrew school.

Emily Lovitz thinks the relationship
works because, just like their respec-
tive careers, her personality is more
grounded and Adam’s is more spon-
taneous. “I think it’s always just been a good
balance,” she said.

The artist is happy with this life.

He understands that most of his artist
friends can’t make a full-time living
with their art, either. So if they want to
keep doing it, they have to work other
jobs and then make time.

They have to embrace the chaotic
busyness. But it’s worth it, Lovitz said.

It’s the art, after all, that brings him
back to his Milk Moon Residue.

“It’s just something that I always
found a sense of, ‘I’m interested in this
and I’m going to keep doing it natu-
rally,’” he said. JE
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