Category Archives: Past Events

Susan Berger Mixed Media artist

Hillhouse High School’s Song. Fiber mixed media 2020

2021 FAR & WIDE National
Juried by Nicelle Beauchene & Franklin Parrasch
June 4-July 18, 2021

The third annual FAR & WIDE National exhibition, on view in the Main Gallery, is organized around the concept of Art Brut, a French term translating to ‘raw art’, to describe works made outside the academic tradition of art making. The exhibition comprises work by twenty-five artists, selected through a national call and juried by Nicelle Beauchene and Franklin Parrasch, co-founders of Parts & Labor in Beacon, NY. For this exhibition, the jurors sought works that incorporate a unique use of materiality and modes of expression, as well as works outside the conventional dictates of the art world.

Woodstock Artists Association and Museum
Woodstock, New York

Susan Berger
“I began as a painter and sculptor. I later delved into used mixed media working mostly in fiber/yarns. I use a variety of materials and combine different rug hooking, latch hooking and weave stitching into my works. The subject matter of each work determines the type of materials I will use and the fiber medium I will go forward executing in these works. My art pieces are well researched and painstakingly pursued in detailed and labor-intensive undertakings. I tend to do studies and my drawings are finished works of their own. I have been influenced by Native American design and by women who did samplers in early America and later in the industrial period where women worked in factories and left their homes in rural areas to the city.

This is a journey called: “1962: A Yearbook.” The pages are reconstructed of one’s own memory and you go from the beginning of the namesake of its dedication in the yearbook – a picture of the school building; and the boy’s on one side and the girl’s on the other side. It is neatly packaged representing the times in a cultural and political sense. My own entry has been rewritten and we learn who are the overachievers and like myself the underachievers. I look to celebrate the less popular because they had their own identity and recognized them now.
Again, it is interesting how we look at memory/remembrance and time does play tricks on us and the past always looks better. A memoir is the length of time over which one’s memory extends and each of the events enters our remembrance and we reminiscence.

More about Susan Berger here

Debra Jenks
Poetry and Art

UP AGAINST A WALL
Curated by Susan Breitsch
Awbury Arboretum Cope House
Germantown, PA
July 6 – August 26, 2021
aubury.org

Deb Jenks’ print “Coffee Shop” is included in the show.

Debra Jenks poem, “P-Shooters”, appears in issue 15 of Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art

Maintenant is an annual journal that features the most significant contemporary dada writing and art from around the world. Inspired by the original Maintenant, an irreverent and risk-taking ‘zine published, edited and allegedly written by Arthur Cravan from 1913-1917, the Three Rooms Press editions aim to bring to light cutting-edge poetry and art that stems from this original spirit. Since 2005, Three Rooms Press’ Maintenant has developed an international reputation as a primary source for Dada work by well-known and emerging artists.

Debra Jenks is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and educator whose work includes, sculpture, photography, drawing, video, performance and ephemeral public projects that meld fictive and autobiographical narratives. Her art reviews have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Chelsea Now, The Villager and Downtown Express, and her poetry has appeared in Pierogi Press, CLWN WR, Live Mag! and Tiny Spoon Lit Mag.

More information: Debra Jenks

WESTBETH FLEA MARKET $5 BAG N BOX SALE

SATURDAY June 26, 2021 10AM – 4PM
SUNDAY June 27, 2021 10AM – 4PM

Westbeth Artists Housing
Westbeth Basement
55 Bethune Street
Between West St and Washington St
NY NY

BUY A $5 BAG – A large black plastic garbage bag – WHEN ENTERING .

You must make an appointment – Timed Entry per hour
PROOF of Vaccination required
Covid Restrictions in Place
Masks required Gloves provided Temp check

Email Ruby for appointment
rsornstein@gmail.com

Household, electronics, clothing, office, notions, books, records, decorative objects, small appliances, lamps, dishes, silverware, garden items.

