Loving Open Studios: Artists in the Alternative Space Edition

Loving Open Studios: Artists in the Alternative Space @ 196-212 College Street

Eric Litke

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

It’s not Hartford.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

It takes full advantage of the unique & active arts scene in New Haven.

Margaret Roleke

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

There is always a lot going on. It is fun, exciting, and you never know what’s going to happen.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

It’s a unique opportunity to connect with different artists & the general public and there is a really good feeling to the whole event.

Robert S. Greenberg

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

Its history.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

Advancing visual culture.

Kim Mikenis

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

People, places, things.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

Meeting new people, being inspired by others, letting people know about the kind of artwork I create.

Elvira E. Ormaechea

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

The British Museum! The resources, it’s so close to New York but not New York. The culture, the art, the people. It’s wonderful and so close to home.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

On the way to the bathroom you can have a tunnel art gallery. Anybody can show work. It exposes all the wonders from around us. Sharing the love.

Kevin Van Aelst

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

It’s pretty small, but there are still all sorts of things going on here.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

A few weekends where you can forget about everything except how great the artists & art are here.

Colin Burke

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

I’m new to the area but lived in Boston for many years. New Haven is walkable—like Cambridge. I love the architecture, food, art & being able to walk around. New Haven has it all! And history too!

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

At City Wide Open Studios you get lots of people, lots of questions, people interested in art & the process. It’s a good experience for artists to know what people want to know about the work or the process.

As an artist, you don’t have a lot of feedback from people who aren’t artists. Feedback is positive, a chance for people to see what happens and to see what engages people.

Filed under: Alternative Space, arts, CWOS, Uncategorized, Colin Burke, Elvira E. Ormaechea, Eric Litke, Kevin Van Aelst, Kim Mikenis, love, Margaret Roleke, Robert S. Greenberg

Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht, like Karen Dow and Christopher Mir, works out of a garage that’s been converted into a studio. (New Haven artists who work out of converted garages, raise your hands!) One of the best things about visiting a studio, I have discovered, is to see works in progress–to be able to visualize how the artist turns a blank canvas into finished work. Here is one of Hecht’s in-progress pieces, after just a few passes.

Here’s another after many more passes.

And here’s a finished piece:

Hecht explained to me (as he did to a previous poster) that in some of his paintings, like the one of the jacket, he’s interested in exploring the difference between fantasy and reality—the truth of what happened versus the stories we make up when we want to fill in the blanks. The jacket was his grandfather’s; he mentioned how difficult it was to square the reality that he’d served with the man he knew, and then to square that again with the image we have of what fighting in war is like. Thus the lighting—one source natural, one artificial. Illuminating things differently.

We can all relate, can we not? My great-uncle served on a destroyer in World War II; he said once he could see the face of the kamikaze coming for his ship. But I remember him in an easy chair, in the hospital. I once worked with a British man, too, who said he’d been a soccer hooligan, a soldier. When I met him, he was teaching conversational English in Japan. Hard to square. Less hard when he showed me one day that half his teeth were false; just flipped them out of his mouth, under some severe fluorescent lighting. But still hard.

Filed under: arts

SERA Salon: Social Experiments Relational Acts

This weekend at the Alternative Space, City-Wide Open Studios hosts SERA (Social Experiments Relational Acts) Salon, examining the notion of art as service – in a vacant, fully-outfitted nail salon.

Artspace has cleaned the salon, but left its original trappings – magazines, customer autographs, nail polish tubes, manicure tables and pedicure tables – intact. From 12 pm – 5 pm on Saturday, October 9, and Sunday, October 10, visitors will be able to participate in a series of site-specific experiments, developed by various artists and organized by Ted Efremoff.

One such experiment is “IMAGICURE: an imagination exchange for creative alternatives,” developed by Steven Dahlberg. In IMAGICURE, visitors are invited to to contribute an idea about how to infuse more creativity in education.  In his statement to Artspace, Dahlberg adds that, “A salon is inherently a place of social interaction, where ideas are exchanged and community is built….This experience explores creativity in service to self and the community.”

Dahlberg focuses on applied imagination in search of creative alternatives. He is interested in how creativity improves the well-being and flourishing of those who engage in it. He directed an international creativity conference and currently heads the International Centre for Creativity and Imagination.

The project also includes the relational act, WAIT.  WAIT engages its participants through a “Take-a-Number” ticket dispenser “Take-a-Number” ticket dispenser, and other permutations of symbolic place holders, that only exist to allow access to a future experience or object.  This is a relational act intended to discover, or at least approximate what we are waiting for?   What are the philosophical existential implications of  waiting? When do we wait? What does waiting feel like?

WAIT has been developed by John O’Donnell.  O’Donnell was conceived on Halloween, born on his father’s birthday, and raised in Montana. He lives and works in Connecticut. He has exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum, the International Print Center in New York, and the Seoul Museum of Art in Korea. John creates installations, videos, performances, prints and works on paper.

Also participating are PRAXIS, the joint project of Delia Bajo and Brainard Carey.  Among many other notable achievements and innovations, the pair have previously participated in the Whitney Biennial.

