fort useless

oriana on 30 May ’12

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: music & events | active since: 2009 | links: website, facebook, twitter

In a dense (and getting denser!) corner of Bushwick, Fort Useless, a DIY show space housed in what used to be an underground punk venue, is a stone’s throw from the Schoolhouse, Goodbye Blue Monday, the Bobby Redd Project, XPO 929, 6 Charles, and probably a few more I forgot. Although Fort Useless is mostly known for music, they’ve also got a monthly comedy showcase called Spit-Take Fridays, a regular Songwriter Salon, movie nights, dance performances, visual art exhibits, occasional storytelling events, and straight-up parties. It helps that it’s an extremely malleable space, and also that Jeremiah, who runs things, is deeply committed to fostering community, and is happy to turn over the reins to various friends and collaborators who want to put together their own events.

Fort Useless is gearing up for a big weekend during the upcoming Bushwick Open Studios (June 1 through 3), with an art show, a Spit-Take Friday, a live music show, and a Songwriters Salon. Head on over to catch some or all of that, but first read my interview with Jeremiah!

photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: What made you decide to do this?
Jeremiah: I’ve been involved with music the whole time I’ve been in New York. I was in a band, Man in Gray, and I got involved with booking shows through that. We didn’t know a lot of other bands, so we tried to coordinate musicians to get to know each other and play shows together, which eventually resulted in us creating StereoactiveNYC. Anyway, we’d played shows at the McKibben Lofts, we’d played shows Todd P produced, and those were some of the funnest shows I’d been involved in. So I wanted to do something like that.

photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: What was the first show here?
Jeremiah: We had Sharon Van Etten and a bunch of people I was friends with: Jared Friedman, Gabriel Miller-Phillips, Kristie Redfield, Manny Nomikos, El Jezel. It was just a slapdash sort of thing, but it ended up being one of my favorite shows I’ve ever done in my life. It was an auspicious start.

Sharon Van Etten, photo by Maryanne Ventrice

brooklyn spaces: How would you characterize the music you have here?
Jeremiah: The space sort of dictates that we can’t have a certain type of music, because we’re in a mixed-use building with residences above us, and I try to be as respectful as possible. There’s definitely a loose-knit community of bands that are regulars here, and the great thing about them is that it’s about musicality, the skill of writing songs and performing them. The bands are more about the music than about the scene. But I guess everyone thinks that.

Gunfight!, photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the other events you have here.
Jeremiah: We have a monthly comedy show called Spit-Take Friday, which is put together by George Flannagan of El Jezel. It’s been really successful. A lot of comics have said they love doing it because there’s always a crowd here that’s here to laugh.

George Flanagan at Spit-Take Friday, photo by Maryanne Ventrice

brooklyn spaces: What else?
Jeremiah: There’s our Songwriters Salon, done by my friend Jared. We have ten or twelve people play three songs each, generally one new song, one old song, and one cover. We encourage performers to talk to the audience in between songs and get feedback. It’s a salon in the old sense of the word, where people are sharing and communicating. One person called it “Songwriters Anonymous.”

Songwriter Salon, photo by Maryanne Ventrice

brooklyn spaces: And visual art, right?
Jeremiah: That’s the newest thing for me. Because comedy, as different as it is from music, there’s sort of a basic similarity. You’ve got to book something, you have to have a schedule, you have to have some sort of organized thing for a night to flow. But art? The way an art exhibit is organized is so backward to me, based on my years spent dealing with musicians.

"120 dB," photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: Do you curate the shows yourself?
Jeremiah: I try not to, although I’m about to do my second one. The first one I did was for BOS 2010. It didn’t have a theme, I just wanted to have whatever we could get, get as many people involved, showcase as much work as possible. It was cool and people like it, but it really taught me how not to do a show. The one I’m doing for the upcoming BOS is much simpler. It’s called “XNY,” and it features two artists, Daina Higgins and Bryan Bruchman, who were longtime residents of New York and both moved away to different cities. Daina does photrealistic paintings of urban landscapes, and Bryan is a photographer. I have this idea that once you look at a city like New York, you look at other cities the same way, so I wanted to have their work displayed together and see what that looks like.
brooklyn spaces: That sounds like an awesome idea for a show.
Jeremiah: I hope so. I have a real love for BOS because it’s sort of why I ended up in Bushwick. I’d been to a lot of things out here, but spread out over a long period of time, so I hadn’t really thought of it as a neighborhood. But then I went to a friend’s band playing a showcase during BOS and wandered around the neighborhood, and it made me see Bushwick in a new way.

"120 dB," photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: How’d you pick the name?
Jeremiah: My friends’ band, Unsacred Hearts, has an album called “In Defense of Fort Useless.” I love their band, I love that album, and I love that name.
brooklyn spaces: Is it a commentary on how you’re doing something incredibly useful in the neighborhood?
Jeremiah: I mean, I knew that was there, but it’s not why I picked it.

brooklyn spaces: What are some of your favorite shows that have happened here?
Jeremiah: Well, like I said, the very first one was incredible. The Mardi Gras and BOS shows are our biggest. One that I really loved, last spring I had a bunch of friends who had been in amazing bands and were each starting new projects, and we had four of them here—Weird Children, nightfalls, Passenger Peru, and Clouder—all playing their very first show in this new incarnation. It was the most packed this place had ever been, and it really drove home to me that this is such a strong community. And the bands all sounded amazing.

Weird Children, photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Jeremiah: This may sound cheesy, but Fort Useless is really not about the space we’re in, it’s about who’s doing it. And I’m not sure how much longer we can stay in this space and continue to grow. We’re in no rush to get out of here, but if we find the right thing that we can transition into, that would be amazing. I’d like to be able to vary the kinds of shows we do. Jess Flanagan has curated two dance shows, and they’ve been great, but I would like to have a space where she can put on the show she wants to put on, instead of having to scale it down to fit this space. Also, we were en route to becoming a not-for-profit, but plans kind of stalled. We’re hoping to get that going again.