Click here for more information about the Westbeth Beautification Committee and its legendary Flea Market which has been in existence for almost 38 years. Flea Market and the Westbeth Beautification Committee

COMMUNITY BLOOD DRIVE

West Village Community Blood Drive
Westbeth Gallery
57 Bethune Street
NY NY

Tuesday June 22, 2021
1PM – 7PM

Our Region’s blood supply has never been lower. COVID-19 has devastated our City’s blood supply over the past thirteen months, as many companies and non-profits have been unable to hold the large blood drives our blood centers often rely upon. When we put out a call for donations New Yorkers typically respond in remarkable ways. With thousands of New Yorkers getting vaccinated each day, everyone is hopeful the New York Metropolitan area is on the way to recovery from this catastrophic year. As New York bounces back in strides this Spring, we need everyone to make an appointment and donate blood to save lives. That’s why The Westbeth Artist Council is hosting another of their Community Blood Drives in support of New York Blood Center. We are encouraging all New Yorkers who are able to please donate blood. June 22nd is Primary Election Day. If you’re coming to Westbeth to vote, please come to the blood drive and donate lifesaving blood. This is an excellent opportunity to exemplify both civic duty and community good deed.

To schedule an appointment:

Click on link below:

https://donate.nybc.org/donor/schedules/drive_schedule/293577

or

Use your camera to hover on the QR Code and enter Sponsor number 71021

Please Bring:
Don’t forget to bring photo ID or NYBC donor card.
Face covering is required before entering the blood drive.
Eat well and drink plenty of fluids before donating.

Do not donate if you have:

a fever or other symptoms of COVID-19 (cough, shortness of breath,
or difficulty breathing)

had close contact with someone diagnosed with or suspected of
having COVID-19 in the last 14 days

been diagnosed with or suspected of having COVID-19 until 14 days
after your illness has resolved

NOTE: close contact is defined by CDC as being within 6 feet of an
infected individual for a prolonged period of time

Westbeth Movie Night
Artists and Models

Thursday June 10, 2021 at 7PM

FREE

Artists and Models is a 1955 American musical comedy film in VistaVision and marked Dean Martin’s and Jerry Lewis’s fourteenth feature together as a team. The film co-stars Shirley MacLaine and Dorothy Malone, also featuring Eva Gabor and Anita Ekberg in brief roles.

Rick Todd (Dean Martin) is a struggling painter and smooth-talking ladies’ man. His goofy young roommate Eugene Fullstack (Jerry Lewis) is an aspiring children’s author who has a passion for comic books, especially those of the mysterious and sexy “Bat Lady.”

Covid Protocols

Limited capacity
Masks required for unvaccinated.
Masks recommended for vaccinated.

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Marya Zimmet
On the Road to Love

“I’m over-the-moon to report that my first CD, “On The Road To Love,” was released on June 10th

It is now available on most streaming and downloading platforms. Fresh, jazzy arrangements of folk/rock classics, jazz standards and lesser-know gems, with Tedd Firth on piano, Phil Palombi on bass, Mark McClean on drums, Nathan Childers on horns, and Pete Smith on guitar. Go to maryazimmet.hearnow.com for links to where you can hear it.”

Latest Review

Alix Cohen
June 21, 2021
CABARET SCENES.ORG

“Marya Zimmet studied music, took a three-decade detour for a doctorate and a “civilian” career, and rejoins the community with this outstanding CD. The song selection is varied and clearly personal. Zimmet expresses emotion with subtle inflection, key changes, and pauses, penetrating without volume or stress. Her beguiling voice often evokes a muted glow.

Arrangements by Tedd Firth, John DiMartino, Don Rebic, and Frank Ponzio—in combinations—reframe august material and creates freshness. Everything sounds contemporary in the best sense of the word. The musicianship is a treat.”

Read the entire review HERE

Special for Westbeth residents.

Please contact me through my website (maryazimmet.com/contact) to learn about special pricing and white glove service (hand delivery!).

To preview a song and preorder, go to maryazimmet.com/audio.