Please join us this weekend to celebrate this unique event.  Social Experiments and Relational Acts await you…

 

Photos by Adi Segal, for Artspace.  More can be found here….

Filed under: Alternative Space, arts, CWOS, new haven

Artists participating in the Alternative Space!

Tomoko Abe
Janice Barnish

Gene Beery
Barry Braman
Colin Burke
Mark Burns
Eileen Carey
Melanie Carr Eveleth
Dave Coon
Sean Corvino
Chris Cozzi
Steve Dahlberg
Robert Davis
Marion Doherty
Lanse Dowdell
Ted Efremoff
Jessica Fazzini
Rob Greenberg
Barbara Hocker
Marion Hunt
Aileen Ishmael
Eric Iannucci
Richard Kallweit
Kelly Kapfer
Harvey Koizim
Lauren Laudano
Eric Lidtke
Esdras Lubin
Kim Mikenis
Albert Municino
Tim Nikiforuk
John O’Donnell
Rebecca Paker
Rob Parkman
Margaret Rolecke
Tom Regner
Mark Regni
Martha Savage
Alyssa Scioritina
Cris Shirley
Robert Sibold
Suzan Shutan
Krys Swiattek
Kevin VanAelst 

Plus a team of Coop HS Students!

Filed under: Alternative Space, arts, CWOS, new haven

Artspace Underground

On Saturday, Artspace hosted a signature ‘Underground‘ party at the gallery, with some live art, music, and of course drinks.   I hadn’t been to the gallery yet (gasp!) to see the exhibition with everyone participating in City Wide Open Studios, so I was glad to have a chance to check out the show.

If you haven’t seen the CWOS exhibit you should check it out.

Live something or other being created before your very eyes.

Personally, I was a huge fan of the snacks.  Did someone make that guacamole live, too?  Delicious.

This is a piece from one of my high school teachers, Anna Broell-Bresnick.

If Jesus had Machine Guns provided monochromed angst.

It soon got packed!  It was fun to see such a diverse crowd at Artspace

More three dimensional offerings from the show

I wonder where the after party was?

Filed under: arts, CWOS, new haven, Uncategorized

Loving New Haven and Open Studios

Where can you run into your high school art teacher & that stenographer you never wanted to see again? Where can you meet artists who’ve never exhibited beside artists who have shown things internationally? Where can you wander back home,  then stumble upon a swingset art installation in the lot on the way back to your bicycle? Only at an annual event called citywide open studios, hosted by Artspace, which expands the first weeks of autumn into three weekends of learning, seeing, sharing, and exploring. I asked 6 people and one artwork at Opening Night what they love about New Haven & what they love about City Wide Open Studios…

Meg Herlihy

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

The cultural diversity. Here we have more art and music than anywhere else in Connecticut. It has the best scene.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

Once a year the community comes together, it is open to lots of people, and representative of the diversity of scenes. It allows you to reconnect with people you wouldn’t see otherwise, it’s a good networking event, open to any age group, young kids, old people.

Ryan Cyr

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

We are close to the wilderness—15 minutes in any direction to the beach or the woods. But there is enough city action to also be satisfying.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

Sharks and germs.

Danielle DeSanti Davis

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

It’s eclectic and down to earth.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

It brings together a bunch of artists in one place, there is good energy. It’s a good place to get creatively inspired and excited about making things.

Detail from Ilona Anderson‘s Dwell

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

The interiors and their acceptance of colorful faux bois tree house art.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

It’s a great make-out spot. All the exposure to artwork makes me want to reproduce.

Jennifer Stockwell

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

Diversity!

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

Helen Kauder, I can’t believe I’m saying that, I’m so glad she’s back.

Jason Bischoff-Wurstle

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

It’s small & large at the very same time.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

They throw a great party every year, it opens up community at the right time & in the right season.

Mary Dwyer

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT NEW HAVEN?

The mix of people and it’s history are why I love New Haven.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT OPEN STUDIOS?

I love the democracy of open studios—not curated, just original.

Thanks to everyone who answered these questions! Please join the conversation and tell us why YOU love New Haven & Open Studios. We’ll be sharing your thoughts and pictures here and on the facebook, but we can’t talk to everyone! Take a photograph of yourself or a friend,  or a favorite artwork and tell us why (or they, or it) you loves New Haven & Open Studios.  You can e-mail your pictures to cwospics (at) artspacenh.org, or you can tweet them to @ArtspaceNH with the hashtag #CWOS.  One lucky photographer will win a CWOS tote bag!

Let’s share love for this place & the art that happens here!

(P.S. I’m fairly certain Open Studios loves you back!)

Your friendly inquisitor, Beth Anne Royer lives in a city, works in a city, and spends a lot of time thinking about why they do & don’t work.  She loves New Haven because she fell in love there once, and it will forever be all romantical to her in autumn for this reason.

Beth loves open studios because it is unexpected, and she loves being astounded, surprised, excited, and otherwise engaged in the world and art is good at doing these things.

