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JOAN HALL is awarded the 2018 Miriam Chaikin Foundation Writing Prize

Joan Hall Chaikin Prize

The Miriam Chaikin Foundation Writing Award was established in memory of Miriam Chaikin, a longtime Westbeth resident and prolific writer. It is in her memory that the Foundation seeks to honor a member of the writing community who have created recent written works that are worth sharing across the community.

Native New Yorker Joan Hall is a pioneer in the field of collage and assemblage illustration.
Hall’s collages and assemblages have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. She was commissioned by the American Cultural Center to lecture, exhibit, and conduct workshops in France, India, Brazil, and recently lectured at The National Arts Club in New York City.
Joan illustrated “The Policeman’s Beard Is Half-Constructed”, the first book ever written by a computer with a program called Racter and published by Warner Books.
Known for her artwork, Joan has also been writing poetry since she was 8 years old, when her poem, “Spring” won best in class. She is presently illustrating a book of her own poetry.
She has been a resident of Westbeth Artist Housing in New York City since 1971.

GINA LEISHMAN performs
with Mr Wau Wau
on February 16.
On March 7, CD Release Party
for “Geography”.

GINA LEISHMAN CONCERT FEB

Friday, February 16th, 8pm
Mr Wau Wa plays the songs of Bertolt Brecht
Times like these need songs like these

Gina Leishman, vox, accordion, pump organ
Rinde Eckert, vox, pum organ, accordion
Doug Wieselman, clarinet, sax, guitar
Marcus Rojas, tuba
Kenny Wollesen, drums

Lethe Lounge
618 W 113th St
New York, New York 10025

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GINA LEISHAMN CONCERT GEOGRAPHY
Wednesday, March 7th, 8pm
“Geography” CD Release gig

Gina Leishman, vox, piano, mandola, bari uke
Dana Lyn, violn,
Marika hughes, cello
Greg Cohen, bass
Doug Wieselman, clarinet, sax, guitar
plus guests
Matt Munisteri, Charlie Burnham, Peter Apfelbaum, Kenny Wollesen and more

The Owl Music Parlor
497 Rogers Ave
Brooklyn, New York 11225

Gina Leishman is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer, British born but resident in the US since seemingly forever, having fled the goldfish bowl of Old Europe (at present she wishes she’d stayed there).
Collaborations with other artists include directors Karin Coonrod and Robert Woodruff, writers Ellen McLaughlin and Naomi Wallace, choreographers David Gordon and Deborah Slater, composer Doug Wieselman, and performance artists Rinde Eckert and John Kelly.
She leads various ensembles, including her long-standing septet Kamikaze Ground Crew, a vehicle for original composition; the Mr. Wau-Wa band, a quintet dedicated to the songs of Bertolt Brecht; and various quartets in support of her solo work.
Recordings are available on Koch Jazz, New World Records, Busmeat and GCQ Records. She is also an award-winning narrator of audio-books.

The Mr. Wau Wa band was formed in 1998 as part of a project at P.S 122 celebrating Bertolt Brecht’s centenary and is dedicated to performing the songs of Bertolt Brecht as set by his collaborators Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, and Paul Dessau, as well as some contemporary settings by David Hidalgo. (date, band line-up etc. in email)

“Geography” is Leishman’s fourth ‘solo’ album exploring the Leishman Songbook. Previous are “Bed Time” (2004) “In My Skin” (2007) and “Baseless Rumors” (2011). This latest recording, 12 encounters with landscapes both beloved and unknown, is a coming together of the disparate threads of Leishman’s recent life, covering the last 5 years of triangulated living – from New York to the wilds of Scotland and Northumbria and the warmth of the Mediterranean islands… (date, band line-up etc. in email)

Gwen Fabricant Westbeth Icon

gwen fabricant westbeth icon

Join us on June 7 at 7PM in the Westbeth Community Room to celebrate the life and work of Gwen Fabricant, painting, collage/assemblage artist. The evening will feature a filmed interview with Gwen, live tributes from her colleagues, and a brief talk by the artist herself. A presentation of a gift from the Westbeth Artists Residents Council will be followed by refreshments.

Gwen’s Statement:
I work from close observation of objects, in strong daylight, at their actual size. Each object enters the painting when I find it, often as a surprising emblem of raw nature discovered in the context of urban human life. At other times I bring objects back to the city studio from forays in woods or beach. The state of stable preservation, changeability, or fragility of the forms being painted determines the pace of painting. It is generally a slow process.