***

Like this? Read about more music and event spaces: 285 Kent, Vaudeville Park, Gowanus Ballroom, Silent Barn, Monster Island, Shea Stadium, Bushwick Project for the Arts

vaudeville park

oriana on 25 Mar ’12

space type: art & music venue | neighborhood: williamsburg | active: 2008–2013 | links: website, facebook, twitter

Vaudeville Park is a plucky arts venue with wildly diverse programming. It sits right on the borderline (at least, the current one) between Williamsburg and Bushwick. Run by experimental composer and multi-instrumentalist Ian Colletti, Vaudeville Park has shows nearly ever night, including all kinds of music (from synth to neo-chamber to ladies of experimental music), literature, film (from Noir Night to avant garde), dance and performance art, gallery shows, comedy, discussions, workshops (from yoga to circuit bending), and more. The space has been active for almost four years, and is now starting to get a lot of attention from the media, including regular mentions from the likes of Time Out New York, Brookly Vegan, Artcat, and Rhizome. Ian is one insanely busy guy who is also incredibly passionate and enthusiastic about the work he does. Check out my interview with him, and then please, go see something amazing at Vaudeville Park!

Ian Colletti, photo from Vaudeville Park's Facebook

brooklyn spaces: How did you get started with all this?
Ian: I’m from New York, born and raised, and I’ve been an artist and a musician pretty much my whole life. It felt like the early 2000s were a dark time for counterculture in Williamsburg. I mean, there was a lot of cool stuff going on for artists, but that was when groups like the Strokes and Interpol and Ambulance LTD, and really high-fashionisa galleries were huge. It was an appropriation of mainstream, cookie-cutter ideals into counterculture. It was like everyone who was in a band really just wanted to be a model in a Levi’s ad. Now artists have a chance to really represent themselves through their own savvy with the internet, but at that point there were just a few labels and magazines that promoted musicians. I was living with this guy from Fader magazine, and he was like, “Man, if you want to start your own weird art collective, you have to kiss these people’s asses.” I was like, No way. I just didn’t want to be part of this phony, arrogant, silver-spoon kind of thing. But I was really worried about the culture here, so in 2007 I stopped playing shows and performing, saved up as much money as I could, and turned my recording studio into an arts venue. The first show we had was Dreamtigers, by Brian Zegeer, who’s one of my best friends. He just headlined the Queens Museum “International 2012,” along with two of my other good friends, Ben Lee and Rachel Mason, both of whom have been really involved here. There’s an extreme synergy here that’s really important.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Was it a nonprofit from the start?
Ian: Well, it was always nonprofit in its mission. We’re sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts now; they picked Showpaper two years ago and they picked us last year. NYFA is good people, but we need our own 501(c)3, which we just went for, and we need to get larger grants.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: How do you pick your programming? Are you the only one who directs it?
Ian: Yes. Basically the mission of Vaudeville Park is to represent underrepresented artists of high craft. My goal is to pair the best minds and artistry and craft in music to the best visual and performance art. I really feel that people’s eyes have gotten bigger from constantly looking at things, but their ears have gotten much smaller. People don’t listen to records, they don’t really put effort into making records, and if they do it’s just ear candy, it’s less performance-based, there’s less heart and soul, it’s not as evolved. So I wanted to have a venue for counterculture music, like dark wave, coldwave, post-whatever, and new chamber and post-classical music. I felt that if I put the music in a gallery context, it would up the ante, like, “This music better be pretty damn good because these visual artists are so good.”

art by Alexander Barton, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: So all the shows are music plus visual art plus something else?
Ian: Well, no. We have several different programs, and sometimes we combine them. There’s a gallery art program, with one show a month, either a group show or a few specific artists. Then there’s an archival film program, which includes one of our most famous shows, Noir Night. We’ve also had cartoon carnival stuff, we’ve had optics, we’re now working with the curators at Millenium Theatre and Anthology Film Archives, and we’re starting to have closer ties with the Kitchen. Then we have a TV program on Manhattan Neighborhood Network with my good friend Scott Kiernan, who does ESP TV. Then we have a performance art program. There are only four galleries and art spaces in New York City that host performance art. We’ve done a bunch of performances in the past, recently Esther Neff and The Penelopes and Performancy Forum. And finally we have the music program. We do workshops too, we’ve hosted a lot of extremely successful workshops, the biggest one that everyone constantly asks for is the electronics in music workshop for circuit bending. But we just can’t do it again without funding.

circuit-bending workshop, photo from Vaudeville Park's Facebook

brooklyn spaces: What about your own art? What kind of music do you play?
Ian: I do a lot of stuff, I’m a multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer. I was the first featured soloist in the Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in November, and I made all these crazy handmade instruments and soundscape synthesizer stuff. I’ve done a lot of film scores, dance scores, music for fashion. I mostly do new works for chamber. The music that I’m doing now, the best way to put it is the orchestral coldwave height of pop that was never made. It’s like post-romantic coldwave blitz with eighteenth- to nineteenth-century post-classical music, and also a lot of Latin jazz and obscurities.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of your favorite shows here.
Ian: One of my favorites was a Crystalline Flux installation, because one of the things I want to push for Vaudeville Park is doing something totally new, something that’s almost like a trip back to Bauhaus, or Kaprow’s Happenings, which were installations and events where a whole art space was transformed into a stage full of specific performers. So a bunch of my friends—Ben Lee of Beta Copperhead, Brent Arnold, Anthony Johnson, Caleb Missure, and Naomi Rice, who’s in a band Next Wave Festival—we transformed the whole space into a stage that would specifically fit one performer, kind of like a static music video. That was one of the most special art events I’ve ever been to. Also Noir Night is one of my favorite ones, I really think it works with the intention of the space. And I really like the Dreamtigers and Avatar Atavistic, and Myra Brim’s gallery show “April Sky,” and Christy Walsh’s dance piece, this flamenco classical guitar thing. I like pretty much everything here, it’s kind of a blur.

