Life after politics is sweet for Honey

Goshen — The latest artwork on display at the Goshen Gourmet Café includes a thought-provoking collection of photographs taken on location in Vietnam and Cambodia. Each evokes a mood and tells a story. Look closer, and you will discover that the talented photographer on the description card is none other than Goshen’s former town supervisor Honey Bernstein in a fascinating new venture that is taking her around the world. When Bernstein, a Republican, lost her run against Democrat Tom Pahucki for Orange County legislator, she did not consider it the end of the world. In fact, she has seen more of the world since losing that election. A day or two after her term as supervisor ended, she enrolled in a digital photography class at the International Center of Photography in New York City to see if she really liked it. Within a couple of weeks, she bought a camera and found herself headed to India to start shooting. In addition to India, Cambodia, and Vietnam she has been to Morocco, Moldova, Mexico, Israel, France, and Croatia, all in a year and a half. She joked that she comes home only to do laundry. “I can’t believe it, but I really like it,” she said. She usually checks out a location for a few days or a week before getting to work. Sometimes her husband meets up with her for a portion of the trip. She continues to take courses in New York City, and has attended photography workshops in Maine and Santa Fe in New Mexico. In July she’ll be leaving for Mongolia and Tibet. Before all of this, she had never before done anything related to the arts. She said she had missed quite a bit in the way of art education. “I broke out in hives whenever I went into a museum,” she said. “Now I look at art in a different way.” Through sharing her work with others, she was contacted by an organization known as Americans for UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), an agency that addresses woman’s rights and population control. Until President Bush was elected, she said, the fund received $34 million from the U.S. The U.S. is now the only major country and United Nations member that contributes nothing to UNFPA. Bernstein is helping the affiliate organization in the United States raise money for this cause through her photography, which appears on cards and other promotional materials. She joined the Hudson Highlands Photography Club and won third place in the photography category in a show at Newburgh Free Library. Next month she and other club members are exhibiting their work at the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville. She finds the club, which brings in key speakers every month, very informative. She didn’t put her name on her first photos from Morocco that she exhibited because she felt so new at it, but has since gained confidence. Bernstein has always been adventurous. She interned at The Jewish Health Institute, an organization similar to Doctors Without Borders that sent her to Moldova, a country between Romania and the Ukraine. This organization sent health care professionals to teach and train middle management in some of the world’s poorest countries. She studied journalism at New York University and edited a small magazine on the Israeli West Bank, where she also worked for the wire service United Press International. She lived in Israel until she was eight months pregnant with her son. When her son was nine months old, Bernstein start law school, one of the most challenging years in her life. She was also on the Goshen school board, from 1992 to 1998, and was board president for a couple of years. The organization Global Leadership, which sponsored her trip to Cambodia, asked Bernstein to lead a delegation to Peru next spring. She will photograph the delegation as they seek new projects for micro-lending seed money, primarily to women in third-world countries for start-up, community-based businesses. The projects, like sewing or baking, are geared toward women because they are more likely to pay back the loans. Locally, she documented “a day in the life” of a family of migrant workers. Look for her photos at Goshen Gourmet Café or see her work on display at the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville in July.