The compositional unity of these disparate forms takes place gradually, in the course of the painting. Grand forces of gravity, motion, gesture, color and light play out at my will on this intimate scale. An underlying theme of memory, and also an uncanny strangeness, become manifest without any conscious, preconceived plan, from this rigorous process of finding, seeing and recording reality.

WESTBETH ICONS PROJECT featured in The Villager

Edith Stephen

Edith Stephen

Jack Dowling

Jack Dowling

Sandra Kingsbury, the performing-artists chairperson of the Westbeth Artists Residents Council , said the goal of the Icon series is to highlight and document the history of senior artists living and working in the Westbeth community.

“We are all very aware of so many artists who have lived here and have worked right up until their deaths,” she said. “We think it’s something that keeps them going but also contributes to their production for their entire lives. There’s no retirement. That’s so awe-inspiring to the world and Westbeth has really given them this opportunity to do this. We want to celebrate that.”

Read entire article by Rebecca Fiore in THE VILLAGER here.

Jack Dowling, painter, printmaker, gallery director, and writer was the first Westbeth Icon to be honored.

Edith Stephen, dancer, choreographer and filmmaker is the second.

Edith Stephens Evening will feature a filmed interviews, short speeches by colleagues, a presentation of an Icon gift, and refreshments. Thurs January 18, 2018 at Westbeth Community Room. FREE

SOUND & IMAGE
Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors

FED MODERN P AND S POSTER

Dates: February 3 through February 24, 2018

Opening Reception February 3rd, 6-8 pm

Music in the Afternoon February 11th 4-6pm
Special guest: Andrew Bolotowsky, flutist with other fine musicians

Closing festivities on Saturday February 24, 4 – 6pm will include a performance by critically acclaimed singer and actor Molly Pope at 4pm
(see musical event description below)

Gallery hours: Wednesday – Sunday 1-6pm

For more information contact Deborah Day: 212 754-6767
www.fedart.org

The Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors presents Sound and Image, an exhibition at the Westbeth Gallery on the theme of image and music.

SERVETAS Tuning Up

John Servetas, Tuning Up, 34’ x 30”, oil on canvas

In his On the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky wrote: “Colour is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many strings.” Ever since Kandinsky likened paint to music, modernists have been thinking hard about the influential ways that visual art and music come together.

PERLIN Snow

Regina Perlin, Winter Snow Carroll Gardens, 22” x 28”, oil on canvas

This exhibition explores the sounds of paint, ink and other media through the works of a group that has been an ensemble for 78 years and whose artists have been and still are fascinated by the coming together of two art forms. Founding member Mark Rothko’s son Christopher writes about his father: “Music was central to my father’s world—to his own aesthetic sensibilities, certainly, but also to the structure and expressive modes he found as a painter. I think it’s fair to say he was a painter who aspired to be a musician.”

Interactive links to music are incorporated into the exhibition, as well as music events including an afternoon featuring Andrew Bolotowsky, flutist and son of Federation founder Ilya Bolotowsky, on February 11, 2018, 4-6pm in the gallery.

ARTISTS:

Anneli Arms
Sharon Ascher
Violet Baxter
Natalie Becker
Elizabeth Bisbing
Lynda Caspe
Nicholas Christopher
Marcia Clark
Tad Day
Edward Eichel
Robert Feinland
Geoffrey Gneuhs
Martin Goldblum
Kenneth Gore
Jerilyn Jurinek
Albert Kresch
Patricia Melvin
Valerie Mendelson
Otto Neals
Regina Perlin
Vincent Pinto
Jon Rettich
Larry Rushing
Elinore Schnurr
John Servetas
Jacqueline Sferra Rada
Jean François Rocheman
Philip Sherrod
Richard Sloat
Phillip Southern
MELVIN Gowanus

Patricia Melvin, View from the Third Street Bridge, Gowanus Canal, 9″x12″, oil on linen

MUSIC EVENTS
Two afternoons of music will be presented in conjunction with “Sound and Image”, an interactive visual art and music exhibition by the historic art organization the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, at the Westbeth Gallery.

“Music in the Afternoon”, Sunday, February 11, 4 – 6 pm will begin with Andrew Bolotowsky, a well-known and frequently recorded flautist who grew up in the New York City art world. Andrew Bolotowsky studied with Elaine Schaffer, William Kincaid, and Jean-Pierre Rampal. He has performed over 3,000 solo recitals and participated in countless chamber music and orchestral concerts. His father, leading early 20th-century abstract painter Ilya Bolotowsky, was a founding member of FOMPS, and has served as its president.
The afternoon will continue with local musicians Peter May and Dan Merrill, who will perform songs relating to the exhibition.

