film biz recycling

oriana on 8 Aug ’11

space type: nonprofit | neighborhood: gowanus | active since: 2009 | links: website, blog, facebook, twitter

One of my favorite things about this project is how often it surprises me. And holy shit was it a surprise walking into Film Biz Recycling, an enormous basement warehouse in Gowanus in between the Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center and the Textile Arts Center, just bursting with castoffs from movies, television, and commercial shoots.

photo by me

And I’m not just talking about plastic display food and costume jewelry and faux brick walling (although there’s plenty of those); there’s also racks of designer clothing and shoes, row upon row of high-end leather couches and brass lamps, plus headboards and telephone booths and bicycles and filing cabinets. And those are just the big items; there’s also aisles of small stuff, from books to toasters to street signs to toys.

all photos by Maximus Comissar unless noted

What’s it all for? Well, for you, for whatever you can think to do with it, whether it’s building out your loft or decorating for a themed party. Eva, the founder, and her crew collect everything the film biz can’t use, and then they separate it into things to sell, things to deconstruct and reuse, and things to donate. They work with dozens of charities, including Blissful Bedrooms, Recycle-a-Bicycle, Room to Grow, Fertile Grounds, and Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, sending clothing to shelters, baby items to single mothers, e-waste to recycling centers, and building materials to reuse shops. In the three years it’s been open, Film Biz Recycling has diverted 180 tons of stuff from landfills. And they’re just getting started! It’s a space you’ve really got to see, and a cause that is so worth supporting, with your time (they love volunteers!), your money (don’t you need a new armchair?), and your ideas. Get over there! But first, check out my interview with Eva.

brooklyn spaces: What made you get into all this?
Eva: I worked in the film business for fifteen years, and I just spent so much time trying to find homes for all the leftover materials. I started a Google Group in 2007 to get all the art departments talking to one another, figuring out how to exchange materials. But the stuff needed a place to go, so in 2009 I got a tiny space in Long Island City. I used my savings for the deposit; it was totally underfunded, which was fine, that’s what ecopreneurs are famous for. But it turned out we had to grow or die, so I started looking for a new space. When I found this one—11,000 square feet!—I said, “We’ll be here or nowhere.” So we did an emergency fundraiser and raised $20,000 in two weeks, everything from $10 from a production assistant to $1,000 from Bridge Props, another prop house. We were weeping from the support. So we raised the money, signed the deposit, and got the hell out of Long Island City.

brooklyn spaces: Are you happy in Gowanus?
Eva: We love it! It’s like a perfect metaphor. We’re in between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, which are both gentrified and pretty wealthy; and then there’s this sort of ugly center, this butt crack in between those two lovely white cheeks. It’s so dirty here, but the people who love it really love it. One of the first things I did when we got here was start reaching out to anybody who’s trying to make Gowanus a better place, like Gowanus Canal Conservancy. I said, “Hey, we have materials, and we’re going to give them to you for free. Come down and see what you want.” Then I started finding local charities. CHIPS, a men’s shelter, is down the street, as is Camba Women’s Shelter. Sean Casey Animal Shelter is up the road.

brooklyn spaces: Are all the charities you work with so close?
Eva: No, they’re all over. Materials for the Arts picks up from us once a month, and Build It Green. Wearable Collections picks up clothing; they send what’s usable to South America and recycle the rest. Our mission is sort of a triple bottom line: people, profit, and planet. People are saving money, and these rich companies aren’t spending $900 a dumpster for all this usable stuff to just be tossed. It’s cheaper to donate it. It’s never not been that way.

brooklyn spaces: Okay, take me through all the different components of the space.
Eva: Well, first we have the Re-Workshop. We want this to be a community hub, a place for groups to meet and talk to one another. We have a Re-Gallery, to show the works of our featured artists, who have a workshop in the back. Right now it’s Dog Tag Designs. We’ve got our offices in the back, and a kitchen, and even an underground terrace, where they used to store the coal to heat the building. It’s our break room and spraypaint area and impromptu garden center—I’ve made some planters out of toilets that Build It Green refused, and we’re growing basil and things.

photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: Now tell me about what you’ve got for sale.
Eva: Let me just give you a couple of examples. There’s a set of brand new white leather couches that cost $3,700 new; the whole batch is $1,200 here. There’s a roll of rubber flooring, which costs $1,000 at RoseBrand, that we’re selling for $200. A gorgeous vintage lamp that was $2,300 new is $400 here. There’s a couple of crazy old phone booths that we just sold to Brooklyn Creative League to use in their coworking spaces. And that’s just the huge stuff. We also have a Small Boxes section. We have things like Bodega in a Box, Birthday Party in a Box, Hospital in a Box—these are usable items, not just props. We have salt and pepper shakers, lunch trays, trophy cups, petri dishes, candles, maps, a whole box of creepy clowns.

brooklyn spaces: So is everything for sale?
Eva: Not everything; we also have a rental-only section for items that are specific to the industry. Like, imagine a Downy commercial, with the mom looking into the dryer at her laundry, or a Sunny-D commercial, with the kid looking into the fridge. How do you get those shots? You cut a hole in the back of the dryer or fridge. And what did we do in the goddamn stupid industry forever? Bought a new one every single time. So now at Film Biz Recycling we rent them out.

brooklyn spaces: Have you found anything that you were just stumped about how to repurpose or recycle or resell?
Eva: Theatrical flats. They’re huge, they’re made with lauan—a rainforest material from the Philippines—and they get used once and tossed. But I’ve been thinking about remaking them into composting bins. Our composting company is Vokashi, and I’m going to see if they could use something like that. There’s a solution for everything.

brooklyn spaces: Do you want to export the Film Biz Recycling model to other cities, like LA?
Eva: Well yeah, but you know what? Brad Pitt needs to write me a check. I’m not doing it from the ground up again. But I really do want to fix the film industry. I don’t want to go to a movie and know that everything on the screen is in a landfill now. There’s a midcentury credenza I had to throw away once that haunts me to this day. That thing survived so many decades, made it to our set, and, because somebody flaked on Craigslist, was put into a dumpster and is dead now. That’s not okay with me. Film Biz Recycling isn’t the last resort; we’re the only resort.

brooklyn spaces: And it doesn’t just benefit the film industry.
Eva: The industry is only 10% of our revenue. This is stuff that anyone can use, and I just want to get the word out, so people will. It’s starting to work; Film Biz Recycling is being featured on a new Discovery show called Dirty Money. Eco Brooklyn just wrote a post on us; they redo brownstones sustainably, and they bought some materials from us, which is just what we want. I mean, it’s easy to sell a couch; it’s hard to sell a piece of wood. Anyone who’s redoing their apartment or building out their loft should come here, there are so many possibilities. You could use four theatrical flats to make a platform for your bed or your band or whatever. Trim it with some carpet squares or curtains, it’s beautiful. Anything you can think of.

***

Like this? Read about more community spaces: Books Through Bars, Trees Not Trash, Bushwick City Farms, Time’s Up, Brooklyn Free Store, Trinity Project, Boswyck Farms

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