Queens Council on the Arts hosted a program on Chinese calligraphy.
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MoneyWell Spent
Council Keeps The Arts In Queens
By JEFF FEINMAN
For 40 years, the Queens Council on the Arts has been shining a light on the lesser-known artists of Queens.
Started by Jeanne Dale Katz, mother of Councilwoman Melinda Katz, in 1966, the Council has grown to be the premiere organization for assisting the arts in Queens, with its annual re-grant programs that feeds thousands of dollars into costumes for dancers, acrylic paints for artists, time for writers and MIDI players for musicians.
The grants, which range from $1,000-$5,000, are available now.
“Artists need money to support their art projects because the ultimate goal is for exhibition,” said Queens Community Arts Fund Director Lynn Lobell. “Depending on the type of artist, there are marketing and rehearsal costs. You have to pay technicians, have to pay for lighting. There are all kinds of fees involved.”
Nonprofit organizations must be based in Queens, in existence for at least one year, and provide cultural programming. Individual artists must be Queens residents and be able to supply examples of their work. Filmmakers, performance artists, dancers, theatrical performers and other artists are encouraged to participate. Applications will be reviewed by a peer panel process, as a selected group of artists and community members decide how the grant money will be spent.
Last year, there were 80 grants given out, and it is expected that the same number of grants will be distributed this year. Mary Cristian Pena Giancoli, who received a $2,000 grant from the QCA in 2005, is a photographer who frequently focuses on Mexicans in New York City. She used the grant to have a lab print her work on a large scale.
“When printing in my darkroom, I am limited to printing up to 11-by-14, so the grant money was a welcome boost, since I had been wanting to show my work larger,” Giancoli said. “It really changed how my work is seen. Of course, I oversaw all the printing, so the tones would be as if I had printed them myself.”
The QCA is funded by organizations like the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the JP Morgan Chase Re-grant Program.
Informational sessions will be held throughout September. New applicants are required to attend one of the sessions. To show their support for artists of different nationalities, some of the sessions will have translators speaking in Spanish, Chinese, and Korean.
“New Americans come here and might find that our support of the arts is different from what they were used to in their native country,” Lobell said. “We want them to understand that this funding is available, and that we will walk them through step by step on what they need to do to support their art.”
Application submission deadlines are Sept. 21 for organizations and Oct. 5 for individual artists. Informational sessions for organizational grants will be held Sept. 7 at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Sept. 13 at Queens Borough Hall. Sessions for individual artists will be held Sept. 16 at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and Sept. 19 at The Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City.
For more information, visit www.queenscouncilarts.org
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BQUACk members stop for a picture. |
It’s Not A Duck
Artists Gather To Help Other Artists
By Iman Khan
With the mission of uniting and providing a community to the immense variety of artists in Astoria and Queens, Borough of Queens United Artists Collective Kum-ba-ya (BQUACK) officially launched in March of this year.
The site of BQUACK’s socials is Waltz, a venue catering specifically to artists, musicians and writers founded by classical pianist Song Zhang and her partner, customs broker Bill Everson.
“We really wanted a place for artists to meet in Astoria,” said Andrea Reese, co-founder of BQUACK. “Waltz was a perfect fit for [us] and one thing led to another.”
Having met in a course they both attended, Zhang and Everson began an exchange of their cultures that is the inspiration behind the creation of Waltz. The founders of BQUACK also had this vision. Three of their founders were dining together one night and their conversation led to a collective disappointment over the fact that they all shared the sentiment that artists were underrepresented in Queens. Birds of a feather… their missions aligned.
“The atmosphere is casual but very energized and very creative,” said Reese. “[Waltz] was already that way. When you add people from the arts, it becomes even more dynamic as well as supportive.”
Since their inception, BQUACK has organized seven meetings at Waltz with artists from backgrounds in photography, playwriting, painting, poetry, acting and film-making all attending these events.
Recently the groups has added a performance feature to the socials, with a featured artist performing for just 15 minutes as to not take away from the intention of the evening – socializing.
“We welcome anyone who wants to attend,” Reese said. “People can just come here and meet people without a specific agenda.”
