Author Archives: Christina

PETER RUTA featured in Greenwhich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s Oral History Project

PETER RUTA GVSHP INTERVIEW

Peter Ruta
A renowned painter who focused on views of Lower Manhattan, Ruta painted for nearly seventy years and had lived in Westbeth since its opening in 1970 when he passed away in late 2016. Born in Germany, he fled to Italy to escape Hitler’s rise to power, finally ending up in NYC. In this interview he discusses his time served as an American soldier in WWII and the painting career that followed, as well as memories of raising a family in Westbeth with his wife, Suzanne.

Here is the link to the full tanscript of the Peter Ruta Interview

Griselda Steiner’s compilation of poetry and writings “The Silent Power of Words” is now available for order on Amazon Books.

Griseld Steiner April 2017-1

Griselda Steiner is a playwright, poet, freelance and screenplay writer.

She has read her poetry at the Cornelia Street Cafe, the Mexican Consulate, the 92nd St. Tribeca Cafe, St Johns and the Duplex, NYC.

This book is a compilation of Griselda’s poetry that over the years as celebrated the mystical Silent Power of Words as well as published articles that present pivotal ideas that inspired her work.

But it at Amazon.

PETER RUTA painting acquired by 9/11 Memorial Museum

PETER RUTA DONATION TO 911 MUSEUM

October 2016, a month before he died, Westbeth painter Peter Ruta invited Jan Ramirez, curator at the 9/11 Memorial Museum to the studio, to offer a donation to their collection. Ramirez chose the work (o/c 44×56 in) painted from Westbeth roof in 1979 when the West Side Highway hadnt come down and Battery Park City had not yet gone up.

Ramirez praised the work as a painting in which “the Towers loom as both subject in the downtown cityscape, and foil for some dazzling color and afternoon light demonstrations. … It will prove a wonderful teaching piece as well as a visually engaging historical “document.”

One of a series Ruta painted in those years, and showed at Museum of the City of New York in 2004.

DAVID SECCOMBE honored with a
purchase award from the
American Academy of Art and Letters. Exhibit opening May 18, 2017

DAVID SECCOMBE ACADEMY HONOR AWARD

One of David Seccombe’s paintings which was in the American Academy of Art & Letters Invitational show was honored with a purchase award. It will be shown again in the “Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards”,

Show Dates: May 18 – June 11. Thursdays – Sundays from 1- 4 pm.
Where: The Academy Galleries are at Audubon Terrace, on Broadway between 155 and 156 Street.

STEPHEN HALL featured in
Wild and Balanced Exhibit
at Gallery 222 in Hurleyville, NY

STEPHEN HALL SHOW 2017 APRIL Wild and Balanced 2

There are two opening nights, April 22nd Earth Day from 4PM – 7PM and May 13th from 4PM – 7PM for the African Wildlife Foundation.

Further Info: Hurleyville Arts Center

Gallery 222
222 Main Street
Hurleyville, New York 12747

Stephen Hall, born in Scotland, is an artist who takes a traditional approach to a modern subject. Now living in New York, his work is indicative of a surging talent which has been refined over many years. Each of his paintings is a composition of numerous layers, executed without any modern trickery such as digital assistance or an airbrush and the resulting lush density of color and variation of light owns the viewer’s attention.

Through his work, Stephen explores the relationships we have with not just each other, but times, places and surroundings – couple this with a desire to portray the underlying order in our increasingly chaotic lives and you end up with vivid, yet somewhat intoxicating imagery, finished with a slick style and intense precision. Over the past several years has become more interest in the threat posed by man on our environment and the wildlife living in it.

Stephen has not only been exhibiting worldwide since the early 80’s, but his work also resides in corporate and private collections and has been featured in movies, music videos and magazines. On top of this he has also illustrated book covers for A.A. Milne, J.G. Ballard and Russell Greenan amongst others

CAROL HEBALD will be the featured poet at a poetry reading Church of Saint Paul the Apostle on Monday April 24th 7PM

Carol Hebald portrait

POETRY READING
Church of St Paul the Apostle
405 West 59th Street

Thursday April 24th, 7PM Free and Open to the Public

CAROL HEBALD
A former Teaching and Writing Fellow in fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Carol Hebald received her MFA in 1971. Having taught creative writing at the university level for the next thirteen years, she resigned a tenured associate professorship in English at University of Kansas to write full time.