I decided to make a CD (my first) at the beginning of 2020. The timing of this project turned out to be – in a way – fortuitous. I started developing the repertoire in January, and by March, the Covid-19 pandemic had shut everything down. That spring, I wandered the empty streets of Lower Manhattan, the air unusually fresh and clean, practicing my tunes.

Find out more about Marya Zimmet HERE

Kate Walter
Interview with SAGE Advocacy and Services for LGBTQ elders

Photo: Kamila Harris

SENIOR PLANET
June 3, 2021

Kate Walter
interview with Aaron Tax, Director of Advocacy SAGE, and Christina DaCosta, Senior Director of Communications.

SAGE  Advocacy Services for LGBT Elders was founded in 1978 and has grown over the decades since. It is now the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT+ older people.

LGBT older people are twice as likely to be single and four times less likely to have kids than their straight and cisgender counterparts.  This presents challenges for socializing, managing finances, going to the doctors, even changing a light bulb. These are all the things other older people rely upon their families for. LGBT older people generally don’t have that support network in place.

One of the stereotypes about the LGBT elder community is that they are better off financially but that’s not true. On the whole, LGBT seniors are worse off financially.  The stereotype creates challenges when we are advocating public policies that will help LGBT older people.

We are finding that while there are many folks who come out later in life due to greater societal acceptance of LGBT+ people, the opposite is also true – some LGBT+ elders actually go back into the closet. This can happen when trying to access eldercare, housing, and other services geared toward older people where staff and policies are not LGBT-friendly or culturally competent. SAGE’s National Resource Center on LGBT Aging is a great place for people to get resources and information.

Read the entire interview on Senior Planet

Beth Soll: Two Red Solos
and a review by Deborah Jowitt

Two Red Solos: A Formal Response (2021) 8 minutes

Beth Soll Choreographer
Ethan Mass Videographer and editor

Dancers
Beth Soll
Abby Dias

The formal nature of Two Red Solos grew out of special circumstances that were both limiting and stimulating. Because of Covid, we worked on uneven ground in a beautiful, green public park next to the Hudson River. We were regaled with the music of the nearby highway and the sounds of insects, birds, and people. The 50+ year age difference between dancer Abby Dias and me also influenced my choreographic decisions. The quarantine rules required us to stay far apart, so I choreographed two separate solos: one for each of us. Our cameraman and editor, Ethan Mass made it possible to create a filmed version of the two solos. In the film, we dance these individual solos at the same time, but often in two different frames. In the post-Covid era, we hope to join our solos in a duet.

Beth Soll bethsollandcompany.org

Deborah Jowitt Review

Artsjournal.com
May 27, 2021

Excerpt
Sometimes they’re together in the verdant space and the camera’s eye; at other times, each occupies half of a split screen. Co-director Mass doesn’t keep his camera still either.

Maybe one woman seems to hasten into a close-up. Maybe one screen blacks out for a second. The dancers rush away and become tiny, or hurry toward us, becoming larger. Briefly the editors layer one moving image on top of another. Cuts occur. One half of the screen may briefly go dark.

I love watching Soll and Dias slip into unison and then slide out of it. They also move in canons with each other and, once, build a fugue. The image the two create is—almost—that of a friendship: they like being creative individually but enjoy coming together to confirm their amity. The differences between them are as interesting as the similarities

Two red solos. The performers’ responses to the title may be formal, and the two of them never touch. but their simultaneous solos seethe with the implications of togetherness and isolation that at present shape our daily lives.

Read the entire review
https://www.artsjournal.com/dancebeat/2021/05/red-on-green/

David Greenspan
Radio Play: The Memory Motel

Tickets: FREE

BOOK NOW

Written by David Greenspan
Directed by Morgan Green

Michael S. Michaels returns to a beach resort in order to piece together and better understand the fragments of his past. While he’s there, he encounters a series of eccentric characters with whom he discusses art, philosophy, and the peculiarities of memory. Obie-award-winning playwright and actor David Greenspan (The Bridge of San Luis Rey) returns to Two River with this brand-new radio play crafted with his unique blend of fancy, theatricality, and wit.