[below, from Ladies of Experimental Music: Leah Coloff, Meaghan Burke, and Valerie Kuehne; photos by Maximus]

brooklyn spaces: Let’s talk a little more about the neighborhood. Do you feel like being here on this weird cusp between Bushwick and Williamsburg affects the space?
Ian: Vaudeville Park is not a Williamsburg space, I’m not trying to make it “Williamsburg-y.” It’s the gateway to Bushwick arts, since we’re on the first block of Bushwick. During the last Bushwick Open Studios, the L train was down and we were the first place people saw. That’s a great festival, Arts in Bushwick works really hard.

brooklyn spaces: You’re getting a lot of attention from the media lately, but ultimately, this is a small space. Is there any worry you’ll get too well known?
Ian: No. Lots of shows here are really packed, but I’m trying to only do things that make sense in a smaller space. This is an arts venue, it’s done with no money but with the best programming and art possible. And by being good to people and treating artists well and believing in this community, you can go a long way. People who have run spaces like this, they do it for a couple years and then give up, and they have every damn right to, because it can be really hard and really frustrating. But what happens if you don’t give up? What happens if every time you think, “This is as far as I can go,” you’re like “Let’s go further”? What happens if we just keep expanding more and doing better? I’m really excited and happy to be doing this and to have all these special people involved. I’m really lucky.

***

Like this? Read about more arts venues: Chez Bushwick, Gowanus Ballroom, Bushwick Starr, Monster Island, Bushwick Project for the Arts, Fort Useless

chez bushwick

oriana on 1 Nov ’11

space type: dance studio | neighborhood: bushwick | active since: 2002 | links: website, facebook, myspace

Chez Bushwick, an artist-run dance studio and performance space, is one of the vanguards of the modern incarnation of Bushwick as an artist haven. Founded by choreographer Jonah Bokaer and cellist Loren Dempster, Chez Bushwick started out as a practice studio in an industrial loft, a place to give experimental dancers and choreographers room to gather, collaborate, practice, and create. Almost immediately they started hosting performances in the space, and it became a general gathering place for artists and creatives. I’ve seen at least a half-dozen shows there over the years—I used to live around the corner from Chez Bushwick, and it was one of the spaces that made the neighborhood magical.

Chez Bushwick rehearsal studio, photo from New York Social Diary

By 2008, Chez Bushwick had become a nonprofit, and since the craziness of Bushwick was already on the wane, they shifted their focus and began a partnership with the new LEED-certified dance space Center for Performance Research, which was cofounded by Bokaer and John Jasperse of Thin Man Dance. Now most of the performances happen at CPR, and Chez Bushwick is primarily used as a studio for dance rehearsals, artist workshops, and classes in yoga and capoeira. They have an annual program called Chez Bushwick Presents—an artist-run performance series highlighting work by emerging artists—and host some performances during festivals like Arts in Bushwick’s Beta Spaces, Bushwick Open Studios, and SITE Fest. Chez Bushwick also does community youth outreach in conjunction with the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, among others.

photo by Michael Hart, from BushwickBK

According to Bushwick BK, “Chez Bushwick is a neighborhood arts anchor, an ambassador… for Bushwick’s creative community, and above all, a great place to hang out with your neighbors and watch some cutting-edge performance. It’s location is fitting: Chez Bushwick manufactures culture.” I couldn’t agree more.

Folk Feet, photo by Michael Hart from Brooklyn Arts Council

Q&A with Christina, program manager, and Lindsay, studio manager

brooklyn spaces: What are some favorite shows you’ve done or seen here?
Christina: About a year ago we produced David Wampach’s Bascule. He’s a French choreographer, and he came and rehearsed at Chez Bushwick with three New York–based dancers—Michelle Boulé, Liz Santoro, and Brian Campbell—and then the show was presented at CPR. It was a massive amount of work, but it was phenomenally well received, and it was really exciting to see. I also love Konic Thtr, whose show we co-produced at the CPR. They’re from Spain, they work with technology as much as with choreographers, and it’s very visual, they have a lot of projections, they’ve got a live-feed video mixed in with the movement. Otherwise I’m always delighted to work with a range of different artists who are all very inspiring and exciting. In the past year, just to name a few, we’ve worked with Anya Liftig, Tatyana Tenenbaum, and Ivanova Silva, who put together a show featuring choreographers and performers from Latin America, Japan, and Europe. I was so thrilled to see our small organization represent such a spectrum of perspectives.
Lindsay: For the last Bushwick Open Studios I was given the opportunity to bring together some performing artists, and that was wonderful. There’s something really free about that event, and the casualness of presenting really personal, important art that can and does exist without a lot of production.

Anya Liftig performing during Bushwick Open Studios 2011, photo by Christina deRoos

brooklyn spaces: What unites all the different work you present and support?
Christina: We’re definitely focused on contemporary choreography and performance, and on experimentation. We try to give artists full creative freedom, to support artists at all career stages, and to really look at what’s pushing the field forward, in terms of different approaches, different types of collaboration, uses of technology, or anything else.
Lindsay: The artists I’ve seen come through here have all been asking questions with their work. They’re not conserving or memorializing any kind of past ideology about art making; it’s all of the present.

Konic Thtr performing at CPR, photo by Christina deRoos

brooklyn spaces: What are your thoughts about being an arts organization in Bushwick these days?
Christina: I’m incredibly thankful overall to Bushwick. This is by far my favorite community I’ve ever been a part of. I came here a few years ago, along with many many many other artists who were leaving Dumbo, and it was incredible, there was an energy you could feel, creativity and freedom and openness and a real lack of rules. Now we’re all very aware that things are shifting. It feels like a loss of youth, even though I’m well aware that this neighborhood was here for a long long time before we came in, and it’s fraught with all the things that come with gentrification. But I can hold many truths at once, and among them is a sense that this is a very special time and place, and I remain, depending on the day, more or less hopeful about what the next phase might be. But there’s no doubt the dynamic has changed, and that changes not only the individual experience, it changes the creative output of this neighborhood, which impacts the city as a whole. What makes an organization like Chez Bushwick and the many other small nonprofits incredibly important is that this is where things begin. If you don’t have a very supported, open atmosphere at this level, then what you end up with at BAM is not going to be very interesting.

