![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/DrLyoneHochman.jpg\"\/)
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nWhen Dr. Lyone Hochman retired after decades as a Houston gastroenterologist, his wife had one request. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever heard this saying,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cWhen I retired, my wife looked at me and said she married me for better or worse, but not for lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, Hochman set out to find something to fill his days.<\/p>\n
Living in Museum Tower, just steps from the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, he wandered into a sculpture class, despite having no artistic background.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d done zero sculpture, zero anything like that at all,\u201d he told the JHV. \u201cNothing in the arts ever. I was handy around the house fixing things. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He expected a pastime.<\/p>\n
Instead, he found a passion.<\/p>\n
Today, Hochman spends his days bending wood into graceful curves, welding steel into intricate forms and creating sculptures that seem to defy the limits of their materials. Retirement didn\u2019t simply give him a hobby. It revealed an artist he never knew existed.<\/p>\n
However, the learning process wasn\u2019t always easy.<\/p>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nCreated in honor of Dr. Lyone Hochman\u2019s granddaughter, Maya, this Star of David sits at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cThey basically just watch you make mistakes and then give you some ideas for next time,\u201d he said of his instructors. \u201cThey really make you muddle through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was frustrating at times, but the process taught him something medicine had taught him decades earlier: Solving difficult problems requires patience.<\/p>\n
Then came another surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never imagined I\u2019d be good at welding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, steel is as much a part of his vocabulary as wood. He purchases much of his metal from Triple-S Steel. Specialty pieces are cut to order by Metal Supermarkets before he transforms them into sculptures that balance strength with movement.<\/p>\n
One of his most ambitious works weaves 32 feet of bent wood into intertwined circles that appear to float. Another combines weathered timbers and steel in a study of balance. A large steel bell, built after his grandchildren challenged him to make one they could ring, carries its rich tone throughout the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Some works are deeply personal.<\/p>\n
For granddaughter Maya\u2019s 2024 Bat Mitzvah, Hochman created a sculptural Star of David that reimagines the ancient Jewish symbol in bold geometric forms. It stands at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, reflecting both his growing confidence as an artist and his connection to Jewish life.<\/p>\n
Then, somewhere along the way, sculpture stopped being something Hochman did. Instead, it became part of who he is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m trying to go to sleep or I get up in the morning, I\u2019m not thinking about anything other than what kind of sculpture I\u2019m going to make or how I\u2019m going to mechanically produce what I\u2019m thinking about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What began as a single class to fill his retirement days has become an indispensable part of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just started out taking one class thinking it would occupy a little bit of time, and now if I can\u2019t get to the studio for a couple days, I get a little fidgety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hochman says his sculptures rarely end where he expects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never end up finishing with what I started with,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you start, it takes on a life of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
It turns out, the same could be said of retirement.<\/p>\n
Watch for more stories of how seniors have transformed their retirement year in future issues of the JHV. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Dr. Lyone Hochman retired after decades as a Houston gastroenterologist, his wife had one request. \u201cI don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":986415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4345,362280,31034,362279,362278,362277,12642,358,3187],"class_list":["post-986414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-synagogues","tag-jewish","tag-jewish-herald-voice","tag-jewish-news","tag-jhv","tag-newspaper","tag-texas","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117053398051613315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/986415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}