BQUACK was started by Jen Ryan (performer/writer of The Leni Show), Leonard Jacobs (Back Stage Theater Editor), David Gibbs (DARR Publicity), Andrea Reese (Writer/Performer of the one-woman Jackie O. play, Cirque Jacqueline) and Rik Sansone (Rik’s Graphiks graphic design), whose illustration “Pepper” will be published in the book Beatles Art: Fantastic New Artwork of The Fab Four, this August.
The group’s next event will be held Thursday, Sept. 7, at 8 p.m. at Waltz, located at 23-14 Ditmars Boulevard, between 23rd & 24th Streets in Astoria. The evening will feature a Special Musical Performance at 9 p.m.by Margot Leverett, one of the foremost new generation klezmer clarinetists.
For more information on BQUACK or to join their mailing list, please visit www.bquack.com.
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Sharon Florin’s view of how Hunter’s Point used to look. |
A Home For All
Art-O-Mat Is More Than Art ‘To Go’
By IMAN KHAN
Once a dream lived vicariously through the Internet, Art-O-Mat LIC completes its first year of existence as an actual gallery this month.
Last August, Art-O-Mat artisan store and gallery was established by a group of artists as a very spontaneous, grassroots response to a demand for art in the neighborhood of Hunters Point, Long Island City.
Tired of failed restaurants, the owner of the space which Art-O-Mat currently calls home, Matt Quigley, decided to venture in a new direction with it, in order to give the community his family has been a part of for over 50 years, something it had been lacking. After numerous conversations with Art-O-Mat co-founder Kenny Greenberg, Quigley green-lighted this Hunter’s Point art venture, located at 46-46 Vernon Blvd.
“It was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” said Louise Weinberg, another co-founder of the gallery.
Weinberg and Greenberg had first begun collaborating in the mid-1990s when they developed an online art competition, one of the first presences of art on the Internet, bearing the same name. This next step was a natural part of their evolution as an organization, according to Weinberg.
With an initial agreement to retain the space for five months, Weinberg and Greenberg, along with their other co-founders, quickly got to work. The results were so substantial that one year later, they are still in the space, helping to foster the arts and artists in a community that is at the forefront of the arts movement in Queens.
The volunteer-run Art-O-Mat is divided into two spaces. The front of the space is home to an artisan shop, where local visual artists and musicians produce more than 80 percent of the items being sold in an effort to support their struggles as artists. As a result of their unexpected longer stay in the space, the group has now also developed its own products, which are also sold in the store.
The back of the space is home to a small gallery where one-artist shows are held. To date, the gallery has exhibited six different shows and is gearing up for the seventh.
Starting in October, Art-O-Mat will resume its Sunday afternoon poetry readings, which take place the first Sunday of every month.
Art-O-Mat will also present an exhibition: “Paintings and Prints by Sharon Florin”, the second in the “See Long Island City Art Series.” This exhibition, which opens Sept. 16 at 6 p.m., includes selected paintings and prints from an extensive body of oil paintings created by Florin over a period of 30 years in which she’s documented the changing face of Long Island City’s Hunters Point neighborhood.
For more information or to contact Art-O-Mat, visit www.licweb.com/artomat.
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A visitor signs the guest book at an open studio event |
Opening Doors In Queens
LIC Artist Prep For Open Studio
By Ellen Thompson
For the last 20 years Long Island City Artists, a non-profit organization, has been prying open doors that have rarely been opened to art enthusiast throughout Queens.
Behind each door is a world of unknown and incomprehensible creations, the world of a Long Island City artist.
Margret Dreikausen originally formed the non-profit networking organization 20 years ago solely for this purpose, to showcase its members through Open Studios Exhibitions. LICA turned to the painters, sculptors, photographers and multimedia artists of the neighborhood, determined to strengthen the creative community in the most beneficial way.
Open Studios typically unlocks studio doors throughout Long Island City each year towards the end of October, this year the weekend of the 28th, to increase the visibility of professional visual artists working in the area.
