Author Archives: Christina

Robert Bunkin: Artist Talk – Gwen John

Gwen John Self Portrait 1902 oil on canvas

Tuesday March 22, 2022 at 5:30PM

Hudson Park Library
66 Leroy Street
New York, NY

Gwen John Painting in a Minor Key Art Talk

Gwen John (1876-1939) lived most of her life as a recluse outside of Paris, in the shadows of two men: her lover, the sculptor Rodin and her brother, the flamboyant wunderkind Augustus John, whom, in recent years (as he predicted), she eclipsed as an artist. During her lifetime her main patron was a New York lawyer, John Quinn. Although a small cir-cle of admirers knew her work, she was aloof from engaging with “the art world,” becoming increas-ingly isolated from colleagues, friends, relatives, choosing instead to retreat to Catholic piety and her pet cats.

Her paintings and drawings are modest in scale, and like her younger contemporary, Giorgio Moran-di, she focused on simple subjects: her room, por-traits of friends and the nuns in a local convent, table-top still lives, often painting variants on a theme. Her close-toned, exquisitely brushed sub-jects reverberate with tenderness, offering a unique personality.

Robert Bunkin is a painter, curator, art historian and educator, with a BS from CUNY and an MFA from Ma-son Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He has taught art history and studio art in several NYC art schools, universities, colleges and museums.

*Space is limited. Walkups will be permitted as space accommodates. Face mask required.

Gwen John, Self-Portrait, 1902. Oil on canvas. Tate Britain

Olive Ayhens and Ezra Johnson: Impinging Environments

Feb 12, 2022 – March 12, 2022

Platform Project Space
20 Jay Street #314
Brooklyn, NY
platformprojectspace.com

Platform Project Space is pleased to present Impinging Environments, a two person show of paintings and animations by Olive Ayhens and Ezra Johnson. This is the first show to pair the work of the artists, who are mother and son. Both are interested in the collision of man and nature and in capturing the often toxic beauty that results.

Olive Ayhens transforms environments in her own quirky ways. She works from memory and uses exaggerated imagination to catch the deep essence of a place. She researches, sketches, and dreams to spontaneously amplify and add nuance to her vision. She remains inventive all along. Color is her first language and she is especially drawn to spatial incongruities and surprises. Represented in the show is older work from different times and places, yet it is all connected. Olive is very excited to show with her
son, Ezra Johnson.

Ezra Johnson is known for expanding his painting practice into animation and sculpture. Interested in experimentation with color, form and surface, his work takes a playful and energetic approach to serious subject matter. For Impinging Environments, Johnson will exhibit three still life paintings depicting objects found along the banks of the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida. The show also includes Johnson’s stop-frame animation, Stranded in a House, made with oil painting on top of interior design
advertisements gathered from found catalogues.

Olive Ayhens has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Grant, a Pollack-Krasner Grant (twice,) and the Adolph & Easter Gottlieb Individual Support Grant.She has been in residence at Ucross,MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA, Blue Mountain, Djerassi, LMCC among others and she will be attending the Joan Mitchell residency in New Orleans this coming spring.

Ezra Ayhens Johnson was born in 1975 in Wenatchee, Washington. He received an MFA from Hunter College in New York in 2006 and a BFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2000. Johnson’s work has been exhibited widely at museums and galleries such as the Nerman Museum of Art in Kansas, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Site Santa Fe Biennial, among others. Johnson is currently residing in Tampa and teaches painting at The University of South Florida.

Blood Drive at Westbeth

Saturday March 7, 2022
1 PM – 7PM Schedule an appointment.
Westbeth Community room
155 Bank Street
Through Courtyard
New York, NY

New York Blood Center relies upon 1500 volunteer blood donors per day.

There has been a chronic gap in blood donations since the start of the pandemic. Remote and blended learning has resulted in a 75% reduction in youth donations from high schools and colleges and remote work has also resulted in hundreds of organizations no longer able to host blood drives. At the same time, the need for blood from patients in our local hospitals has increased by 10-15% from pre-pandemic levels, from pent up demand for treatment and surgeries postponed during the pandemic.

We’re encouraging folks to give blood and/or help amplify the message on the need for blood in our community. Saving a life takes just an hour of your time. You can click on this link to schedule an appointment

https://donate.nybc.org/donor/schedules/drive_schedule/301825

Food Banks

As you will see on the flyer, we are working with local food banks throughout the month of March. Donors must register for their donations to qualify by going to:

https://www.nybc.org/donate-blood/save-1-feed-1/

Chaikin Award Winners
Cassandra Long
Jeffrey Solomon

The Miriam Chaikin Endowment Fund

The Fund for the writing award was established in 2016 in memory of Miriam Chaikin, a longtime Westbeth resident, former Westbeth Artists Residents Council Literary Arts Chair, and prolific writer.