Closing festivities on Saturday February 24, 4 – 6pm will include a performance by critically acclaimed singer and actor Molly Pope at 4pm.
Hailed as “One of downtown cabaret’s most adventurous performers” by the New York Times,
Ms Pope’s shows have played Joe’s Pub, Feinstein’s/54 Below, the Cafe Carlyle and many other venues in the USA and Australia. She has been named a Time Out New York “Top Ten Cabaret Act of 2008” and 2012 and a Village Voice Best of NYC 2011 for “Best Singer to Turn Life Into A Cabaret.” Most recently she recorded her first album, “An Audience with Molly Pope”, live at Joe’s Pub. Her stage credits most recently include “Bulldozer” (Theater at St. Clement’s).

KATE WALTER Re-Finds Her Voice in
The Villager article about SingTime Sessions

SINGTIME SINGERS 1

“It was the Friday after the terrorist attack on the Hudson River bike path and I was shaken up. When I got back from work, I felt exhausted and debated whether to attend the “Sing Time Sessions,” a weekly vocal workshop I’d recently joined at Westbeth. It’s a lot of fun, so I pushed myself to go downstairs to the community room.

We’re working with a fantastic voice teacher, Eve Zanni — a neighbor in my artists’ complex — and a great piano player named Isaac Raz.

After singing and doing vocal exercises for an hour, I felt rejuvenated. That Friday, Eve suggested we stand for the closing number, dedicated to the eight victims of the Oct. 31 attack. We all rose and burst into “We Shall Overcome.” I got choked up.

I had forgotten how much I like singing and how good it makes me feel. No wonder Eve calls the group the Bliss Singers. We’re learning standards like “Blue Skies” by Berlin and Gershwin and pop classics like Carole King’s “Up on the Roof.” About 15 to 20 people show up every Friday to get our bliss on and start the weekend on a high note. When I leave the room, I feel elevated and recharged and ready to resist.”

Read entire article by Kate Walter in The Villager HERE

SINGTIME SINGERS 2 POSTER

“Sing Time Sessions” with voice teacher, Eve Zanni, Fridays 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., in the Westbeth Community Room, 55 Bethune St. Funded by a grant from Councilmember Corey Johnson’s Office and the Westbeth Artists Residents Council, the workshop is free and open to the public. No experience necessary.

SUSAN BERGER has 2 works included in The Ocean State Review, published at the University of Rhode Island, Vol.7, No.1

Susan Berger “55-70 Bethune Street in Sampler Format and Using Google Earth”

Susan Berger
“55-70 Bethune Street in Sampler Format and Using Google Earth Fiber/Mixed Media – 2010
36”(w) x 40”(h)”

55-70 Bethune Street. The building where I lived and worked is called “Westbeth Artist Housing”. Across the street from Westbeth was Superior Ink Printing Company and was designed by a famous industrial architect named A.G Zimmerman. Both buildings are side by side and take on factory-like images and done in crude stitches. Another panel you have a street divided by the two buildings land/street is on one side and the Hudson River on the other side. Google Earth images of the two buildings are used. Many times Google Earth images are never removed from the Internet even though Superior Ink no longer exists.

The work is about the city, which needs old buildings because it tells us about the past, and that it should not be lost but revived; and artists tend to co-exist with the past by preserving it but not destroying it.

Susan Berger “Bon Voyage, A La Family” (A Drawing) Weave Stitching – Fiber – Mixed Media 2013 - 40”(w) x 36”(h)

Susan Berger “Bon Voyage, A La Family” (A Drawing)
Weave Stitching – Fiber – Mixed Media
2013 – 40”(w) x 36”(h)

Bon Voyage is about cruises taken with my family or it can be with any family during the 1950s. You look in the scrapbook and see photos taken way back when. We remember the good times and hold onto those memories even though the family might no longer exist. Memories are frozen in time, and sometimes can be falsely perceived as we look back. I combine copies of the original photographs with my renditions done in weave stitching and combine fabric in a quilt-like pattern, which gives its own patina.

The Ocean State Review is a yearly print journal. For more info: oceanstatereview.org

Westbeth Icon: Edward Field poet

EDWARD FIELD ICON

Westbeth Icons is a project that celebrates the work and life of senior Westbeth artists who continue to passionately work in their artistic field. It is funded by the Westbeth Artists Residents Council with a grant from NYC Council Speaker, Corey Johnson.