Cast

Joshua Avery Begelman
David Greenspan
Paul John
Keilly McQuail
Steven Ratazzi
Mary Schultz
Pete Simpson
Paco Tolson
Kevin Veloz

Reserve your free ticket and you will automatically be emailed the password to access the radio play in your confirmation email. In addition, the hour following your reservation you will receive an email with the login link, password and additional resources to enhance your experience.

BOOK NOW

You will be able to access the stream as often as you’d like through June 6/2021. Closed Captioning on an audio spectrum visualizer is available. Total listening time: 50 minutes.

Jeffrey Middleton & Raguel Gabriel: SCHWANENGESANG
by Franz Schubert

Live from Merkin Hall NYC
June 12, 2021 at 8Pm. Live Streamed

JOIN EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/518139139355066/

RTG Productions Presents:
Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang

Trinidadian tenor Raguel Gabriel, and American pianist Jeffrey Middleton, join forces for a virtual, multi-camera livestreamed performance of Schubert’s beloved and unforgettable Schwanengesang, from the concert stage of Merkin Hall in New York City via kaufmanmusiccenter.org on Saturday June 12th at 8 pm. A musical journey searing with a myriad of emotions, Schubert’s final set of songs will be performed in the order as published after his death. Highlights include the famous ‘Standchen’, the turbulent ‘Aufenthalt’ and the bone-chilling masterpiece, ‘Der Doppelganger’.

The program is hosted by Raguel Gabriel and Emilotte Persson.

PROGRAM

Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang

Liebesbotschaft
Kriegers Ahnung
Frühlingssehnsucht
Ständchen
Aufenthalt
In der Ferne
Abschied
Der Atlas
Ihr Bild
Das Fischermädchen
Die Stadt
Am Meer
Der Doppelgänger
Die Taubenpost

ABOUT SCHWANENGESANG

Schwanengesang is Schubert’s last set of songs written just before his death in 1828 and published posthumously in 1829. The collection, to this day, is considered to be among the greatest and most moving of all his works. The poems set to music by Schubert were written by German poets Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Gabriel Seidl. It is Schubert’s only song set featuring poems written by more than one poet. Despite this, the pieces are connected with an ever present theme of desire with poignant explorations of the human experience, love, lust, heartbreak and resignation.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Raguel Gabriel is a Trinidadian classically trained singer and actor. He studied for many years in his homeland at The Key Academy of Music and Alfred Wallace’s School of Music. His desire for further training in acting took him to LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) and then the Stella Adler Studio of Acting (NYC) where he graduated from the three year professional conservatory. Operatic roles performed on stage include Tamino in Die Zauberflote (Mozart), Hoffmann in Les contes d’Hoffmann (Offenbach), Alfred in Die Fledermaus (Strauss II) and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas (Purcell). He also interpreted musical theatre roles including Tony in West Side Story and Marius in Les Miserables. NYC acting credits include Antonio in The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), Sorin in The Seagull (Chekov) and the title role in Othello (Shakespeare). He continues to forge a very unique path expressing himself passionately in the areas of both drama and music, as actor and singer. Raguel is currently based in the United States.

Dr. Jeffrey Middleton is an American pianist and musician based in New York City. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music, his varied career includes solo and chamber music performances, vocal coaching, accompanying and teaching. Middleton’s debut recital in 1995 was at the Weill Hall at the prestigious Carnegie Hall where he was presented by Artists International Inc. Career highlights include his critically acclaimed recordings of Book II of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier (One Soul Records) and ‘Cathay’ a recording of solo piano pieces composed by Joseph Fennimore for Albany Records. Further collaborations with Fennimore include 23 Romances for Piano (2015) and From My Window (2018) also on Albany Records. He has toured Taiwan, Switzerland and South Africa among other countries. In June 2021 Middleton received the Mae L. Wien Faculty Award for distinguished service from the School of American Ballet, from where he is about to retire after thirty six years on the Music Faculty.

Read the Profile in Arts Interview with Jeffrey Middleton HERE