For Miriam, the written word and the book were essential to her life and well-being. It is in her memory that we seek to honor a member of the writing community, especially those writers who live in Westbeth.

Cassandra Long, poetry

Cassandra Long is a writer, painter, and illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. Many of her stories are inspired by working with kids as a schoolteacher in both Boston and New York City. She is currently at work on a children’s book about her time as a teacher, as well as a book of illustrated stories titled Me Imagining Holding a Baby While Imagining Dropping the Imaginary Baby While Still Holding It.

Jeffrey Solomon, prose

Jeffrey Solomon’s coming out and coming of age memoir, The Tourist, is his first work of long-form prose. He is currently finishing up his MFA in creative writing at Goddard College. He is the founder of Houses on the Moon Theater Company (HOTM); the playwright and director of Houses’ productions of Building Houses on the Moon and De Novo (59E59 Theaters and Next Door at NYTW); and the playwright of Tara’s Crossing (Tenement Theatre).

He has taught HOTM’s storytelling workshops with underserved communities, co-curating and directing the story-based theater projects. His one-man show The Santa Closet (originally titled Santa Clause Is Coming Out) won the Best of the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival (2002), had its off-Broadway debut at the Kirk Theatre on Theatre Row (2009), and was revived in 2019 by Houses on the Moon at Teatro Circulo. His other solo play, MotherSON, has had acclaimed runs at HERE (New York City), the Oval House (UK), and Theatre Works (Melbourne, Australia), and has been presented as an educational and support tool around LGBTQ+ and human rights issues in India, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. Solomon wrote the pilot episode for Jim Henson/ABC-TV program CityKids, which was Emmy-nominated for Best Children’s Special.

More Information About the Fund

Miriam Chaikin Writing Award

Sheila Schwid, Charles Seplowin
Diana Jensen, Christina Maile
in Group Shows

Show Dates: Feb. 17 to Mar. 17, 2022
Opening, Thursday, Feb. 17, 6 to 8 PM

Carter Burden Gallery
548 West 28th Street, Suite 543
Regular gallery hours are 11 to 5, Tues-Fri; 11 to 6, Sat.

Carter Burden Gallery presents Go Figure! a group exhibition featuring the figurative work of ten artists. The pieces consist of installation, painting, drawing, and sculpture.

Featured Artists:

Earlene Hardie Cox, Barbara Herzfeld, Bernice Kramer, Lindsay, Isaac Paris, Sheila Schwid, Regina Silvers, Susan Sinek, Syma, and Danny Turitz.

Magic Lady, an interactive installation by Syma has had many iterations over the last forty years; Revisited again now, this fortune teller self-portrait, reflecting and originating in the artist’s past, might offer a glimpse into the future. Using the park as her muse, Lindsay, who considers herself a folk expressionist, presents paintings of the people she observes there. She visits the park and draws the people who sit, sleep, eat lunch, discuss, contemplate, and read, then returns to the studio to paint them. In an effort to be more environmentally aware and having a desire to do something creative and useful with discarded materials, Isaac Paris has combined his love for collecting African masks with creating masks mainly from plastic containers and other recycled materials. Most recently specializing in creating masks that resemble familiar animal forms, and possible extinct ones, Paris presents two pieces entitled Long Ears. In her first exhibition with the gallery, Susan Sinik present two large drawings from her The Leg series. She says, “The essence of my work is creating expression with the use of line and black passages. I work on paper using charcoal, Chinese ink, graphite and acrylic to create beautiful sensitive lines with bold solid passages.”

What is Lost? And What is Found? In 2021, The New York Artists Circle presented an online exhibition of 117 selected artists who explored and revealed what is truly important in our lives, as they coped with waves of serial losses and change during this pandemic time. Carter Burden Gallery has invited the New York Artists Circle to put together an in-person gallery version of the online exhibition. The (re)grouping of selected work led to two consecutive shows of 50 works distilled from the original 117; presenting an new opportunity for (re)reflection, (re)entering and (re)viewing up close and personal, aiming for a (re)bound through the (re)found. This important exhibition includes statements from each artist accompanying their work. The show offers the opportunity to (re)visit your own experience and (re)flect on these significant events.

Featured Artists:

Audrey Anastasi, Marianne Barcellona, Fran Beallor, Walter Brown, Kathleen Casey, Pamela Casper, Colleen Deery, Norma Greenwood, Valerie Huhn, Sandra Indig, Diana Jensen, Arthur Kvarnstrom, Yvonne Lamar-Rogers, Donna Levinstone, Christina Maile, Douglas Newton, Ellen Pliskin, Siena Gillann Porta, Amy Regalia, Gale Rothstein, Charles Seplowin, Regina Silvers, Geoffrey Stein, Joanne Steinhardt, and Alice Zinnes.

www.carterburdengallery.org
www.carterburdennetwork.org

Westbeth Winter Show 2021
Virtual Gallery Tour

In December 2021, WestBeth, Westbeth Artists Residents Council and the WestBeth Gallery celebrated Winter 2021 and the 50th Anniversary of Westbeth with a blockbuster show of over 100 artists.