She has since published the novella collection, Three Blind Mice (Unicorn Press, 1989), the memoir, The Heart Too Long Suppressed (Northeastern University Press, 2001); and more recently four books of poetry: Delusion of Grandeur (2016), Colloquy (2015), Spinster by the Sea (2005), and Little Monologs (2004).

Co-winner with Christina Maile of the Miriam Chaikin Writing Award for her novel, A Warsaw Chronicle, forthcoming from Regal House Press on March 24th, she will be reading from it on Tuesday, March 28th at Cornelia Street Café at 6 p.m., and will share the podium with Christina at the Westbeth Community room on April 12th.

Carol is currently working on a play about Watergate heroine Martha Mitchell. Her website is: www.CarolHebald.com.

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS AT WESTBETH

THE KITCHEN AT WESTBETH (2022)
Founded in 1971 as an artist-driven collective, The Kitchen today reaffirms and expands upon its originating vision as a dynamic cultural institution that centers artists, prioritizes people, and puts process first. Programming in a kunsthalle model that brings together live performances, exhibition-making, and public programming under one roof, The Kitchen empowers its audiences and communities to think creatively and radically about what it means to shape a multivalent and sustainable future in art.
THE KITCHEN AT WESTBETH

WESTBETH OLDER ADULT CENTER/GREENWICH HOUSE Greenwich House officially commemorated the opening of our older adult center at Westbeth Artists Housing with a ceremony on June 28, 2022. The new older adult center, at 155 Bank Street in the West Village, links Greenwich House programming with one of the most unique artist residency sites in the country. The Westbeth site will provide meals and social programming and will focus on social services, including much sought-after assistance with benefits, entitlements, healthcare, nursing. In addition a full day of cultural activities include art talks, dance and art workshops, music workshops, film screenings, visits to museums, and more.
WESTBETH OAC /GREENWICH HOUSE

THE SCHOOL OF DRAMA is home to a dynamic group of directors, writers, actors, and creative technologists. The award-winning faculty works directly with playwriting, directing, and acting students, providing highly skilled artistic training, project-based learning, and access to consistent performance opportunities. Located at 151 Bank Street, it occupies a one of the larger buildings in the Westbeth complex.

Karen Ludwig interviews Marin Ireland at New School for Drama on March 31, 12:45PM – 1:45PM Free

Marin Ireland - About The Work Poster

ABOUT THE WORK is a series of interviews with prominent actors, directors and writers,for the purpose of educating and inspiring students at The New School.
hosted by Karen Ludwig

Artists from Westbeth are welcome! The events take place on a Friday from12:45 – 1:45 in the
New School for Drama’s theater – 3rd floor. A free event.

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

SHOULDERS OF GIANTS FRONT OF CARD

Show Dates:
March 4‐ March 25, 2017
Opening Reception
Saturday March 4 from 5pm – 8pm
Panel Discussion: Friday March 24 at 6pm
Closing Reception
Saturday March 25 from 5pm – 7pm

“On the Shoulders of Giants,” an exhibition of contemporary painting and sculpture curated by Thaddeus Radell, celebrates the millennia‐old struggle to capture the human form. The 35 artists in the exhibition render the human figure in a wide variety of ways and mediums, but every work nevertheless shows a reverence for the formal language that animates all great art, from prehistoric times to the present. While the postmodern age has tended to emphasize ironic appropriation over earnest expression and compositional values, each of these artists seeks to animate the human figure through
an authenticity of form and structure.

The painters and sculptors fall roughly into two generations, many of the second, younger group having studied with members of the first. In these cases the teachers inspired an understanding of great traditional art and helped set a foundation from which new art might arise.

Every artist must be a part of his or her time, but every good artist also benefits in some way from the past. Learning from the art in museums, as well as from their teachers, the artists in this exhibition indeed find themselves standing on the shoulders of giants.