Photo CMaile

“Ultimately, Westbeth forces us to consider why it’s so difficult to value the function of artists in society. The work of an artist isn’t always about productivity, and we don’t always see the results of this creative labor. “Imagining is something you do,” Gruen clarified, “not something that happens. It’s the job of the artist to daydream.” This might seem quaint, but Gruen knows that “being successful doesn’t necessarily mean fame or gallery representation. It is simply having the time and space to work.”

– Julia Wolkoff
! February 2019
All photos in article are by Frankie Alduino
Artsy.net

Read full article HERE

This is a lovely article about Westbeth that explores the complexity of artists’ lives and how providing affordable housing supports their immeasurable contribution to the cultural and economic life of the city.

A few minor corrections:

1. Residency Limitation: Although the co-founders of Westbeth had intended a residency limit of 5 years, it was not incorporated into leasing documents or any other written requirement. Early on, the new tenants voiced concern for the need for stability in their own creative lives, and the lives of the children. Westbeth was unusual in its time for its welcome to artists and their families.

Therefore there was no Board failure to enforce a 5 year limit, because in effect it was never formally required.

Invigorated by the optimism at the time, the co-founders had hoped Westbeth would be a springboard for commercial success for its artists residents. Rather that success is evident in the tangible and intangible benefits that Westbeth artists contribute by their work and presence to the immense vitality of the city.

2. Opening of Wait List. There is no cap on residency in the anticipated opening of the wait list.

3. Westbeth is rent stabilized. It is not rent controlled. It became rent stabilized in 2012.

4. There are other artists housing in New York City: ArtSpace in East Harlem which opened a few years ago, and Manhattan Plaza which opened in 1977 and is approx 70% performing artists.

5. New School Drama has its own building in the Westbeth complex. Their students use that building’s entrance on Bank St. They along with Martha Graham students and Westbeth residents all use the Bank St courtyard to relax, and rehearse in warm weather.

photo CMaile

The many different materials I use create complex and poetic works layered with meaning of open seas and land. I play organic shapes against geometric patterns. Some forms are scraped and layered while others are fully present. I work spontaneously and intuitively.

– Karin Batten
More Info on Karin Batten HERE

Pollock-Krasner grants have enabled artists to create new work, purchase needed materials and pay for studio rent, as well as their personal and medical expenses. Past recipients of Pollock-Krasner grants acknowledge their critical impact in allowing concentrated time for studio work, and in preparing for exhibitions and other professional opportunities such as accepting a residency.

More Info HERE

Photo from Vija Vetra archives

For Vija Vetra, at 95 years old, spirituality remains an important part of her life.
This comes as a surprise, considering that her profession is an intensely physical one, and that after living for nine and a half decades she exhibits remarkable physical strength and flexibility, as well as a mind that is almost impossibly sharp and quick-witted. Inevitably, she is bombarded by the question, “What’s the secret?”, and after ruminating on it innumerable times, she’s boiled it down to a twofold answer. First: Always be as a child. Never lose that sense of curiosity and wonder and appreciation for the small, daily glories. Second: Dance, dance and dance. With music, or without, it doesn’t matter. Just dance.
– By Stanley Wlodyka
Read the entire West View article Here

Westbeth Icon Evening: Vija Vetra Here

Photo Gabriela Herman for NY Times

After Kate Walter, a memoirist and essayist, was accepted onto Westbeth’s wait list in 1987, she tried to put it out of her mind. “You can’t think about it too much,” Ms. Walter said, explaining that, even back then, when Manhattan still had a relative abundance of inexpensive apartments where artists could live and work, spots at Westbeth, a well-known artists’ housing complex in the West Village, were highly coveted.

“It was secure; you knew you wouldn’t have to leave,” Ms. Walter said. But affordable rent wasn’t the only, or even the primary, draw. Moving into Westbeth — which opened in 1970, after a young Richard Meier oversaw the conversion of the former Bell Laboratories into 383 live-work spaces — also meant joining an artistic community.

“It’s a legendary place, living among all these artists. I liked the idea of that,” said Ms. Walter, 69, who was ecstatic when she finally made it to the top of the list after a decade. “I remember calling up all my friends and my parents, screaming.”

Read full article by Kim Velsey at NY Times HERE

JOAN HALL

Born in New York City to art professionals, I began training in my teen years with the Martha Graham Dance Studio. Following a course of study at the Juilliard School, a company membership with The American Mime Theater provided the opportunity for me to teach American Mime at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
With early experience in the dramatic arts as a guide, I designed sets and costumes for the ballet Yequana for The Nederlands Dans Theater, Den Haag.
Out of a diverse background, a lifelong devotion to the genres of collage and assemblage began to take shape with parallel careers in commercial illustration and the fine arts. With an invitation from Milton Glaser to conduct classes in Collage for Illustration, my teaching career at the School of Visual Arts was launched.
International fine art venues have been concurrent with commercial application. The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico, are among the institutions where my art has been on view. At home in New York, Pavel Zoubok and the South Street Seaport Museum have hosted two of my one-person exhibitions. Publication credits include editions of my collage for Warner Books and Book of the Month Club.
I have also lectured to many organizations on Collage: Past & Present
illustrated by a Power Point presentation. The American Cultural Centers have commissioned these lectures in France, India, Brazil and Mexico. I was honored to receive a CEDADESU Mexican/American Cultural Specialists Grant from the US State Dept. to present my lecture on Collage, Assemblage and the Environment and to conduct 10 workshops to train educators to teach recycling through the art of collage.
Today as previously, world travel is a great inspiration. My itinerary includes numerous locations in Europe, China, Tibet, India, Africa, Cambodia, Brazil, and Central America. Locally, I live and work in my studio at Westbeth in Greenwich Village .

Further info at joanhallcollage.com