Andrew J. Nemr tapdancing, photo from Greenpoint Gazette

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Lindsay: Dancers often have residencies out of town; you generally need to leave in order to truly dedicate time to what you’re doing. So we’ve been talking about ways to provide something like a staycation, but a stay-residency, to give people the opportunity to be at home, in their home space, and have their art in the same locality. There’s such an extraordinary need for that, especially for those who are just starting out. You can work in the dance field for a long time and still have very little support.
Christina: We’re also looking at improving the studio itself. We redid the floors this summer, we got a grant to put in soundproofing from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, who are just phenomenal. Also we’re looking at new ways to give support to people for whom maybe this is the first support they’ve ever gotten. I really want Chez Bushwick to help artists realize that if you get out of bed and feel good about the work you’re making, or even if you feel crappy but know that’s part of your process, that’s success. I want us to acknowledge people and the work they’re doing, to be a voice for everyone who says, “I’m not staking my entire life on ending up in MoMA; I make art because it’s a way of life.” I think that’s probably the biggest cultural driver we have. I just want to tell everybody: “You’re good! You’re doing amazing stuff! You’re driving this city! Nobody’s patting you on the back for it, but you are.”

student preparing for Nation of Nations peformance during CHFS’ Arts & Literacy Street Festival in Maria Hernandez Park, photo by Christina deRoos

***

Like this? Read about other performance spaces: Vaudeville Park, Cave, Bushwick Starr, Clockworks Puppet Studio, Cave of Archaic Remnants, South Oxford Space, The Muse

the schoolhouse

oriana on 4 Sep ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: art collective | active since: 1996 | links: facebook


According to The Bushwiki, PS 52 was built in 1883 and served as an arts-intensive elementary school until 1945, when it was sold for use as a manufacturing space.

I couldn’t find any information on what happened to it over the next fifty years, but the New York Times steps up to fill in the space’s modern history: in 1996, a twenty-something artist named Erin McGonigle found it listed as a rental in the Village Voice. The building was decrepit and overrun with debris, and Erin and some friends took five months getting it into livable shape. When they started living in the refurbished Schoolhouse they called themselves ORT, an acronym for “organizing resources together.” In 2002 the second floor opened, ushering in the second wave of the collective.

Some artists who passed through in those early years include: photographer David Linton, Yale drama critic Sunder Ganglani, poet Ariana Reines, composer Keiko Uenishi (who works with Issue Project Room), Grace Space director Jill McDermid, video artist Tia Dunn, Smithsonian dancer Samir Bitar, costume designer Kaibrina Sky Buck (who has paintings in the Museum of Sex), trash and performance artist Gertrude Berg, journalist Erika Yorio (who wrote for Nylon), musician Toshio Kajiwara, artist Elliot Kurtz, filmmaker Derek Deems, blogger EV Bogue, and artist Mariette Papic, who gave me a ton of information to help with this piece.

In addition to serving as home for a revolving cast of artists, the Schoolhouse (also sometimes called the Old Schoolhouse or the Old Red Schoolhouse) hosts plenty of events. A small sampling of the musicians who have performed there over the years: Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Magnum, Verbal Graffiti, Spanish Prisoners, Madame Beak, The Christopher Complex, Zachary Cale, Revival Times, The Asteroid #4, Hollow Jones, and DJ Polarity. Todd P has even put on some shows there.

The artists currently living in the Schoolhouse (there are about twenty spread over three floors) consider themselves the third wave of the collective. They run the gamut of creative pursuits, including photography and visual arts, musicians and DJs, fashion design, jewelry making, screenprinting, and even mobile art. One of the benefits of the space is of course how freaking huge it is, and though many of the bedrooms are kind of tiny, the vast common areas make up for it. I sat down with Justin, Chris, Willy, and Dave to talk about their experiences living and making art in this incredible space.

brooklyn spaces: Were you guys drawn to this space specifically, or to Bushwick in general?
Willy: The space. I’d never lived in Bushwick before, I didn’t really know much about it. I’d been to a few different spaces that were built out and thought they were cool, but I’d never seen anything like this before. You walk in here and you just feel the creative energy. And now I get to come home to it.

brooklyn spaces: Do you feel like being here has affected the way you do your art, the choices that you make thematically or physically?
Dave: Absolutely. A big thing about this space is having people bounce off each other, and inspiring each other to be greater and to dream bigger. How could you not be affected by other creative people? You’d have to be an alien.
Justin: We all have our more and less productive periods, but for the most part, most of us are always working on something. So you go into Chris’s room and you get inspired by what he’s doing, or you go downstairs and see the screenprinting and get inspired by that. And then the building itself, having artists living here for so long, it has this energy that just resonates. It’s a give and take; the more you put into the place and the more you’re doing, the more it really gets energized. But there’s definitely always something going on that you could tap into.

brooklyn spaces: I know in the space’s early years there were some robberies and trouble with community integration. Do you feel like you guys have overcome that?
Dave: Yeah, when we started throwing the block party. Block parties are incredible, every community should do it.
Chris: The block parties are a lot of fun. We do that every summer.
Justin: Everyone in the neighborhood comes out and contributes. This year they roasted a pig.
Willy: There was a giant inflatable water slide. We had the ball-throwing machine where you get dunked.
Dave: We put speakers on the roof, there was a live mariachi band, and then we played old funk records, hip-hop, salsa, Brazilian music, for the block, you know? To show the love and appreciation we have for all art and music. It really makes it safer for the artists who live here.
Willy: Now we know everyone, everyone looks out for each other.
Dave: You have to be a part of the community. You can’t just narrow-mindedly walk past the people who live right next to you. During the block party we open up our home and show people that we’re cool, that we’re in the same struggle. Artists ain’t making a lot of money, you know what I mean? So now everybody sees each other as human beings, and that’s beautiful.

brooklyn spaces: How did you get it started? Did you just go knocking on people’s doors?
Chris: We actually did have to go door-to-door to get the petition.
Dave: Yeah, but it started before that, once we made friends with Sonny. There’s always a hawk on the block who watches, a grandfather spirit, and that’s the person you have to meet and be friends with. It was actually his idea to do the block party. And then we took our strength and went and got the permits to show that we were serious, that we were taking an initiative in the community.

