Edna Katz-Silver
‘I think I radiate love, and you can feel it. I think when you give it back to me, I double it. I am a gambler. ’
Edna Katz Silver
My grandmother, Edna Katz Silver (born in 1930 in Montreal, Canada), breaks the mould when it comes to ageing.
The analogy is fitting as she defines herself primarily as a sculptor, whose sensibility for shaping her world is a continual project, extending into all facets of life, from an actual art practice to fashion, cooking, friendships, entrepreneurship, teaching, acting, card playing and self–knowledge.
It was my idea to make an exhibition together in 2025 in Milan at Gió Marconi Gallery, so I could finally manifest the truth I always knew: that despite her being my paternal grandmother, Edna is foremost an artist. We had been preparing for our show together for just under a decade, from the time in 2016 when I first asked her to make a needlepoint, even though we had no idea how it would actually turn out; I definitely didn’t imagine that she would be able to travel to Italy and join for the opening at the age of ninety-five, but that is exactly what happened.
Ever since I was a child, I have always been curious about Edna’s curiosity. It seemed boundless and exciting, but could also end in disappointment and confusion. Despite that, I have never seen her settle into a comfortable routine or give up chasing her dreams. She is always up for meeting someone new, trying something out, going on an adventure, without judgment. As she moves into her ninety-sixth year, she feels more alive to me than ever, and funnier.
We haven’t lived on the same continent for over twenty years, so I have her dextrous commitment to technology to thank for our daily video calls. She is committed, for the time being, to still living on her own in order to experience the freedom and artistic potential of every single day.
She has always been honest and unflinching about the realities of her long life, her loves and losses, her inherited traumas and the effects of her own choices. She models resilience and determination, two qualities that I have understood are essential to living a good life. But it is her loving curiosity for being alive that stands out among her gifts, and which I hope can inspire others.
- Allison Katz
A Dream Of a Lifetime
Edna: My darling, Allison, it is with the greatest joy that I share with you an exhibition that's been a dream of a lifetime.
Allison: I know. I feel we have communicated in our life together, primarily through this shared creativity. I want to ask you if the needlepoint,
the act of sewing or stitching, feels like some kind of full circle.
Edna with AK
Edna: It does, because my mother had the capacity to sew beautiful things. She made all my clothes, and for my 16th birthday, my father bought me a sewing machine. And so I began to sew. I made my own clothes and so many other things. I made things as I discovered them.
Allison: To me, the needlepoints were capturing almost the material memory of your youth.
Edna: Yes. Because a lot of the material that goes into it comes from the fifties.
Allison: Things you've saved from your own father who had a sewing business.
In a way, that’s what you grew up with. I was curious about imagining how the very beginning starts to meet up with the end, and this cycle, where you would almost have this muscle memory. I think I was right to encourage you to return to this medium.
Edna: I did explode. I just feel that there's even more explosion coming because you see, I haven't given up. I refuse to give up.
Allison: How did you come to the idea of incorporating textures and pieces of your own jewellery?
You have a background in jewellery, but the idea of weaving freehand, where you just start,
and you don't look back…
Edna: It just comes.
It's one colour into another colour. I think “This needs a little extra something”, or, “yes, I think perhaps this will enhance the composition of the other design.” I'm busy with one design, and then the other design, until I go crazy. And then I call you, and I say, “Allison, look at this.”
Allison: What's been fun is watching the needlepoints evolve from afar and seeing them through the lens of the camera, seeing the details, and then finally getting to be with them in person.
It was a very different experience for me, watching how you make them, how you drape them around you, how you carry them. They almost become like clothing.
Allison: Actually, one of my earliest encounters with your aesthetics came as a young child, going into your closet and seeing all of the different clothes, fabrics, your bedspread and headboard. Everything about your world in your domestic sphere was very curated. I started wearing your clothes, probably around age 12.
Edna: Are you aware of the delight I feel in having one grandchild out of five who understands me? That is very rare.
Allison: Yeah. I felt that your sense of style was very inspiring. You saved everything, even clothes you were no longer wearing.
Your clothes were very exciting to me because of that experience of feeling like your world was a magical treasure hunt; going in and finding a piece of clothing or finding a kind of style. By wearing your clothes, I was experimenting with who I could be.
When I was younger I felt like I met you through your clothing. This needlepoint feels like a return to the beginning of our aesthetic exchange.
I was really learning about textures, colours, and shapes through self-fashioning, finding a way to take what I could find and piece my identity together around that.
Edna: I got started in the family textile business, and there was fashion, so I expressed myself fashion-wise.
I Am Here. You Exist. I Exist Also, And I Need Love.
Allison: It's a kind of language, using materials and art.
You are also very non-hierarchical about expression. You feel as comfortable in more traditionally fine art mediums like painting and sculpting as you do with more craft-based activities like jewellery, making beads, and needlepointing.
Can you speak about this ability to move across all these fields without judging, which is quite rare? It's something I always admired growing up.
Edna: I can't really give you an answer. It was just automatic, going from one to another.
Part of my sculpting turned into my jewellery-making designs.