The virtual video tour, featuring work by the artists in the exhibit, was produced and filmed by Mourrice Papi, Westbeth Visual Arts chair, with music by Madonna and Child by Alvin Curran, live at the West German Radio in Cologne. Recorded and included by Beth Griffith.

The Exhibit

Working within the parameters of self-quarantine and the unsettled times, the exhibit explores both implicitly and explicitly the eloquent response of visual artists’ through a range of artistic practices including painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, photography, mixed media, multi-media, textile art and installation. In a tradition of art questioning the status quo, artists explore issues of racism, identity and environmental degradation.

At WestBeth, the COVID-19 pandemic quieted our public art spaces & isolated resident artists. With the WestBeth Winter Show 21’, the Westbeth Gallery is fortified as a place of beauty and vitality, capturing the essence of artistic dialogue and inspiration at WestBeth.

The WestBeth Winter Show 21’ is testament to WestBeth’s achievements in supporting its vibrant community of artists & empowering artists with a connection to a local and global art community.

Featured Artists

William Anthony
Alison Armstrong
Olive Ayhens
Joan Banach
Karin Batten
Jonathan Bauch
Susan Berger
Roger Braimon
Werner Brause
Deborah Bitter
Robert Bunkin
Tony Candido
Bridget Carey
Simon Carr
Sandra Caplan
Karina Cavat
Ray Ciarrocchi
Steve Clorfeine
Jem Cohen
Carolyn Cross
Peter Colquhoun
Alison Cooke
Al Cooke
Judy Cuttler
Vinod Dave
Elisa Decker
Jon D’orazio
Julie Dubow
Judite Dos Santos
Edward Eichel
Gwen Fabricant
Inez Foose
Francia
Dennis Golden
Stacy Greene
Bob Gruen
Elizabeth Gregory Gruen
Ann Hamilton
Joan Hall
Stephen Hall
Jayne Holsinger
Rezendes J
Diana Jensen
Penny Jones
Annie Katzman
Susannah Kelly
William Kennon
Ana Garces Kiley
Gayle Kirschenbaum
Judy Lawne
Ralph Lee
Jan Leslie Harding
John L. Silver
Gerard Marcus
Emil Mare
Scott Marshall
Anthony Martino
Lauren Martino
Patricia Melvin
John Menegon
Christina Maile
Parviz Mohassel
Paul Muranyi
Ethan Mass
Avri Ohana
Mourrice Papi
Bosiljka Raditsa
Natalia Rudychev
Mary McKenna Ridge
Ruth Rioux
Ellen Rosen
Claire Rosenfeld
Cari Rosmarin
Margie Ruben
Karen Santry
Sheila Schwid
David Seccombe
Shelley Seccombe
Natalia Sharymova
Eric Sheehy
Charles Seplowin
Frances Siegel
Anthony Sorce
Jenny Tango
Jacqueline Taylor Basker
Ted Timreck
Rachel Urkowitz
Carolyn Virgil
Ken Wade
John Whittaker
Jean Wolff
Tamara Wyndham

Credits:

The Westbeth Winter Show 2021
Designed by Westbeth Artists Residents Council, Visual Arts Chair Mourrice Papi & the WestBeth Community

Music:
Madonna and Child by Alvin Curran, live at the West German Radio in Cologne. Recorded and included by Beth Griffith

Thank You

Westbeth Artists Residents Council
Ellen Salpeter WestBeth CEO
Roy Rub @Topos Graphics
DaSign

Contact:

westbethgallery@gmail.com
Info: Westbeth.org
@WestBethGallery
@Westbeth_Artists_Housing

Original Dates of Show

November 20 – December 17, 2021
Opening Reception: Nov 20, 2021 4pm – 7pm

Kate Walter Behind the Mask: Rave review

Red Hook Star Review

Walter recorded what was happening in real time (many of the essays were originally published in the Manhattan newspaper The Village Sun) so they have a fantastic immediacy. She writes in a clear way with an eye for interesting details. Her observations poke awake our own dormant memories and make us realize things we’d noticed, but had forgotten, busy as we were absorbing so much change.
Walter lives alone in a 600-square-foot apartment in Westbeth Artists Housing, a naturally occurring retirement community in the West Village. Finding herself alone after a decades-long relationship goes belly up, she never gives up hope for a chance to have one more great romance.