brooklyn spaces: Are you involved with the greater Bushwick art community?
Dave: Yeah. Jason Andrews, who does Norte Maar and Storefront, he stumbled in on one of the music shows here and he scooped me up, and then he showed Justin’s artwork at one of his galleries, so it just all started being interconnected. I performed for the first BOS show at the Collision Machine three or four years ago. I think Arts in Bushwick really started to connect the different spaces, because everybody could come and see everybody’s space and meet each other. We do shows at the McKibben Lofts now, and they come do shows over here. It’s an ongoing artistic explosion.

brooklyn spaces: Do you have any thoughts about being an artist in Bushwick these days?
Dave: I don’t think anybody can take credit for what’s happening; I think it’s universal, I think it’s a sign of the times. This area is just part of that shift. Hopefully it’s the beginning of a greater world, a new belief that we want to get together and be creative again, to be dreamers again. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everybody’s cut out to be on Wall Street, not everybody’s cut out to be a doctor. Some people just like to fucking paint, some people want to beat on a drum. And we should let that live, not stifle it with overpriced rent and over-gentrification.
Chris: As far as art in Bushwick, I think it’s awesome. I think things like Bushwick Open Studios are brilliant. We need to get more recognition out here. Manhattan’s boring, nothing’s really going on in Manhattan. People still sometimes look at Bushwick and think dangerous, like Bed-Stuy, dangerous, and I think it’s just ridiculous. People hear about us and go, “Oh, a bunch of white kids in the ghetto making art.” Not really, we’re hanging out with our neighbors, we’re doing our thing, everybody’s doing their thing, and we’ve got this beautiful space to show for it.

***

Like this? Read about more art collectives: Flux Factory, Swimming Cities, Monster Island, Hive NYC, Arch P&D, Bushwick Project for the Arts, Silent Barn

trinity project

oriana on 13 Aug ’11

neighborhood: east williamsburg | space type: nonprofit, art studios | active: 2009–2012 | link: facebook

The Trinity Project is a fantastic, pioneering nonprofit organization working to integrate artists more completely into the communities where they live. It’s an alliance between East Williamsburg artists, the Most Holy Trinity–St. Mary’s Parish, and the Saints Joseph and Dominic Catholic Academy, wherein artists are given subsidized studio and rehearsal space in exchange for community service, whether tending the grounds, staffing church events, or teaching art to the students at the school. It’s a fantastic rebuttal to those who think artists insulate themselves within their neighborhoods, and proof that community alliances are possible across racial, economic, and even religious lines.

To get involved with them (they’re always looking for volunteers), email info@thetrinityprojectbk.org. But first read my interview below with Monica Salazar, who co-founded the project with Megan Tefft.

The lead photo is of Janice Purvis’s studio, taken by c. bay milin. For more from c. bay (who took many of the photos below as well), check out cbaymilin.com.

Trinity Project artists at Most Holy Trinity sanctuary

Bike-In Movie, photo by c. bay milin

photo by James S. Rand

brooklyn spaces: What gave you the idea for this project?
Monica: I read an article in the New York Times about the Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint, which rents out their basement for events like F.E.A.S.T., and their choir lofts for band rehearsals. I also knew St. Cecilia’s was doing something similar. I’m a musician and I have a background in theatre and dance, and I just thought that was so cool. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for years, and I’d always walk by this church, although I’d never been inside. So I emailed the friars and asked if they had any extra space, and they responded immediately and were really interested. So we decided to come up with a barter program, and just started filling up the space. We have bands practicing at the empty church, we have twenty visual artists in this building, we have a rehearsal room for different dance and theatre groups. We threw a benefit on the roof, we built a gallery upstairs.

Pre-K students in a Halloween mask-making class

brooklyn spaces: What do the artists do in return for the space?
Monica: Lots of different projects. A lot of them maintain the buildings or the grounds, or for example there was a parishioner centennial birthday at the church and we had some artists do the decorations and make a video montage. We also found out that the school on the other side of the church—Pre-K through eight grade, 260 kids—had zero art education. So about ten of the visual artists have been helping out there, and that’s where the program is working the best. At this point we’re actually braided into the curriculum; we aren’t an after-school program, we’re actually there during the day with the kids. It’s really cool.

photo by c. bay milin

brooklyn spaces: How do you decide who’s going to do what? Do you have artists with teaching backgrounds?
Monica: Some do, some don’t. As we’ve progressed, we’ve come to realize the type of people we’re looking for, which is a hybrid of high-caliber art and commitment to community service. This isn’t a coddling artist’s residency; everybody does all the dirty work.

 

 

Lotte Allen, photo by c. bay milin

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the events you’ve had. You were involved in Bushwick Open Studios, right?
Monica: Yeah, for the last two years, and we had our own open studios last fall. We’ve done face-painting booths and such at street fairs. Last summer we had a series of concerts and movies at Saint Mary’s.

photo from Trinity Project's Facebook

brooklyn spaces: So it’s all been really successful?
Monica: Definitely. But this is a funny time. The church is being sold, and we’re going to be out of this building, so we’re majorly condensing everything we do. We’re going to refocus, distill what we’ve been doing into what’s working the best, which is working with the kids. We’re going to reduce it to four visual artists and four theatre, dance, and performing arts groups.

Spring FUNdraiser, photo from Trinity Project's Facebook

brooklyn spaces: Was it hard to cut down the artists?
Monica: Yeah. But we’ve always been very honest, they always knew it was only a month-to-month arrangement. There’s not really a precedent for this kind of program; we’re just making it up as we go along. It’s exciting that we’ve been able to be in this building for fourteen months; that’s longer than we’d anticipated. And we’ve definitely secured our relationship with the church, with the school, and with the diocese, and we’re working on leasing a building of our own.

brooklyn spaces: Do you have a favorite event that you’ve done?
Monica: Well, one of the challenges of this project has been that we’re not a religious organization, so the religious community and the artistic one are not always easy to bring together. But one really successful event was a holiday concert we had in the sanctuary. It was a mix of church performers and artists. Friar Timothy sang, one of the other friars emceed, this awesome church organist played, and the mostly Dominican church choir performed—they were incredible, they blew us all out of the water. On our end were mostly experimental bands doing their take on traditional Christmas music. There was one psychedelic band that was jumping around the altar, whipping stuff around their heads, and at first I was nervous, but the friars were into it. It was such a bizarre night, but really wonderful.

