Bat mitzvah girl raises £1K for charity from artwork in memory of grandmother
'When I paint, I feel like I'm achieving something,' Jasmine told Jewish News
An amateur artist has raised over £1,000 for Cancer Research UK on her bat mitzvah, selling her paintings in memory of her late grandmother.
JCoSS pupil Jasmine Chadwick, 12, from Borehamwood, exhibited at a restaurant in Bushey on Sunday 22 prints of her work, including acrylics and water colours.
“I like to paint very magical fantasy type stuff, and some of the paintings were animals,” Jasmine said. “One of them was a giraffe. Another was a tiger, and one was a peacock.”
“I do any work I can every day,” she said. “When I paint, I feel like I’m achieving something.”
The paintings were inspired by a gift Jasmine had received from her grandmother Angela before she died of lung cancer five years ago.
Jasmine’s mum Amanda, 44, told Jewish News: “My mum had a very strong connection with Jasmine.
“She was also an artist, and she liked ballet, and a lot of Jasmine’s paintings were from a book my mum had given her, which was ballet illustrations.”
But Jasmine also drew inspiration from a sedra delivered at her shul Borehamwood and Elstree Masorti Synagogue, she added.
“There was a commentary saying there was a requirement to give a gift and make it unique and individual and for the greater good. She wanted to achieve that for her bat mitzvah by giving the gift of her artwork and selling it for charity for a better cause.”
The evening attracted close to 100 guests, with some people travelling from the US, Australia, Thailand and Sweden for the occasion. “Jasmine created the evening. It was all Jasmine. We said it was all ‘Jas-ified’ because everything came from her,” her mum said.
“Jasmine is very family-orientated and always wants to help people and give money to charity. It’s not that I don’t but it all comes from her,” she added.
But for Jasmine, the highlight of the evening remained being hoisted up in the air on a chair. “I was sat on a chair in the middle of the dance-floor and everyone lifted me up on it,” she said. “I was scared I was going to fall.”
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