Rosa Lowinger's Dwell Time is an immigrant’s story seen through an entirely new lens, that which connects the material to the personal and helps us see what is possible when one opens one’s heart to another person’s wounds.

Tombolo welcomes Rosa Lowinger to the bookstore to share more of her stunning debut memoir that is a moving portrait of a Cuban Jewish family’s intergenerational trauma, and a story about repair and healing that will forever change how you see the objects and places we cherish and how we manage damage and loss.

Dwell Time is an immigrant’s story seen through an entirely new lens, that which connects the material to the personal and helps us see what is possible when one opens one’s heart to another person’s wounds.

Lowinger will be in conversation with local fine art appraiser and museum professional, Ashley Burke.

Rosa Lowinger is the author of Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair (Row House Publishing, 2023), a book about conservation written for a general audience that blends the precepts of conservation with a history of her Cuban Jewish family. The author also Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub (Harcourt, 2005) and Promising Paradise: Cuban Allure American Seduction (Wolfsonian Museum), she founded and current serves as a conservator for RLA Conservation, LLC, a firm with offices in Los Angeles and Miami,. Rosa holds an M.A. from NYU's institute of Fine Arts, and is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. She serves on the boards of the Florida Association of Museum and the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals and led the team that conserved the Antioch mosaics for the St. Petersburg Museum of Art.

Ashley Burke is a fine art appraiser and museum professional with 20 years of experience. She is Accredited by the Appraisers Association of America with a specialty in Postwar, Contemporary and Emerging Art and holds a master’s degree in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Burke has her own consulting firm Burke & Co Fine Art Consultants, located in St. Petersburg, Florida. She has worked extensively with collectors, museums, and auction houses around the Tampa Bay Area including the Ringling Museum of Art, Tampa Museum of Art, James Museum, Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, and Blackwell Auctions. Her practice focuses on the stewardship of collections including developing documentation protocols and long-term preservation plans, exhibition project management and oversight, and providing appraisal services for charitable contributions, insurance, and estate