Trinity Project founders at St. Mary's Cathedral

brooklyn spaces: Have there been any problems between the two communities?
Monica: Well, we’ve been extremely emphatic with our artists about being respectful to the community that’s hosting us. I know young artists can be over-bold with their strokes, but this is just not the place for certain kinds of provocative art. I don’t mind it personally—I’m always intrigued by things that push the envelope, and I think that’s part of what artists are here for—but if it’s overtly anti-religious or über-sexual, we’re just not the home for it.

 

Pia Murray, photo by c. bay milin

brooklyn spaces: Are there other neighborhood organizations you work with?
Monica: We work closely with Chez Bushwick and Center for Performance Research. We also have relationships with the Pratt Center, Graham Ave Business Improvement District, El Puente, Saint Nick’s Alliance, and OurGoods.

brooklyn spaces: Had you been looking for an opportunity to bridge the gap between the artists and the neighborhood community?
Monica: Yeah. I lived on Broadway and Graham for six years, and I think it’s always been a little easier for me because I’m ethnic, but my roommates would complain about feeling uncomfortable, or that they made other people in the neighborhood uncomfortable. It just seems so silly to me, but it’s valid, there’s fear on both sides. So this was an awesome opportunity. I also really love church architecture, even though I’m not particularly religious. Plus, artists and the church have a very long, complicated historical relationship, so it wasn’t anything new to combine them. This church happens to be Franciscan, which is very liberal, philosophical, super educated. And the friars that we work with are the best. They’re really, really cool guys.

Like this? Read about more community groups: Trees Not Trash, Bushwick City Farms, Brooklyn Free Store, Body Actualized Center, Time’s Up

950 hart gallery

oriana on 3 Aug ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: art gallery | active: 2010–2012 | links: website, blog, facebook, twitter

950 Hart came relatively late to the Bushwick gallery scene, but they were incredibly busy. In their first nine months, they put on seven shows in their space, plus one off-site at Life Café. The gallery spanned two floors, with the basement holding their permanent collection, featuring work from three of the space’s four founders: Michael Kronenberg, Antoinette Johnson, and Mikki Nylund. Sean Alday, the fourth member of the team, is a writer, blogger, videographer, and unofficial gallery historian. When I went to the opening of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it was pleasantly busy, and several of the artists were there to talk about their work. Everyone I met was welcoming and warm, and eager to share their excitement about the project.

Due to skyrocketing rents in the neighborhood, 950 Hart closed their doors in July 2012, along with several other pioneering Bushwick galleries, including Famous Accountants and Botanic.

Q&A with Michael and Sean

brooklyn spaces: Do either of you have any prior curating experience?
Sean: All I’ve really done is construction and gardening; I learned how to make things lovely through construction, and then with gardening I learned how to put things in the right order. I did a lot of Zen gardening, so my first curating experience was making a little garden on the side of a hill. Then I got here, and I realized it’s another little garden on a hill, and it just needed to be cultivated.
Michael: Sean’s being modest; he’s actually been a godsend. He’s incredibly brilliant and very motivated, and super at coordinating and reaching out to people. He also has a really good idea of what he wants to do and a great eye for new talent.

photo by Sandee Pawan

brooklyn spaces: What made you decide to start a gallery?
Michael: We’re acquainted with a pretty large circle of creative, talented artists, and we wanted to try to get more exposure for them. We started talking about starting a gallery when we were all hanging out. Mikki and I were making art, and Sean was writing and video-documenting everything.
Sean: And Antoinette went out and got four panels and started meticulously crafting the checkerboard pieces that are now in the permanent collection. She worked on the piece for about a month straight. Every time I came by, she was working on it. It’s a very good vindication of the enthusiasm we had about doing this, and it kind of became the reason we were doing it, because everyone was so excited about it. And we all fed off of the excitement; there was no way not to.
Michael: I also want to give a big shout-out too to Grant Stoops, from Bushwick Project for the Arts. He’s the one who talked me into actually showing my stuff for the first time, and now we’ve got some of his pieces in our permanent collection, too. It’s great synergy.

E.V. Svetova and her model in front of her art

brooklyn spaces: Who are some of your favorite artists you’ve shown?
Sean: We love all of our artists, but some who come to mind are Raquel Echanique, Teddi I Rogers, Eisig Frost, Irena Romendik, E.V. Svetova, Sandee Pawan, Worm Carnevale, Jarvis Earnshaw, and Dan Victor.

permanent collection

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the different shows.
Sean: The first show was called “950 Hart,” and just putting it up was big for us. The second one, “Broken Hearts,” was even more exciting, and the responses from both of them were so different that it pushed us to do the third show, “The Garden of Eve.” For that one, we wanted something that was going to push us to be more creative than we had been, and also be unique enough that it would draw more artists and more people who appreciate art spaces.

photo from 950 Hart's tumblr

brooklyn spaces: Do you prefer a certain type of art?
Michael: We like to encourage figurative and abstract art to a certain extent. We like to give enough of a leading narrative so that people can either take it and run with it or reflect back or come in with something completely off in left field. But as far as a criterion for what we show, if we respond to it emotionally, we show it. It doesn’t matter what your name is. We’re not particularly interested in pedigrees; we look for people who are sincere and generate an emotional response from the viewer. We’re looking for positive, energetic, upbeat pieces that are made in Brooklyn—and certain other places as well, as the octopus spreads out his tentacles.

brooklyn spaces: Are you a part of the greater Bushwick art scene?
Michael: Yes. This year we did a show for Bushwick Open Studios, which allowed us to interact more with the community, and let them know we’re here. We had a really good response from the organizers; they were so supportive.
Sean: After that, we did a show at Life Café. Actually, we put up three different shows over the course of a month, framed as art battles.

