Rising Stars: Meet Hashana Rothenberg

Hi Hashana, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I was born in New Jersey and come from a family with a long history of musicianship, painters, and a deep passion for cooking and food. I began writing poetry and painting around the age of 7. I had ideas and feelings that felt too big to stay in my mind so I would “write them out” or “paint them out.” It would feel like a relief once they were someplace other than in my head. Also around this time, I began experimenting in the kitchen.

I found so much joy in trying to make up a dish with what was in the fridge and pantry and then seeing how beautiful I could arrange it on the plate for my mother. With a lot of trial and error and undesirable burnt fusions of foods, my mother is a saint, as she would always taste it anyway with a smile. I poured myself into painting and writing as a child and adolescent, and while I always enjoyed cooking I truly fell in love when I was in college and began cooking at a middle eastern restaurant blocks from the Jersey shore. I was able to combine food and art. I discovered part of my purpose in this life when I cooked for others.

After I graduated college, I moved to Arizona in 2005, where I could continue my work as a Chef. To me, the desert was home. I loved how Arizona made me feel inside, how inspiring and diverse of a state it really is. I could escape to the forests in Flagstaff on my motorcycle, hike the red rocks in Sedona, star gaze for hours at Lake Powell, and be a part of the very small but growing community of artists and foodies in Phoenix. In 2007,I became the head chef and kitchen manager of “ I am The Center” Bistro, in Tempe. One of my dishes made the front cover of Phoenix Magazine later that year. In 2008, after the owners decided to close “ I am the Center,  I began cooking for an alternative cancer clinic in North Phoenix which forever changed and influenced my style of cooking and how I prepared food and even my art pieces.

My artwork has always had a sense of emotions in motion. I want to share with the viewer a look into my mind and how I “feel paint” and color as the extension of my mind. I want to take the viewer to a place where they can feel the colors and the brush strokes. Where they question what they are looking at and walk away feeling something from that piece. I want to create pieces that can be looked at over and over again and each time it provokes something deep within the viewer that they can connect with, in their own way.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Although I came from an artistic family, the joy of playing music, making art, writing, and cooking were hobbies of theirs while it became my professional passionate pursuit as a career. My parents feared for me as so many artists and cooks barely get by. I never simply wanted to be a line cook nor did I want my paintings to sit in the corner collecting dust for decades.

I wanted to sell my work, do commission pieces, and prepare delicious healthy beautiful meals for people as a refined Chef. I grew up with very few friends so I spent most of my time alone and pouring myself into my art forms. Painting, writing, and cooking are when I feel at home and aligned with myself. It allowed me to be in motion and turn the negative or confusion into something positive and healing.

In 2009, I got married. Within that same year, my spouse began emotionally and financially abusing me. I stopped painting and writing for several years. I tucked myself away emotionally and went into survival mode. In early 2016, I got the courage to begin to break free. I was awarded my divorce in 2018. During the divorce, I opened the flood gates and stepped back into who I really am.

I produced piece after piece and have put myself back out into the world again, aligning with my purpose as a refined chef and painter.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I do commission art pieces and many other completed pieces are for sale ,please contact me directly for pricing and availability. I work with oil, acrylic, watercolors, dry and oil pastels. Some of my work will be on an online exhibit in May 2022 at www.st-anthony.net under ” The arts council” featured artist.

I am available for private cooking retreats, cooking classes and events.