-Michael Quinn
March 11, 2022

Read entire article here: Red Hook Star Review

Kate Walter’s Book Behind the Mask was chosen by Pretty Progressive.com as one of the ’16 Most Powerful Books on Courage for Adults”

https://prettyprogressive.com/16-powerful-books-about-courage-for-adults/

Kate Walter loved her life as a single gay woman living in New York City’s famous Westbeth Artists Housing in Greenwich Village. She was in that sweet spot—recently retired from a long teaching career, but hardly retired, she was living the dream. Finally, her time was her own, a chance to expand and explore.

She was embedded in a vibrant artistic community. She was a published writer, met friends for lunch, went to museums, and concerts, and readings. She took yoga classes and belonged to a writing workshop, a singing group, a church. She celebrated all the holidays with her family in New Jersey.

In early 2020, the lively community of Westbeth Artists Housing was gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary. But when New York City went into Covid 19 pandemic lockdown, Westbeth turned into a ghost town. Kate’s carefully constructed social life crashed. Suddenly, she was trapped at home, living in the pandemic epicenter. The brief conversations with masked neighbors in the hallway or on the sidewalk became her lifeline. Her life moved onto Zoom and she took comfort watching worship services streamed every Sunday. Then the unimaginable happened. Her church burned down in a six-alarm fire. Now there literally would be no sanctuary left to return to after the pandemic – whenever that would be.

Kate was lonely and scared. The isolation was hard on everyone. For cultural creators, perhaps an extra degree of hard. She melted down in lockdown. She dreamed the city was on fire. She hit the wall. But she picked herself up and called upon her resilience and spiritual practices to stay safe and get through the isolation. In a welcome break from the pandemic, she celebrated in front of the Stonewall Inn when Biden won the election. And she started penning columns for The Village Sun, a local community publication. Writing became her salvation. Behind the Mask Living Alone in the Epicenter is Kate’s memoir in essays detailing her life from March 2020-May 2021 about this traumatic time in New York City.

More than a year later, as Westbeth and New York City reawakened, Kate emerged with a deeper appreciation for her home and the everyday things she took for granted. As she gradually took off her mask and started to enjoy life again, she felt forever changed.

Kate Walter gave a reading of her memoir, Behind the Mask, at the Westbeth Community Room on Dec 1, 2021

Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter
By Kate Walter
Heliotrope Books
November 16, 2021
Nonfiction; Memoir Of Essays
Price: $16.00 paper; $8.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-1-942762-81-2 paperback; 136 pages
978-1-942762-82-9 e-book

BONUS CONTENT
• 12 Pandemic Writing Prompts and blank pages for the reader to journal their own Covid 19 Pandemic lockdown memories
Writing helped me cope with anxiety, and I felt it was important to record what was going on during this unprecedented time. Now it’s your turn to journal about your experiences during the pandemic. Here are some prompts to use as some jumping-off points. -Kate Walter
• Part Two: Life Before the Pandemic – four additional essays by the author

PODCAST WITH KATE WALTER An Interview about the book.

INTERVIEW WITH KATE WALTER: Magnification of Memory

Veronica Ryan
2022 Whitney Biennial
OBE at Queens Birthday Honors

Portrait of Veronica Ryan with her exhibition, Along a Spectrum, Spike Island, Bristol (2021) Photograph by Max McClure. Copyright Veronica Ryan, Courtesy Spike Island Bristol, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Veronica Ryan has been chosen to participate in the forthcoming Whitney Biennial 2022.

Titled “Quiet as It’s Kept,” after a colloquialism inspired by novelist Toni Morrison, jazz drummer Max Roach, and artist David Hammons, all of whom have invoked it in their works, the event will feature the work of a diverse array of sixty-three artists and collectives in various stages of their careers. The Biennial will run from April 6 through September 5, with select programs continuing through October 23; it is being co-organized by Whitney curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards.

Ryan’s inclusion follows ‘Along a Spectrum’, a major exhibition at Spike Island, Bristol (2021), and the recent unveiling of Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae) and Soursop (Annonaceae) (2021) in Hackney, London, the UK’s first permanent public sculptures to celebrate and honour the Windrush Generations.

– Whitney Museum of American Art

Veronica Ryan OBE – made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire

Montserrat-born British sculptor Veronica Ryan was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty for her service to the arts.

Veronica Ryan

Born in 1956 in Plymouth, Montserrat and raised in England, Veronica Ryan creates meticulously handcrafted work using a wide range of materials, including bronze, plaster, marble, textile and found objects.
Her sculptures and installations examine environmental concerns, personal narratives and memories, as well as the wider psychological implications of history, trauma and recovery.
Her meticulously handcrafted works – while quiet and elusive – also contain a capacity for provoking an eruptive and disquieting internal dialogue. Composed of materials that reference her Afro-Caribbean heritage, the pieces examine the psychology and semantics of perception, as well as allude to notions of home, memory and loss.

– Text courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC