Ralph Lee skeleton puppet, operated by volunteers, hangs over the parade at the premiere of the first Halloween Parade in 1974.Photo Jill Lynne copyright 2024

“One awakened to the sound of sopranos practicing scales, the scent of incense, and as now, birds chirping “good morning.” At the western end of Bank Street was Westbeth, the former home of Bell Labs, which had just been revolutionized into the largest subsidized home for Artists in the world. All seemed rather idyllic and filled with dynamic possibility.

It was within this marvelous milieu that I was introduced to renowned mask maker and theatrical set designer, artist Ralph Lee.

Ralph whispered his ideas to me about creating a true Halloween Parade. The West Village of 1974 was a very different place than it is now — it was a tight-knit creative community of visual artists, musicians and literary figures.”

– Jill Lynne “Memories of Ralph Lee’s first Halloween Parade.
Read entire article in New York Social Diary

Westbeth puppeteers, Ralph Lee’s and Penny Jones’ puppets are currently on view at the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibit, Puppets of New York.
See more about the show here. Ralph Lee and Penny Jones

Westbeth Courtyard 1974 Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

“Greed,” another fantastic creature by Ralph Lee at the first parade, 1974. Photo Jill Lynne copyright 2024

A fantasy camel, made by Ralph Lee, rides high above the crowd, 1974. Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

Whimsical costumes — and humor — have always been a signature of the parade. “People Feed,” early 1980s. Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

Along the parade route, it was customary for costumed celebrants to gather for viewing parties on fire escapes, balconies, and roofs. Pictured here are a group of masked marauders on Bleecker Street party in 1975. Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

One of the features of the original Halloween Parade were live vignettes set up at strategic landmarks. Here, a witch entertains at the Jefferson Market Library, 1975. The Library continues the tradition to this day … Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

Hooded Skeletons, 1976. Photo: Jill Lynne

A masked participant (mask by Ralph Lee) interacts with a real horse, 1970s.

Drag rock group Hibiscus prepping for the parade on Christopher Street, 1975.Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

“Man in White,” 1980s. Photo: Jill Lynne copyright 2024

Where I’ve Never Gone: Diane in Ten Frames
By Ellis Stump
Directed by Erin Quinn Purcell

FREE PERFORMANCE

Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 7PM
Sunday. Oct 24, 2021 at 7PM

Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank St
NYC 10014

Seating is limited. Reservations strongly recommended. Reserve Now!
Email” WARCevents@gmail.com

Covid vaccination, photo ID, face covering. Maximum occupancy 35 persons.

50 years since Diane Arbus’s passing by suicide, we reopen and theatrically bring to life her iconic final project: “A Box of 10 Photographs.” These scenic snapshots preserve moments in Arbus’s lifetime and New York City history, while exploring current themes of mental health, identity, creative appropriation, and imagination. 

This play, by rising playwright Ellis Stump, was mentored at Columbia University by David Henry Hwang (M Butterfly) and is directed by Erin Quinn Purcell.

Erin Quinn Purcell has worked as an actor/director/writer in New York City for over 25 years. She serves as Performing Arts Chair on the Westbeth Artist Residents Council.

In addition to directing “Where I’ve Never Gone”, Erin is also currently working with Jay Reiss (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) on a new musical, Iceboy! (music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann) at the Pasadena Playhouse starring Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Adam Devine and Laura Bell Bundy. You can watch 4 numbers from the musical on their website https://www.playbill.com/article/watch-megan-mullally-and-nick-offerman-in-the-upcoming-musical-iceboy.

Bargains Galore

We receive donations from the artists at Westbeth and our community. The sale includes housewares, electronics, cameras, furniture, books, albums, men’s and women’s clothing, collectibles, fine fabrics and linens, sports, and more at low, low prices!

Our Affordable Art Department

specializes in original artwork including paintings, sculpture, fine art prints, and drawings from abstract to representational.

Covid 19

Masks, Vaccination Card and Proof of ID required for entry. Maximum occupancy 35 persons.

November 13, 2021 ONLY 11am – 2pm

NEW! Westbeth Tee Shirts

available in all sizes will be sold at Flea Market $20 each. Money raised will go towards Westbeth projects and programs.