“It’s a totally different feel compared to what you would get from visiting a gallery or museum,” explained Dreikausen, a multimedia artist who also opens her studio doors at LIC Artlofts each year. “You get to see where the thoughts are transformed into paintings, sculptures and photographs. You get to ask the questions you wouldn’t be able to when looking at a piece of work on a museum wall. You get insight you would have never been able to.”
Dreikausen admitted that the whole concept and process of preparing for Open Studios can be one of the most stressful times for an affiliated artist, but “it is something that gives to and betters the community which supports us as artists.”
“Sure they have to scramble and clean the loft, and they have to make everything looks presentable for the traffic that is veering off the beaten path of Long Island City museums,” she said. “But once they begin discussing their work all the stresses fade away and they begin to get the exposure they were hoping for.”
Besides letting art enthusiast into the artists’ world and facilitating an enlightening conversation, LICA provides the artists with networking exhibitions through the Citibank showcase and Queensborough Community College, along with various other venues.
“We have so many more artists in Long Island City now that it’s hard to let everyone into their lofts,” said Dreikausen. “But we’re looking into ways.”
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“Oxnard Surfer III” by Annie Seaton will be shown. |
Ready To Go Wild
Rockaway Artists Worked Into A Frenzy
The Rockaway Artists Alliance was created in 1994 to engage and encourage youth interest in the arts through free lectures, presentations and exhibits.
The Alliance, which is essentially a conglomeration of local artists, brings several shows t the public every year, including its annual raucous explosion of color and form known as Art Frenzy.
From as far away as San Francisco and as near as New York, The Rockaway Artists Alliance gathers the talents of more than 30 artists as it presents ARTSPLASH 2006 Sept. 9 to Oct. 15 at the Rockaway Center for the Arts (RoCA) at Fort Tilden.
Spread throughout the RAA’s sTudio 6 and sTudio 7 this new exhibition bursts forth with sculpture, photography, pastel, painting, watercolor, drawing, assemblage, mixed media and even DVD video and spoken word CD’s. The performing arts will also be interwoven into this vibrant show as the adjoining outdoor Moon Stage hosts singers, musicians and spoken word artists, culminating in the Mariana Bekerman Dance Company’s “Taro” a complete dance performance with original music and seven performers.
Whether one is drawn to the turbulent, rolling acrylic “Tropical Sunset” of Ellen Epstein, or Mary Blair’s mystical “Three Satellites” pastel, Victor Bashmakov’s moody, muted blue green oil on canvas “Crossing” or the other worldly “Vietnamese Woman on Bridge” by photographer Kenneth Axen, there is plenty to intrigue and entrance about ARTSPLASH 2006.
ARTSPLASH 2006 was juried and selected from an exceptionally large number of submissions. Curator Pedro Pacheco will award prizes for best in show. Exhibiting ARTSPLASH artists include Romona Wilder, Heidi Wertz, Janice Weiss, Alice Waite, Siegfried Stiene, Lois Stiene, Jessica Schulman, Renee Radenberg, Arianna Rose, Ann Murray, Eileen Morrissey, James McKay, Maureen McGuire, Gigi Janchang, Ruth Kraiem, Martha Killian, Denise Jankauskas, Kenneth Hutley, Ellen Hoyt, Dan Guarino, Wilda Gallagher, Wendy Friend, Kenny Franklin, Ellen Epstein, Madeline Braisted, Mary Blair, Victor Bashmakov, and Kenneth Axen. Performers will include The Beat Museum, The Marianna Bekerman Dance Company, Angry Velvet, and Seanchi and the Unity Squad and more.
Admission is free, and a reception with entertainment and refreshments will be held Sunday, Sept. 10, from 1-3 p.m.
Fort Tilden, located in the Rockaways, is an historic and now decommissioned U.S. Army post. It is home today to many cultural and community activities. Bordered by the curving waves of the Atlantic shore and the calm waters of Jamaica Bay, it is a premier part of Gateway National Recreation Area, a uniquely picturesque urban national park which spans several boroughs and incorporates beaches, marshlands and bird and wildlife sanctuaries.
Gallery hours are Saturday noon-4 p.m., Sunday 1-4 p.m. and by appointment. For information call (718) 474-0861, e-mail rockart116@aol.com or visit www.rockawayartistsalliance.org.
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