"Bloom" by Michael Noel

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Michael: To have as many shows as possible, and to eventually expand outward and upward.
Sean: For me, the main thing is progressing the community. We want to leave behind a roadmap for the kids who come after us, because eventually there’s going to be curiosity about what happened here in Bushwick. That’s why I’m videoing everything and blogging as much as I can about what we’re doing. It’s an easy way to feel like you’re doing something for the community of the future.

***

Like this? Read about more art galleries: Ugly Art Room, Wondering Around Wandering, Concrete Utopia, See.Me, Central Booking, Micro Museum, Invisible Dog

hive nyc

oriana on 15 Jun ’11

neighborhood: bushwick | space type: art collective | active since: 2011 | links: website, facebook, twitter

During this year’s Bushwick Open Studios, I had an ambitious roster of spaces to hit, and by a fortuitous chance, one of those was Hive NYC, a nonprofit multidisciplinary art space that is home to a collective of musicians, visual artists, writers, actors, photographers, and aerialists. There was fantastic art on display, by Jewel Lim, Tamar Meir, Our Guy, Sigal Arad Inbar, and Fumie Eshii. And the artists who were there—Yula, Isaac, Kate, and Melanie—were just amazingly warm and welcoming.

Yula, Isaac, Kate, and Melanie, photo by Maximus Comissar

They showed us all around the space, then brought out a lovely little impromptu lunch: salad and couscous, hummus and boiled eggs, avocados and cheese and coffee. They were bubbling over with excitement about their space, their projects, their bands, and the life they’re making for themselves. In addition to art and music, they have plas to green their home with a rooftop garden, compost, a water accumulation system, and doing more buiding with salvaged and reused materials. They even have their own living metaphor: an actual beehive on the roof.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: How did the space get started?
Kate: There was a group of us all playing music together, and we were all into different forms of art as well, like I write, Isaac does theatre productions, we have a saw-player who paints, our trombone player is working on a rooftop garden, stuff like that. So the idea was just to bring in as many people as possible and give them a place to create whatever they wanted to create.

photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: How did you find the space?
Yula: It was so amazing, it happened really fast. About a year ago, I told a friend, “What I want is to have a little sanctuary for the people I know and love, so they could do whatever they want to do.” And in no more than a year, the Hive started coming together. All these people started being drawn in, our friends brought more friends, and each one of them were geniuses in their little ways. So we were like, “Okay, we need a home.” And a month later, I found this place on Craigslist. Isaac came here, and he was like, “It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s amazing!” The landlords are awesome, they’re artists, they said, “As long as you don’t burn the place down, you can do anything you want.” And so we moved in and started doing things. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also really rewarding and fun.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: What was the last show you had?
Yula: We had a show last night, and our band The eXtended Family played with Dolchnakov Brigade. There were so many people here, it was ridiculous.
Kate: It was so overwhelmingly positive too, everyone was just having a great time. I think there’s a mutual understanding that this isn’t a club, this is a place where people live. We had so many people dancing, and all this artwork all around, and nothing got disturbed, there were no problems at all, there was just a really beautiful, positive energy.

Yula and the eXtended Family, photo from streetcredmusic

brooklyn spaces: What are some of the other projects people here do?
Yula: The eXtended Family is the heart, it’s all of us. The music is very eclectic. We call it ro-punk, romantic punk, but you can’t really define it, it’s a mix of a lot of shit thrown together with a kind of punchy attitude, but in a positive way. And then Dolchnakov Brigade is just like a megalomaniac onion, an underdog-ish, fascist kick in the face. There are several other bands who work with us too, there’s Crooks & Perverts, Gato Loco, This Way to the Egress, Torcher Chamber Ensemble.

photo by Maximus Comissar

Kate: We have a website that features writers, artists, music, sustainability projects, and humor, as well as allowing members to barter for goods and services.
Yula: There’s also a Philly Hive. They’re doing events in a place called BookSpace, with aerialists and circus-ish type stuff and book readings and poetry.
Kate: One of our members is the editor of Helo: The Crisis Story Magazine. We’re also in the middle of a Kickstarter to try to raise money to get our roof garden off the ground, ha ha.
Yula: We have bees on our roof now. Thirty thousand little sweet bees! I never thought I would be so comfortable around so many bees. But you can be one foot away from this huge swarm, and they don’t bother you, they just mind their own business.
Kate: Didn’t you name them all Deborah?
Yula: Yes, Deborah the Hive. It’s one organism made of many little things, which is a perfect metaphor for us.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Do you feel like Brooklyn has influenced the way you conceive the space, or do you think spaces like this are having an impact on the way that Brooklyn is right now?
Yula: I think the second. For us at least. You can do pretty much anything you want here if you respect everything else. And if you set that tone, people respond to it wonderfully. Little by little, if you just spread it slowly, you might be able to make a difference in a larger way. As soon as Bushwick Open Studios started and I started walking around the neighborhood, I was like, “We’re not the only people doing this!” It’s wonderful. We just need to make some connections and make this trust circle bigger, broader, and stronger, and then who knows what can happen? I’m hoping that this is just the beginning, that everybody’s going to pick up from this and just do more and more.
Kate: There’s been a pretty big snowball effect since we’ve started. We’ve been picking up more and more people and having a great time. This space has definitely come together very quickly.
Yula: If we can just continue to do what we do and enjoy it, that’s all we really want. Just don’t bother us doing it. World, don’t interfere. If you have any bad intentions, just stay out.

