Passage to China

Alison Armstrong came to Westbeth Artist Housing in 1981 as a published author; since then she resumed her interest in painting and began to exhibit at Westbeth in 1989. A member of Japanese Artists Association of New York for more than ten years, she also exhibits annually at Tenri Gallery. Her art is held in private collections in England and North America . She has an M.Litt. from Oxford University and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from NYU, teaches writing and art history at School of Visual Arts and BMCC, and continues to speak and write about art and aesthetics as well as to make art.

ALison Armstrong Artist Statment for OLD GOLD EXHIBITION

This series of textured gold paintings arose from various interests. I have painted in other ways, including the use of Sumi-e, Japanese brush painting studied with my late Sensei, Koho Yamamoto. However, I also became interested in other forms.
Antique gold screens from the Meiji period, Russian orthodox religious icons, and gilt bronze used in 18th-early 19th century Federal style household furnishings are uses of gold as a reflecting method in interior spaces. The metal itself is very special in comparison with other precious metals. As a metaphor in literature and in museum collections I have pondered my attraction to the qualities of gold: ancient gold artifacts such as bronze age gold torques, earplugs, and other jewelry dug from the bronze age bogs in Ireland and similar objects found in bronze age Greek, Trojan, Persian, and Egyptian cultures and later in Rome and to our present day, all point to the special qualities of gold. Gold does not oxidize/rust/tarnish, gold is very heavy but soft enough to be beaten into feather-light gold leaf. It has the associations of the eternal, the perfect. When a sculptor friend gave me several pounds of steel dust from the floor of his studio, and a painter friend gave me a jar of marble dust, and then I began to collect quartz pebbles and sand from the beach, I experimented with thickening and texturing gold oil paint in order to enhance its reflective qualities and give it the depth and illusion of age.

–Alison Armstrong
Westbeth
October 1st 2016

“Why is the background in your still life paintings blue?”, a viewer asked Peter Ruta recently, and then the asker answered herself, “Because the sky is blue and you used to be a landscape painter.”

In fact Peter Ruta, 98 this year of 2016, never stopped being a landscape painter.

His work of the last few years, done in his 7th floor Westbeth studio could be called indoor landscapes.

He began this long ambitious series in 2001, after losing his priveleged perch in the communal studio on the 91st floor of the North Tower, World Trade Center. An early resident of Westbeth, for many years he also painted the twoeres and their surrounding neighborhood, from the roof of the building. Several of these city views are in museum collections in New York and in Europe.

These still lives are shown here for the first time.

Thursday at 4pm – 5pm,
Taught by Doron Tadmore Guild-certified Feldenkrais teacher

Westbeth Community Room 155 Bank St (enter through courtyard) between Washington and West Streets. Take A C L or E Train to 14th St and 8th Avenue and walk south to Bank St. Turn left.

$5.00 per class

Contact: Sandra Kingsbury westbethperformance@gmail.com

Sponsored by Westbeth Beautfication Committee

Awareness Through Movement consists of verbally directed movement sequences presented primarily to groups. A lesson generally lasts from thirty to sixty minutes. Each lesson is usually organized around a particular function.

In Awareness Through Movement lessons, people engage in precisely structured movement explorations that involve thinking, sensing, moving, and imagining. Many are based on developmental movements and ordinary functional activities. Some are based on more abstract explorations of joint, muscle, and postural relationships. The lessons consist of comfortable, easy movements that gradually evolve into movements of greater range and complexity.

Awareness Through Movement lessons attempt to make one aware of his/her habitual neuromuscular patterns and rigidities and to expand options for new ways of moving while increasing sensitivity and improving efficiency. There are hundreds of Awareness Through Movement lessons contained in the Feldenkrais Method that vary, for all levels of movement ability, from simple in structure and physical demand, to more difficult lessons.

A major goal of Awareness Through Movement is to learn how one’s most basic functions are organized and improve. By experiencing the details of how one performs any action, the student has the opportunity to learn how to:

attend to his/her whole self
eliminate unnecessary energy expenditure
mobilize his/her intentions into actions
learn and improve

Photography, paintings, and ceramics. Presentation by archaeologist Monica Barnes on Wednesday, April 20 at 6pm. FREE Continue reading →