From Ridgewood To E. Williamsburg, Artists Open Doors To Neighborhood

The wall of Norte Maar, at 83 Wyckoff Ave., is adorned with multiple pieces of artwork as part of its Bushwick Open Studios exhibit. Arts In Bushwick’s fifth annual Bushwick Open Studios, held this past weekend (from June 3-5), offered more events in more places than ever before, providing a glimpse into an artist community making increasingly greater inroads into the fabric of Bushwick—and beyond.

Due to the size and scope of the festival, the Times Newsweekly will be running this story in two parts, with Part 2 to appear in the June 16 issue.

Stretching east into Ridgewood, west into East Williamsburg and south into Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick Open Studios featured 370 events in over 160 locations over three days, with events ranging from traditional gallery events to avant-garde, participatory installations.

Arielle Falk’s “Lego Your Ego,” a kiosk-style exhibit that seems to sell “sunglasses for your face,” complete with informercial, was on display for passersby at Interstate Projects, located at Bogart St. Among the new participants this year was Ridgewood’s historic Vander Ende Onderdonk House, on Onderdonk and Flushing avenues, where local artists set up a sculpture garden in the 400-year-old Dutch farm’s courtyard. Attendees were also treated to a barbecue on Sunday.

According to Steve Monte, the house’s events coordinator, several of the site’s caretakers came to the Onderdonk House’s directors earlier in the year with a proposal to include the site in Bushwick Open Studios.

“My first impression was ‘great,’” Monte told the Times Newsweekly on Friday. “I’m always a person who likes to see new things happen.”

Jess Laskosky opens up her art-filled apartment to the public. There have been discussions with Bushwick-based groups about other events at the Onderdonk House, but so far, nothing has been finalized, he stated.

With this event, Monte noted, the Onderdonk House is catering to a different clientele than usual: “It seems like from Bushwick, Greenpoint and Williamsburg, it’s more individuals and couples; from Ridgewood and Glendale, it’s more families.”

Other local organizations, such as Wyckoff Heights Medical Center and the Brooklyn Public Library, also opened their doors as part of the festival, as did local bars and restaurants. However, in keeping with the festival’s name, the bread and butter of Bushwick Open Studios remains the “open studio”—local residents opening up the spaces where they work and live to the public.

Opening their doors

One of those residents is Jess Laskosky, an Ohio native who lives in a small walkup apartment overlooking Maria Hernandez Park.

“It’s a great community, and it grows by the day,” Laskosky said of the neighborhood she has spent the last four years living in. “It seems like everybody gets along, which is incredible.”

Sitting alongside her works made with acrylic and gouache, she rattled off the names of local business owners and longtime residents whom she had befriended since moving to the neighborhood.

In her time in Bushwick, Laskosky—who works as a project manager at Bond No. 9, a perfume manufacturer—had seen crime decrease and more new establishments open, but noted that not all those new establishments appeal to her.

Laskosky also works with several artists in a project called Homestead Gallery, where they will set up an art gallery in a volunteer’s home. They have held shows in New Orleans, Cleveland and New Haven, Conn., she stated, but their most recent event was in Ridgewood.

Within walking distance of Laskosky’s apartment, at 83 Wyckoff Ave., sits Norte Maar, one of Bushwick’s more well-known art studios.

For Bushwick Open Studios, painter Julie Torres presented a room full of works that were the result of a collaboration between 45 artists over a period of several months. Many artists brought unfinished work and raw materials to sessions where the artists would work on individual works of art. Each artists also contributed a solo piece.

In addition, one piece was the result of a special collaboration between artist Chris Martin and the students of Bushwick IMPACT, a local family resource center.

“Bushwick is, in my opinion, the center of the art universe in the city,” said Torres.

Torres was also a part of another exhibit, on Saturday morning at the Moore Street Market, at 110 Moore St. off Humboldt Street.

Inside the historic market, those shopping for produce, meat or cold cuts early in the morning were treated to art installations, classes and free coffee from Farmcart, a two-year-old Bushwick-based catering company.

A tent was set up in the yard of the Vander-Ende Onderdonk House, at 1820 Flushing Ave., for artists to display their work throughout Bushwick Open Studios.One of the art exhibits had a particularly interactive component: Rhee Honeycutt used acrylic and wool yarn to create impressions of vines, leaves and flowers, and had several balls of yarn ready for any shoppers who were interested in sitting down and joining her.

“I love the energy in this community,” said Joan Bartolomeo, who currently runs the market, and plans to invite more local artists to display their work throughout the year. “The Market is a natural place to hang art.”

The Moore Street Market will also be the focus of a large project as part of the Department of Transportation’s pedestrian plaza program; the sidewalk on the Humboldt Street side of the market will be expanded to include art and various plantings, and the building’s exterior will be refurbished.

From industry to innovation

A few blocks away from the Market sits a longtime home for art and artists, albeit with a less-thansterling reputation: the (some have said infamous) “McKibbin lofts” at 248 and 255 McKibbin St.

Walking through 248 McKibbin St., one would find the doors and hallways freshly painted a deep shade of red and the wooden floors recentlywaxed; many of the loft rooms themselves feel more like liberal arts college dorms than former factory offices.

The talk throughout the building, however, was the recent rash of armed robberies in the lofts (see the story on Page 14 for more about the crimes), a reminder of the lofts’ reputation as a haven for debauchery and criminal activity.

Loft residents Zeke Mermell, who displayed photos of his time in Vietnam and Cambodia in his loft for his exhibit, wanted to move to the loftsLiz Atzberger’s “Piñata” sat high atop the Moore Street Market, at 110 Moore St. as soon as he returned from his overseas travels, saying that the former factory buildings looked like “the Empire State Building turned on its side,” evoking the grittiness of the area’s industrial past.

Among them was a weekend digital printing workshop held by Supreme Digital Printing, where Bushwick resident Brandon Carney opened his print shop to the public, and an exhibit by an art collective called Interstate Projects, which included Arielle Falk’s “Lego Your Ego,” a kiosk-style presentation of sunglasses that shield you from the gaze of passersby.

Zeke Mermell’s photographs of his travels through Southeast Asia were on display in his living quarters at the “McKibbin lofts.”Another such location is 119 Ingraham St., home to Brooklyn Fire Proof, a complex featuring artist workspaces, areas for film and photography production, and even a bar open to the public. (Its co-owner, Burr Dodd, even presented a work of his own in the bar’s concert space as part of a staff show.)

Inside the building, Leah Tacha and Beth Letain, who shared a studio space for the festival, had their art on display through the weekend.

Letain, a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia and a former resident of Astoria, used to have her studio in Long Island City's 5 Pointz building, a similar space at 45-46 Davis St.. known for its indoor and outdoor displays of graffiti, but she had to find new space after its largest building was vacated in 2009 due to structural concerns. She, like many other former 5 Pointz denizens, now lives and paints in Bushwick.

“I’ve enjoyed living in Bushwick more,” she stated.