Housewares

Books

Men’s and Women’s Clothing

Affordable Art

Collectibles

Collectibles

OPENING
Tuesday Election Day November 2, 2021 10am – 7pm

WEEKEND FLEA MARKET
Friday Nov 5 11am – 5pm
Saturday Nov 6, 11am – 5pm
Sunday Nov 7, 11am – 5pm

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PROJECTS FUNDED BY FLEA MARKET Westbeth Flea Market

CONTACT: westbethfleamarket@gmail.com

Opening Reception
Thurs, October 14, 6-9pm S

Show dates Oct 14 – Nov 13, 2021
Hours: Wed-Sun 1-6pm

Westbeth Home of the Arts is back with a bang after a long hiatus due to Covid and what better way to do this? by bringing together 8 amazing and uniquely different artists who’s take on the phrase:

Sign Of The Times
“Something judged to exemplify or indicate the nature or quality of a particular period”

Each artist has their own point of view whether its personal, political or time specific. The show features paintings, photography, a combination of both, sculpture, free hand paper cutting, dioramas and installation. These works will provoke us to question what is going on in the world right now and what kind of world are we leaving to future generations.

Artists

Illtyd Barrett, Christina Duarte, Elizabeth Gregory-Gruen, Stephen Hall, Steve Joester, Martin Mahoney, Rob Plater, Robert Ross

Illtyd Barrett
Barrett will explore the phenomena of the rise of populism and consumerism which has led to a climate of anti intellectualism and religious fundamentalism. Using hand made pigments and substrates, Barrett proposes to exhibit both sculpture and 2D elements reflecting the above concerns.

Christina Duarte
Now is the time to recognize that society requires women to behave in a particular way that often hides their true selves. My pieces are a diptych dialogue about women showing two sides of their personalities as a narration of rising against prejudice, sexism and the stigma of personal struggle.

Elizabeth Gregory-Gruen
Cut Work, is a free hand paper cutting process that charts the contours of our ever- changing emotional experience through the movement of form, line, color, and light and shadow. Evolving over the course of ten years, Cut Work traveled through Gregory- Gruen’s diverse vocabulary of mediums from paper and metal, to leather and 12-gauge gunshot blasts to understand the play between visceral emotional responses and meditative rest.

Stephen Hall
I continue to make paintings that draw attention to our planet in crisis.
Whether it is plastic pollution or the fossil fuel industry and climate change, it is most certainly greed at the heart of it. I draw attention to these things by rendering scenes that show the beauty of our natural world juxtaposed with symbols of the aforementioned.

Steve Joester
Capturing the cultural explosion propelled by Rock n Roll from the Rolling Stones to the Sex Pistols. Loud, brash, colorful and fueled by youth rebellion!

Martin Mahoney
Always had a keen interest in photography which has intensified recently due to the alarming acceleration in the gentrification of his beloved East Village, attempting to capture what’s left of the old neighborhood and its denizens, which are being replaced by glass boxes, banks and bubble tea joints.…

Rob Plater
The re-appropriation of styles and traditions within Robert’s work serves to bridge the gap between his favorite genres within the extensive history of image making.

Robert Ross
STOP, DANGER, HAZARDOUS MATERIAL, KEEP TO THE RIGHT, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED, CAUTION, DEAD END AHEAD

Contact: Curator Samantha Hall (646) 309 7109
samanthahall666@gmail.com

Westbeth Gallery: 57 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014

Westbeth Community Room
Enter through courtyard
155 Bank Street
b/w Washington and West Its
New York, NY

Wednesday Oct 13, 2021
1PM – 3:30PM

FREE

Please Note:
The waiting room will be outside the Community Room. Only person at a time will be allowed to enter.
Masks are mandatory
Bring a pen
Bring your glasses

Vaccine and staffing donated by Lenox Hill Greenwich Village, Northwell Health
Sponsored by Westbeth Artists Residents Council

“The piece is from the Memoir series. It is snapshots found in a photo album. The middle section is of rug hooking techniques win varied and vibrant colors. The top portion is of black and white images on a family cruise more defined as at the time of the photos. The bottom is in sepia tone images as faded over time and loss of the images and time plays a role and maybe the existence is less there. These images of photographs are encased or enshrined in boxes of the same dimensions. The middle section is the swimming pool onboard a cruise ship and the other is one sister in front of a large food display portraying that time of year of the journey on the cruise: Easter.”

Albany International Airport Gallery
September 10 – November 8, 2021
737 Albany Shaker Road, Albany, NY

There are three locations that are being presented simultaneously: Albany Center Gallery, Opalka Gallery, and Albany International Gallery. This is all part of the Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region. The area is a 100-mile radius from Albany, NY which includes Connecticut and Massachusetts. There were 561 entries by artists across the region. From those, our jurors selected 143 works of art from 96 artists.