Terry Stoller spoke with Edward Field previously about his decision to become a poet, his first “teacher,” the effects of New Criticism on poetic language and subject matter, his pursuing his own direction with his writing, the challenges of being a gay poet in the early days, and the blessings of his later years.

see more about Edward Field HERE

Treatment Action Group
TAG Limited Art Editions Sale
1999 – 2017

TAG_westbeth_exhibition_poster_final_2_2_18

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Joe McConnell, Treatment Action Group
PHONE: 212-253-7922

Email: joe.mcconnell@treatmentactiongroup.org

TREATMENT ACTION GROUP ANNOUNCES HISTORIC ART EXHIBITION AND SALE AT WESTBETH GALLERY

TAG Limited Art Editions 1999 – 2017
March 21 – Saturday March 24, 2018; Opening Reception: Wednesday, March 21, 6 – 8 pm

Treatment Action Group is pleased to present the exhibition
TAG Limited Art Editions 1999 – 2017. Running from Wednesday March 21 through Saturday March
24, 2018 at Westbeth Gallery (www.westbeth.org), located at 55 Bethune Street in New York City. Gallery hours are: Wednesday thru Saturday from 1 pm to 8 pm.

This exhibition marks the first time that all 14 editions will be exhibited together. A full-color catalog accompanies the exhibition with an essay by Joy Episalla. It will be available for purchase in the gallery and after the exhibition at: http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/limited-art-editions.

The TAG art collection started in 1999 through the donation of over 30 silver gelatin selenium-toned prints by the photographer Ben Thornberry. Thornberry’s images document ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) AIDS activists in action during the height of the AIDS crisis, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Since 2005, the collection has continued to grow through the TAG Limited Art Editions. Overseeing the editions is board member, artist, and long-time AIDS activist Joy Episalla. Episalla has helped gather a stellar group of artists who have generously donated editions specifically produced for TAG. Treatment Action Group hopes you will consider joining these artists in supporting TAG’s important and life-saving work by adding to your art collection.

Included in the exhibition are Erica Baum (2017), Rosalind Fox Solomon (2016), Joy Episalla (2015), Kate Shepherd (2014), Nan Goldin (2013), Robert Gober (2012), Bill Jacobson (2011), fierce pussy (2010), Donald Moffett (2009), Tony Feher (2008), Carrie Yamaoka (2007), David Armstrong (2006), Richard Renaldi (2005), and Ben Thornberry (1999). TAG wants to thank each of these artists for their generosity.

Event
A panel discussion will take place, during the exhibition, at Westbeth Gallery:
Friday March 23 from 6 to 8 pm
The Legacy of Artists: David Armstrong, Tony Feher and David Wojnarowicz
Participants include the writer Cindy Carr, artist Joy Episalla, (list in formation).

Any changes to the panel will be posted on http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/westbeth.org

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Treatment Action Group (TAG) is an independent, activist and community-based research and policy think tank fighting for better treatment, prevention, a vaccine, and a cure for HIV, tuberculosis, and the hepatitis C virus. TAG works to ensure that all people with HIV, TB, or HCV receive lifesaving treatment, care, and information. We’re science-based treatment activists working to expand and accelerate vital research and effective community engagement with research and policy institutions. TAG catalyzes open collective action by all affected communities, scientists, and policy makers to end HIV, TB, and HCV.

Open Studios at Westbeth:
Artists who worked in the Sixties

1934train

Date and Time: SUNDAY March 18 at 1:00PM
Where: Westbeth Artists Housing 55 Bethune Street, corner of Washington Street in Manhattan
FREE

Westbeth Artist Housing was a haven for many well-known artists during the ’60s, including Diane Arbus, Benny Andrews, and Robert De Niro Sr. Originally an industrial complex whose conversion to artist lofts was designed by Richard Meier, Westbeth was the largest artists’ living-and-working space in the world at the time, and included artists from all disciplines: actors, sculptors, writers, musicians, dancers, and so on.

This free event allows visitors special access to present-day artist spaces at Westbeth. Participating artists include Bill Anthony, Jonathan Bauch, Beverly Brodsky, Anne Brody, Ray Ciarrocchi, Sandra Caplan, Jack Dowling, Jon D’Orazio, Tom Duncan, Patricia Hacker, Gerald Marcus, Avri Ohana, Jean Promutico, Sheila Schwid, David Seccombe, Shelley Seccombe, Frances Siegel, Ken Wade, and John Whittaker.

Part of: The ’60s: The Years that Changed America

Free Event

More Info at: Carnegie Hall Project

Contact: magda_dajani@outlook.com