Allison: Do you think it has something to do with how you think about the body and being in your body?
Edna: I am very sensual. I think the body is beautiful. I think about the miracle and strength of the human form in all its guises, perhaps because of my son who uses a wheelchair. His experience accentuates the fact that I think about all the possibilities of the body’s form. I also think about the interior, and how one’s emotional life can be seen on the outside. A lot of the sculpting that I made in Italy in the early 1980s showed that I needed love. I was going through an especially challenging time.
It was the end of an era for me in my personal life. And the only way I expressed myself was to ask the question: “Where's love?”
Allison: I'm curious: this need for love is very human, and it's very primal, but do you find it in art, or do you just catch glimpses of it and keep going. Is that part of the pursuit?
Edna: It’s curiosity, and the determination to say, “I am here. You exist. I exist also, and I need love.” I show it in my work.
Allison: Did you feel like your identity was bound up in doing?
Edna: I always have to be doing something. That's what keeps me young.
The playing of games, the determination not to be at the level of my age group. I am not 95 in my mind. I am anywhere between 30 and 50.
Allison: Something I’ve heard you say: that you feel really good in your body right now at 95, and that is because you're able to look at your experience and feel all the energy from your long life.
Edna: Yes. Because I realised sadness brings gladness.
I don't know if that's understandable. But you have to learn to rise above it, and experience the beauty of the world around you.
I have done that. I've done that with the experience of travelling, where you meet different people, different cultures. And that brings desire to draw, desire to sculpt, and inspiration. I have a tremendous amount of desire to travel until I cannot travel anymore.
A Mind Is Marvellouse Thing.
Allison: How do you keep so engaged with life right now?
Edna: Trying to solve problems. And yes, there are problems, but
I think if one wants to grow at any age, you have to have a few problems, and you have to be strong enough to figure out how to solve them.
Allison: So what's been your favourite problem recently?
Edna: Trying to get a few people to understand my artistic craziness.
Allison: You mean, your creativity. Why is it important to get other people to understand you?
Edna: Because I grew up not knowing until an older age that I have dyslexia. At that time, nobody knew that word or understood it. I had this inner me who wanted to prove I could do things without sitting in school. And it made me absolutely promise to myself that when I had my own children, I would make sure they could get the best education possible and not go through what I did. And that is exactly what I managed to do for all of my three children: Andrew, Karin and Robert.
Allison: Well, it's the reason why you would almost qualify yourself as a self-taught person. You initiated all your experiences, and you sought out people, and you sought out education.
You left school at a young age, but that only increased your thirst for knowledge.
Edna: Which I seek, and I got quite a bit of it.
Allison: You had lots of different teachers and mentors in the arts. Is that what made you want to be a teacher as well?
Edna: I think so. And then it turns out I became a very good teacher.
Allison: What do you think makes a good teacher?
Edna: Involvement with each student to their level. And the knowledge that they have accomplished something of their own.
I was teaching a sculpting course, and then this girl who decided to come in said to me, “Edna, I know nothing. I can't do anything, and I don't know why I'm here.”
I said to her, “Let me give you three lessons and then come and talk to me.” The end result is that she made four of the most gorgeous sculptures you've ever seen. And I realised that I had the capacity to influence people. It was interesting because I taught children, I taught older people, and I taught French people who couldn't speak English.
I had to, in my broken French, learn how to communicate. It satisfied me. It gave me total satisfaction to the point where now I'm going to teach another class. It's good for the soul to serve.
Also, having a disabled child made me even more determined to teach him that life is worth living. To this day, my crazy sense of humour keeps him going.
Allison: Even as you navigate your own disappointments with other aspects of your family life, you found a way to get it elsewhere.
Edna: I’ve realised that a mind is a marvellous thing.
The more you delve into it, the more you try to understand it, the more you can get out of it. And perhaps there are answers. And when you begin to discover them, you live a freer life.
Allison: You mean free from the pain of other people not being the way you want them to be?
Edna: Right.
Allison: And finding alternative ways.
Edna: Which is young people, creativity, working… And the fact that I've been given the opportunity to still work with these hands.
These golden hands have seen everything, from helping a disabled son to making stained glass to sculpting stone, all in a tremendous way.
I can honestly say, right now, I'm content.
Allison: That's not something I thought I'd hear you say, because throughout my life, in some ways, I got the feeling you were not content. And that you are kind of fiery and a little bit angry…
Edna: I am content sitting here with you now. What will happen tomorrow?
I cannot tell you. But right now in this situation, I am content.
Allison: Making this exhibition has brought you, I think, a certain amount of reflective contentment. But I wouldn't describe you as a person who is content, but that's not a bad thing.
Edna: If I were always content, Allison, I wouldn't have done half of the things I've done.
Allison: Exactly.
I Think I Radiate Love. When You Give It Back To Me, I Double It. I Am A Gambler.
Allison: I also wanted to ask you about your social life: how you make so many new friends.
Edna: That's a mystery.
I think I radiate love, and you can feel it. I think when you give it back to me, I double it. I am a gambler.