The work selected of Susan Berger:

Sisters on a Cruise Ship with Snapshots
48″ (w) x 48″(h) x 3″(d)
2019
Fiber Mixed Media

Juror: Tommy Gregory, Public Art Program Senior Manager and Curator for the Port of Seattle

More info on the Gallery: Albany Airport Art and Culture Program

Westbeth Community Room
October 28, 2021 at 7PM

This performance, in collaboration with trumpet player Adam O’Farrill and guitarist Tal Yahalom

The program is a meditation on wind – how it moves, feels on the skin, rises and falls, puffs and billows in a dances, glides through a sigh. The program will feature several classical masterworks for solo flute and two contemporary duos by Franco-Japanese composers (Fujikura and Takemitsu).

PROGRAM
Debussy- ‘Syrinx’
Honegger- ‘Danse de la chèvre’
Marin Marais- ‘Les Folies d’Espagne’ -selected variations
Dai Fujikura- ‘Glacier’ arr. bass flute and flugelhorn (featuring Adam O’Farrill) Toru Takemitsu- ‘Towards the Sea’ (featuring Tal Yahalom)

French-American flutist Louna Dekker Vargas has been described as “promising young artist” (Citizen Jazz). She began to tour the U.S. as a founding member of several award-winning chamber groups before completing her Bachelor in Flute at Peabody Conservatory and subsequently earning the Grace Claggett Raney award for excellence in chamber music. She further developed her training in the French flute school by doing postgraduate studies under Vincent Lucas, principal flute of the Orchestre de Paris. Her curiosity and musicality have led her collaborations and investigations into free jazz, contemporary classical, Indian Hindustani, and improvised hip hop traditions. She is a founding member of Nick Dunston’s quintet Atlantic Extraction, has played numerous times as solo flute with the Wicked Broadway orchestra, and has performed as a guest artist in collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Brooklyn-bred Adam O’Farrill, 26, has emerged as a “rising star as a player and composer” (PopMatters) and “a blazing young trumpet talent” (The New York Times). Beginning his career in his teenage years performing with his father, the pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill, Adam has gone on to work with a wide range of artists such as Mary Halvorson, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Mulatu Astatke, Brasstracks, Kambui Olujimi, Samora Pinderhughes, Sarah Kay, and Anna Webber. His most recent album, 2018’s El Maquech (Biophilia Records) received critical acclaim, including the Wall Street Journal, who wrote that “the band presents rambunctious music that is equally rustic and modern,” as well as receiving Best of the Year mentions from The Boston Globe and the NPR Jazz Critics Poll. In both 2019 and 2021, O’Farrill won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Trumpeter. Adam has been recognized and awarded for his composing as well, receiving commissions and grants from The Jazz Gallery, The Shifting Foundation, Metropolis Ensemble, and ASCAP.

Tal Yahalom is an Israeli guitarist, composer and bandleader based in Brooklyn, New York. In his music he seeks to create engaging storytelling, attentive interplay and distinct sonic environments, weaving together influences and elements of hard-bop, alternative-rock,
impressionistic classical music and improvised music. Tal has toured internationally and across the US with the collective-trio ‘KADAWA’ and various collaborative projects, while releasing 3 solo guitar records to date. Yahalom performed as a semifinalist at the 2019 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Guitar Competition, earned 1st prize at the 2015 Detroit Jazz Festival National Guitar Competition, 3rd prize at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival International Guitar Competition, and is a recipient of the AICF scholarship award of excellence in 2014-2015.

The concert will last 1 hr and 10 minutes including a brief intermission. Admission is free contingent on reservation. The concert space will follow strict COVID 19 safety protocol and seating will be limited to 35 seats. The venue is wheelchair accessible. Guests must reserve in advance by emailing the following email address:

FREE. RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
Contact: lounadekker@gmail.com”/>

This free performance has been made possible by the City Artist Corps Grants program, presented by The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), with support from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) as well as Queens Theatre.

This fall, the public-artspace nonprofit ArtBridge is turning 65 lamp posts in Lower Manhattan into temporary art installations with an exhibition that explores resiliency.

The work — guided by the notion of “resiliency,” the ability to demonstrate adaptability and the capacity to thrive in changing or challenging environments — includes “Dances of New York City” by Frances Smith and “Geo Grid” by Michelle Weinberg.

Weinberg, a painter who’s served residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the MacDowell Colony, made use of the lamp post’s cylinder-like shape for her “Geo Grid” piece. “I will design patterned art that will show movement as it swirls upward,” Weinberg explained. “Geometric and plant forms in vivid colors will ‘grow’ from bottom to top, and they have a sense of motion ingrained in them.”

The art was selected through a public-design competition held over the summer that drew more than 100 artist applications. The review panel of esteemed judges included Gary Carrion-Murayari, Curator, New Museum; Lili Chopra, Executive Director, Artistic Programs, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; and Claire Gilman, Curator, Drawing Center.