Like this? Read about more communal art spaces: The Schoolhouse, Swimming Cities, Arch P&D, Silent Barn, Monster Island, Flux Factory, Bushwick Project for the Arts

arch p&d

oriana on 7 Apr ’11

neighborhood: ridgewood | space type: art studios | active since: 2010 | links: website, tumblr

The guys who make up Arch P&D—Evan, Ian, and Zak—are some of the nicest, hardest-working dudes I have ever met. Not only were they willing to give me an interview and walk-through of their amazing new space way late at night, they actually set up a private art opening for me and Maximus, new works by Andriana Santiago in collaboration with Evan, weeks before the show will be open to the public. The Arch artists hung out with us for hours, bubbling over with excitement and energy and passion, chatting about art and life and skateboarding and bedazzling and pleasant anarchy.

photos by Maximus Comissar

You’ve probably heard of the previous incarnation of Arch, from their big, bright gallery space on Troutman Street in Bushwick, where they held group art shows and indie boutiques, and were a fixture in neighborhood art events like Beat Night and Bushwick Open Studios. But they’ve moved on, with a new space (in Ridgewood, technically), new goals, new ideas, and new synergy. As Evan says, “Arch was started to create a space where artists could get together and share art and skills, to do work that everyone could benefit from in a sustainable manner.” There are eight artists sharing space at the new Arch, and they make every kind of art imaginable, from visual art to commercial art to music to skateboarding to metal and woodwork. Even with so many people, the space is incredibly organized and doesn’t feel cramped; every workstation is built on wheels, so they can clear out the space easily for parties and events. They’ve got a crazy diverse roster of high-profile clients—including Lady Gaga, Dos Equis, Andrew WK, Dance New Amsterdam, and Lindsey Lohan—as well as working with many other underground Brooklyn spaces, like Red Lotus Room and House of Yes. They also throw art salons and parties, have open hours as a gallery, and are open to collaboration and skillsharing.

 

brooklyn spaces: How did you all come together?
Evan: I met Zak doing a job for Dos Equis. We made steampunk party boxes and a steampunk piano for Andrew WK.
Ian: I met Evan through working with Narcissister. He started pulling me onto some jobs, and I pulled him onto some, and it went back and forth for awhile, until we decided that it was silly not to merge into one entity.

brooklyn spaces: So you guys have lots of high-profile clients, individually as well as collectively.
Evan: Everything is collective now. Together we’re doing what one of us could never do alone.
Ian: Everything in the shop is communal, so long as you know what you’re doing and you clean up after yourself. It’s respectfully collective.
Zak: It’s an open exchange of ideas and materials and tools.

brooklyn spaces: How did you pick the name?
Evan: It’s from a project that I did with a massive group of friends for Pier 59’s fifteenth anniversary party. It was for Fashion Week Spring 2010. We designed a massive Roman set, with an arch and columns and blocks, which took every last bit of help from everyone I knew. And it became obvious that the structure of an arch requires every block in the arch to hold it up. Actually, tomorrow we’re going to go and pick up that arch from storage, and we’re going to install it in the House of Yes for the new show, Caligula Maximus. It’s coming full circle.
brooklyn spaces: Where will it go when House of Yes is done with it?
Evan: I don’t know, it might end up at Materials for the Arts.
Zak: Sustainability is a key element for us. Everything we do is going to get reused or given away.

brooklyn spaces: Has Bushwick influenced the space, or Brooklyn in general?
Zak: Bushwick is the pulsating center of art in Brooklyn right now. It’s where everything is happening.
Ian: I think even the way we’ve set up the space, it has a Brooklyn feel. It’s open, there’s no walls between our spaces, everything is there for everyone to see.
Evan: It’s all DIY and scavenged, the windows leak, it’s freezing cold, you’re working in the shop in all your clothes. That’s Brooklyn.
Zak: Survival skills.
Evan: Also it’s really bleak, it’s this post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland.
Zak: In the wintertime you walk out there and it’s like snowfields and dilapidated train tracks and broken-down warehouses, but what’s coming out of here is what people deem some of the most beautiful artistic work in the world. On the outside this building looks like nothing, but inside we’re creating stuff that’s on Fifth Avenue. The juxtaposition is fantastic, it embodies the whole situation.
Andriana: And we’re remaking the neighborhood. It’s just about taking what you have, whatever it is, even if it’s old or dirty, and making it your own and creating your own life. Whatever you want it to be.
Ian: That’s what’s so beautiful about this space, it’s all of our dreams put together, making it into a collective dream.
Evan: I’m gonna cry.

brooklyn spaces: What else is even in this immediate neighborhood? Are there other artists creeping out?
Evan: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of lofts out here that are filled with artists.
Andriana: We’re like roaches.
Zak: Yeah, we come out at night and we’re impossible to get rid of.

brooklyn spaces: Will this space be open to the public like the last one?
Evan: We just recently did a gallery show; obviously this will be an ideal place to have art hanging on a regular basis. We’ve been open to the public for about five events. We’re trying to find where our public presence as a space exists.
Ian: A lot of it comes from opening up the space to other artists. We’re open to helping people who don’t have the space to do larger projects.
Zak: We’ve all been there, having a concept but not the space to realize it. So we’re more than willing to help out other artists with space and materials.

brooklyn spaces: Do any of you want to talk about recent favorite projects that you’ve done?
Evan: We just made a mannequin for Melody Sweets, a burlesque performer. And we did a really nice set at Lincoln Center for Fashion Week for Odd Molly, a Swedish fashion company. And we did a set for Black Nativity Now, an Off-Broadway production by Alfred Preisser. Zak just headed up a project doing two suites for the Lady Gaga concert at Madison Square Garden.
Zak: I also make surfboard fin key necklaces, in a range of metals and finishes, and Lindsey Lohan has taken a liking to them, so I’m getting some calls from her. That speaks to the diversity in the whole situation, we have high-end sets, high-end furniture, high-end jewelry, it’s such a range.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you want to tell the world?
Zak: Tell them to come by! They’re more than welcome, our doors are always open. Just be friendly. Have a smile on your face and want to be a little bit creative and get your ideas out.
Ian: There’s always a way to make your project happen.
Zak: Yeah, whenever someone says “Is that possible?”, we never say no. It’s always possible. It just takes a little bit of creativity, a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears.

***

Like this? Read about more art coworking spaces: Exapno, Time’s Up, Bushwick Print Lab, Urbanglass, 3rd Ward, Brooklyn Lyceum, No-Space