Age Just One of
Many Numbers for
Barbara Mishkin
B
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
arbara Mishkin looks at the clock in the middle of an inter-
view. It is 3:32 in the afternoon. This is meaningful.
“I’m a numbers person,” she explained. “And I always
feel my angels are looking after me. 3:33 is a very special time. I
just want you to know that.”
Another number that’s important to Mishkin: 75. She recently
reached that milestone, but the 75-year-old who splits her time
between an Upper Gwynedd 55-plus community and Florida
said that she feels 40. Another twist: Mishkin feels that she
started her second life when she turned 50. What’s more, a
medium once told Mishkin that she had spent 200 revolutions
around the sun as a “line worker for God.”
Perhaps the answer is that Mishkin, who is retired, is ageless;
maybe she’s 40, and maybe she’s just passed the two-century
mark. It’s not entirely clear. What’s abundantly obvious is that
her energy for The Inspiration Project, an artistic undertaking
that started as a nice idea and has grown into an in-demand
service requiring a team of volunteers, is based on an ageless
principle: It feels good to do things for other people.
“Why am I so engrossed in gratitude and inspiring people?”
Mishkin asked rhetorically. “Because I’m just doing it for them!
And then I, secondarily, get so much.”
With The Inspiration Project, a nonprofit she started in 2016,
Mishkin sends her original artwork and reproductions to tired
spirits in need of a lift.
Residents at the Abramson Center for Jewish Life and
Federation Housing have received Mishkin cards, reproductions
of her original paintings and photographs embossed with stirring
sentiments (“Life is a New Journey Every Day”; “Positive Mind,
Positive Vibes, Positive Life”). So have homeless Philadelphians,
children used to going without and others served by Samaritan’s
Purse. She’s created artwork for the Special Olympics and Wesley
Enhanced Living.
Local nursing homes clamor for Mishkin’s output, which
ranges from wallet-sized squares to 8-by-11-inch works ready
for a frame. Well over 16,000 frames have been prepared by
Mishkin and a rotating volunteer staff of 12. Her painting style
and photographic interests have changed and changed again, as
her husband, Nelson Mishkin, can attest, but many have the look
of outsider art — odd figures and geometric shapes mixed with
more traditional brushstrokes; on top of the photographs and
more abstract work are words that are just, well, nice to remem-
ber some times. Her own inspiration can come from something
as simple as a fallen leaf.
Mishkin’s project includes a Facebook page, where her daily
musings are shared with hundreds of followers, many of whom
actively interact with her. For those who aren’t on Facebook,
she’ll send a daily email with the same content. The day before
Thanksgiving, she sent an illustrated poem that she’d come
across to me individually, and then sent another a few days later.
“I gravitated towards this when I found it because of the
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SEE MISHKIN | Page 8
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM THE GOOD LIFE
DECEMBER 17, 2020
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