Meet Mor Koren, Long Island’s own Olivia Newton-John and creative force

They are her “babies.” Each and every one of them.

Painted Coca-Cola bottles — their logos swirling into the burning sky of her take on Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” another morphing into Olivia Newton-John’s signature wavy hair as Sandy in “Grease.”

Elsewhere: large wooden pallets transformed into vibrant outdoor scenes, a lion’s face drawn with a Sharpie on a dried autumn leaf, and even etched skillets that have been transformed into nighttime vignettes.

No canvas is off limits for Mor Koren Schwartz — a mother, artist, singer, animal advocate, graphic designer, former Israeli Army sniper, and now creator of “Hopelessly Olivia,” a full-band tribute show honoring the late pop icon Olivia Newton-John.

It’s her latest “baby,” joining a sprawling family of creative works born from her seemingly boundless imagination.

“They come from my psyche, my emotion, my feelings. They’re born from my experiences,” said Schwartz of Dix Hills. “With some of them, I’ll agonize over making them. And others will come out easier. But either way, it’s quite amazing to see something brought into creation that didn’t exist before.

“Any aspect of art is creation — and creation is a type of birth,” she added.

Immediately following high school, she served in the Israeli Army, as all citizens are required to do. But she didn’t just serve. She excelled.

“I was the best sniper in my class,” the small but commanding performer said plainly. “Just had a good eye. Good hand-eye coordination.”

It’s a surprising detail, given the warmth and softness she radiates now — someone more likely to hand you a homemade vegan muffin than a rifle. These days, she spends her time painting on salvaged treasures and castoffs, belting out Newton-John ballads, and raising two boys on Long Island.

She landed in Los Angeles expecting to make music and receive mentorship. What she found was something darker.

“I was living in his house — with his wife,” she recalled. “After I sang at an Independence Day celebration and received a huge ovation from the crowd, everything changed.”

The man who lured her to America began pressuring her to sign a contract. “‘My grandchildren will make money off you,’ he said,” Schwartz remembered.

Having no legal papers, no car, no phone and no one to call, Schwartz felt trapped.

The secretary at the man’s animation company — which Schwartz later learned was tied to the adult film industry — took pity on her and helped her find a room in someone’s house. Rent was $500; and Schwartz had just $300 to her name.

“I gave him $100 and promised the rest by the end of the month,” she said.

The aspiring recording artist found work through an Israeli-run construction company and began biking to work 40 minutes each way on her roommate’s bicycle.

“It was nuts,” she said. “But little by little, I started figuring it out.”

In the months and years that followed, she began recording music she had written. With a friend behind the camera, she recorded a low budget but impressive-looking music video for a song called “My Galaxy.”

“I couldn’t believe what he did with the editing,” she said. “We filmed for a few hours, and he turned it into something magical.”

Schwartz never stopped creating.

Her art is wildly varied — painted glass bottles, intricate jewelry, layered sketches, customized shoes, etched cooking pans, and more. And it’s everywhere you look inside her home.

“Most artists have a style,” she said. “Picasso had cubism. Others work only with oils or watercolors. But I do everything. I paint on rocks. In journals. On frying pans.”

Her supplies are hardly fancy.

“Markers, mostly,” she said. “I didn’t have time for brushes when I had the store. I’d use acrylic markers and seal it with clear gloss.”

Even her children’s school pencils have been pressed into service.

“I hate promoting something so unhealthy,” she said of the brand, “But the design is truly genius. So I always make it part of the art.”

In one piece, the brand’s lettering becomes part of the flame-red sky in The Scream. In another, it flows into the golden curls of Newton-John’s hair. Her Coke bottle creations include themes of Superman, wild cherries, and the children’s movie “Despicable Me.”

And then there’s the lion’s face and mane — drawn on a leaf she found while waiting at the bus stop with her boys.

“I looked at the leaf on the ground, and in my head, I was seeing a lion looking back at me,” she said, completely serious. “It’s bizarre, right? But that’s how it works. Sometimes it just comes to me.”

“You see her arm holding the baby? That’s also the cow’s head. And the baby calf? He’s the ear of the pig. They all share features. They all share life,” she explained.

Among her favorites is a pregnant woman emerging from a sideways guitar.

“The guitar is hollow — but it’s not empty,” she said. “She’s pregnant. Her neck is the neck of the guitar. It’s all connected.”

Schwartz’s sons, ages 10 and 13, are her world. She co-parents with her ex-husband, who lives just minutes away.

“My boys are my buddies. They adore me,” she said. “I went through so much so they could have it good.”

She spoke of the physicality of sound waves: “Sometimes I can almost see it — the music touching people. Like when someone stops chewing mid-bite and looks up. You feel that connection.”

Schwartz performs solo at local restaurants and other venues, hauling her own PA system, taking tips, and connecting with whoever shows up.

“I’ve had people send their kids up to me with a dollar,” she said. “That means the world to me.”

Her setlist is a genre rollercoaster: disco (“especially diso,” she notes), rock, Latin, pop, musical theater, even classical crossover. She sings in Hebrew, Spanish and English.

Jason noticed it too. “When you sing Olivia,” he told her, “people really feel it.”

At first, Schwartz only knew a handful of Newton-John’s songs. But as she dug deeper, she fell in love with the artist behind the voice.

“She was classy. She was an advocate for animals,” Schwartz said. “She had real talent — singing, acting, everything. That is rare.”

Newton-John’s music, Schwartz discovered, is remarkably timeless.

“’Grease’ is multi-generational,” she noted. “Teenagers today still know ‘You’re the One That I Want.’”

Recently, while watching an episode of the Netflix series “Fubar,” which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, she jumped out of her seat, she said, when Newton-John’s “A Little More Love” played during an pivotal scene.

“I was like, oh my God, this is perfect,” she said, excitedly.

That’s when she really knew that Newton-John’s music still matters. And no one else on Long Island seemed to be keeping it alive.

“You can find 10 Taylor Swift tributes, five Chers, seven Fleetwood Macs,” she said. “But Olivia? I think I’m the only one [on Long Island].”

Her goal with “Hopelessly Olivia” is to take the show on the road.

“I want to tour with it. I want to reach people with it,” she said. “I want to spread good vibes — and maybe some of my own songs too.”

Her brain, she said, never slows down.

“It’s the opposite of writer’s block. I have too many ideas,” Schwartz said with a whimsical smile. “I wish I knew where the off switch was. It would help with my insomnia.”

The bigger picture

“I want to make a difference,” she said. “I want to paint pretty flowers — but also something that matters.”

Her advocacy is still at the heart of her work. Animal cruelty saddens her to her core.

“It bothers me. It really bothers me,” said Schwartz, who is raising six chickens and has five cats.

And the current crisis in Israel hits close to home. She visited there in 2023 for the first time in 11 years — just one month before the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

She explained that her past “Olivia” audiences have expressed an incredible amount of gratitude to her.

“They’re so grateful. They want to connect,” she said. “And I think I was meant to do that — connect.”

That’s what “Hopelessly Olivia” is about for Schwartz: perpetuating a voice that continues to lift hearts, and using her own to do the same.

Sound waves carrying through the air, from one body to another, making someone stop, look up and feel.

‘My Galaxy’ by Mor

_{Top photo: Singer and artist Mor Koren Schwartz with two of her wooden pallet paintings inside her Dix Hills home (Brian Harmon photo).}