I've gambled in life. And sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.
My friends know me as a gambler, especially when I play bridge at home.
Allison: Do you think there's a degree of gambling involved in art making?
Edna: Always. Especially with sculpting.
Because you can't erase a line. It's interesting, because there's a different feeling when you sculpt than when you paint or make jewellery. It's a desire to stab, and that's where my strength comes from.
The large, big commission pieces I've done have absolutely been a challenge in life, both physically and mentally.
Allison: Something that I have always seen from you is how you fully integrate art into your life. How do you work at home?
Edna: I need to get inspired. It depends on when I wake up in the morning, what phone call I get. That will determine the start of the day, and the weather will determine the rest of the day.
Whether the creativity is there or not, or if it’s the last minute to finish the articles I've started. I also look forward to playing bridge. Everything is integrated.
Allison: You go see a jeweller, then you'll go play bridge, then you'll work on the needlepoint.
There's a kind of fluidity. You'll see a friend, and you'll work on the computer.
Edna: That's exactly what I do. And I'm delighted that I've made friends with the people that I collaborate with, such as my acting agent Jenny, and my friends Victoria and Zen.
I'm privileged to know they would do things for me that they might not do for other friends.
Allison: Do you bribe them?
Edna: No, I don’t bribe them… They go out of their way to be with me, rather than me having to go out of my way to be with them, which makes it nice. And I think that's where being 95 comes into the situation.
Allison: Tell us a bit about the young people around you.
Edna: I am fortunate to be able to say that in this crazy world we live in, I have been very fortunate to have several neighbours, both of different religions and geographical locations, who unashamedly, I will say adore me, and who have helped me a lot through sharing technology, food, jewellery…
Allison: How did this bond start?
Edna: The bond came from being neighbourly, as I usually am, and being in the same apartment for over 20 years, I've decided I'm queen of the floor of the building. And anybody who's on the 15th floor has to pass me. And they have. And so, I sneakily find out what new technology they have and they've come through for me. When I don't know certain things, or my iPad stops working, all I have to do is knock on their doors. God bless them all.
Allison: You were even able to strike up friendships with your teenage neighbours!
Edna: There were two young boys that came from Iran who I befriended. And I sort of consciously adopted them, and they helped me with so many things. They really looked after me, almost like grandchildren. They learned the Canadian way from me.
They were knowledgeable in so many different ways. I did not realise the capacity I had for speaking about politics. I enjoy discussing what's happening across different countries and the troubles in the world today.
And they, being very intelligent, were feeling very comfortable coming up, sitting with me, having a cup of coffee, and talking.
They helped me buy a car, sorted out insurance, and everything that I needed.
Allison: And this is when you were 90?
Edna: Yes.
Jack Of All Trades, A Master Of Some.
Allison: They were the ones that photographed you at home. I asked you to ask him to take a photo of you in your bedroom because, as long as I can remember, you've had this very regal arrangement—the headboard you sculpted out of aluminium, the painting above your bed, that particular bedspread.
But I didn't know how you would stage this particular image, and I didn’t know where we would use it. I just knew that we needed to capture the scene.
Edna: It was done. As simple as that.
Allison: What I love about it is that it is a kind of truthful form of acting, because that really is a scene that I remember as a child that I wanted to capture.
You also have a background in acting. Do you see acting as a similar process to art-making?
Edna: Absolutely. It had its own little niche in my history of life. It just came naturally.
Allison: I found it pretty amazing that you started acting at the age of 78, and like any actress, you get more rejections than roles, and yet you have not diminished your appetite for that at all.
Edna: No, it's like, “Hey world, I'm out here. This is me. I have created everything.”
Allison: So, you just brush it off.
Edna: Till the day I die, Allison.
Like all my paintings and my sculpting, everything talks to you—as if to say, “Where are you? Why are you, when are you?”
That's okay because when I get up in the morning, I go through the living room, where I have my painting, and I say, “Good morning!” Then I go out to my balcony with all my beautiful little flowers, and I do a lot of work out there.
Amazingly, it's become my workshop in the summer, and at the end of the day I always look forward to making a nice gourmet meal.
That’s very special to me. I will sit down in my dining room with all my beautiful china and crystals, and I will have dinner by myself, because I think I'm worth it.
It's as simple as that. There's nothing more to say.
Allison: That's nice. I mean, you do cook for one, and you make a big experience out of every meal.
Edna: Oh yeah. Why would I not, when I’m surrounded by all of the beautiful things I have collected in my life?
Allison: It's a ritual.
Edna: A long time ago, I made the decision to treat all of life like a ritual and say to the world, “This is me.”
Right now, I'm beginning to think maybe I have accomplished something. And all of this time I have said, “Jack of all trades, a master of none.” But that's not true. I am a master of some.
‘Where are you? Why are you, when are you?’
‘I'm looking forward to great things. If it's meant to be, it will be’
Edna Katz Silver
Become Part Of Edna’s Story
Follow Edna's ongoing work and creative journey on Instagram, where she shares it as it unfolds.