Filed under: arts, CWOS, new haven, art, cwos, danielle desanti davis, diversity, eclectic, history, inspiration, jason Bischoff-Wurstle, jenn stockwell, learning, love, love new haven, mary dwyer, meg herlihy, reproduction, ryan cyr, seeing

Thanking the greeks, and the fir trees and the pigments

Encaustic painting dates back to the ancient Greeks, when shipbuilders used wax to fill cracks in their ships. Sometime thereafter pigment was added to the wax, and repairs became restorative & decorative. Soon the art moved from ship’s hulls to other surfaces. Some encaustic paintings from AD 100-125 survive, depicting bust and head portraits set into mummy casings in Greco-Roman Egypt. Beeswax was used in many ways in this era—even as a kind of dry-erase board for conveying messages. So how do we travel from ancient Greece to the city of New Haven?

This year’s open studios features a variety of artist’s talks and demonstrations, and on Saturday, Maria Lara-Whelpley, an artist with a space in Erector Square provided a demonstration of the technique we can thank the Greeks & the bees & even pine trees for making possible. I’ve always admired the way that encaustic artworks I’ve seen seem soaked in a softness & semi-transparency. Maria Lara-Whelpley describes the feeling of looking at images created with encaustic techniques as akin to “looking through a semi-sheer curtain.”

If this combination of “bee sweat” or beeswax, damar varnish, (the crystallized sap of a fir tree) and pigment can create this surface seems like beautiful, ancient alchemy…well, it is.  But if one was also seeking an artform that might allow you to brandish a heat gun, a torch, and carving tools, as well as joint compound, well, you are also in the right place. One blessing of the modern age is that we can adapt the methods of the ancients, but order grade A beeswax over the internet from Illinois. Don’t say the future isn’t here. Don’t say heat guns aren’t awesome.

Lara-Whelpley demonstrated using the wax itself as a drawing surface that she carved into, imbued with pigments, and coated again with more wax. The wax used for painting sat upon a hotplate surface and was clear and shimmering. She also showed us a sheet of rice paper she’d printed on her home printer, which she affixed to the surface of a birch board treated with 3-4 coats of joint compound, which she praised for its roughness. Lara-Whelpley then built layers of wax over this paper. She also demonstrated methods for transferring photocopied images using the heat gun and wax.

You can mix oil paints with the encaustic medium as well, but it seems the ratios must remain at about 20% oil paint, 80% wax, otherwise the medium will not dry. I’d argue there is something magical and organic about the effect it gives, something that has always  drawn my eye into works done with it. At some point, Lara-Whelpley talked about the archeology of the work—and this seemed, to me, just the right word for the kind of patience and strangeness of the process. It was ancient and pensive, it was meticulous and forgiving, it and new and wonderful.

This isn’t the last demonstration of CWOS! Nor was it the first! Check out:

This year’s City-Wide Open Studios features more interactive demonstrations by artists, and the second weekend is no exception. On Saturday and Sunday, October 2 and 3, Artspace’s neighbor Project Storefronts will hold demonstrations in hooping, weaving, and reading knitting patterns from 1 pm – 4 pm at their 71 Orange Street location.

At Project Storefronts on Sunday, October 3, DETRITUS will host a chapbook-binding workshop from 3 pm – 4 pm; the event will be led by local authors Beth Anne Royer and Edgar Garcia. Also on Sunday, October 3, Creative Arts Workshop will host ongoing demonstrations in sculpture, painting, drawing, and printmaking from 12 pm – 5 pm at their 80 Audubon Street location.

Visitors can explore studios and demonstrations on their own, or participate in guided bike tours led by the Devil’s Gear beginning at 12:30 pm and leaving from their new location at 151 Orange Street, in the rear of the 360 State Street building. Studios will be open from 12 noon – 5 pm on both days, and a complete map and .pdf guide are available on the City-Wide Open Studios website

Related Resources:

A slideshow of the process:

http://www.mollycliffhilts.com/encaustic-slideshow.php

mediums: http://bit.ly/cD6brD

supplies: http://bit.ly/bFS1GG

Filed under: arts, CWOS, new haven, archeology, bees, cwos, damar, demo, demonstations, encaustic, erector square, greco-roman, heat gun, meticulous, new haven, shipbuilding, wax

Introducing our blog.

Over the past twelve years, City-Wide Open Studios (CWOS) has drawn thousands of visitors to explore New Haven’s neighborhoods while discovering artists, galleries, and the treasures of our city.

City-Wide Open Studios celebrates contemporary art in all its myriad forms, and is undoubtedly Connecticut’s leading visual arts event. Art dealers and curators from the region and beyond have used CWOS as a resource to discover new artists, plan upcoming shows, and buy art. As one of the largest open studios programs in the country, CWOS connects hundreds of local artists with the greater New Haven community — and beyond.

City-Wide Open Studios is a program of Artspace, a Connecticut non-profit organization presenting local and national visual art, providing access, excellence, and education for the benefit of the public and the arts community.

This year’s City-Wide Open Studios promises more interactive demonstrations, exciting events, and the return of the Alternative Space!  And in the true spirit of openness and collaboration, we’ve asked a few of our friends to blog about their City-Wide Open Studios experiences.  Stay tuned for the introductions.

Filed under: arts, CWOS, new haven, Uncategorized