Basically a legend
- frida@artyardbklyn.org
- Aug 8
- 8 min read
At ART YARD BKLYN, creativity and artmaking is in flourishing even in the heat of summer. Behind every inspired creative work and every collaborative breakthrough is something just as vital: support.
Funding our programs—Advanced Studio, Summer Session, School Partnerships, and exhibitions and those field trips we adore—is no small feat. It’s a monumental, ongoing effort that keeps our mission thriving. Every donation we receive fuels not only the work you see, but also the infrastructure that makes it all possible.
This week, Dennis and I (Meridith) met with Development Intern Allison Schwartz to chart out our next fundraising steps. We checked in on recent grant applications, mapped strategies, and even began dreaming up our next Benefit Party—always a creative event in itself! If you have time, energy, or ideas to contribute to these efforts, we would love to have you on board. Your help truly makes a difference.
Hold Dear continues to evolve beautifully.
Leni and Jacob came over to finesse the layout and editorial details of the Hold Dear zine, which will also serve as the exhibition’s brochure. The clarity and thoughtfulness they’re bringing to the project are deeply impressive.
As we filled in the final details for the show, collaboration continued: with Kevin’s approval, Leni painted his unfinished sculpture in warm tones, I created a nightstand to serve as both furniture and pedestal for Ed’s bowl of plums, and Jacob and Liv crafted additional wall pieces for the ground floor installation of Hold Dear (Kept). Lola approves.
Other Art News
Congratulations to AYB Artists Ajani Russell who was in Philadelphia last weekend to attend the premier of Seek No Favor a recent film in which they feature. The Black Star Fest website describes the project: “Low-key, anxiety-managing millennial Monroe Malone is trying to outrun last year’s job loss when she collides with a weave-snatching cartel led by Big Baby. After overhearing his plan to kidnap hair tech genius Camille J. Walker and steal her Infinite Track invention, Monroe jumps into action. The encounter is bound to leave him not untouched by blood.”
Abriel (bob) Gardner, who joined Ajani in Philadelphia for the celebration, shares these photos from the trip:
Photos by Abriel (bob) Gardner
Kudos to AYB Teaching Artist Iviva Olenick whose workshop Prospect Park Pollinators tour for Brooklyn Embroidered Oral History Garden Tours was featured in the Brooklyn Arts Council’s website and newsletter.
AYB Artists have been busy in their studios and while traveling!
Vee Tineo has the sculpture pictured below in Nothing is Fixed at Old Stone House & Washington Park, 336 Third Street, Brooklyn, opening Sunday Aug 10 from 4-6pm.
Vee also shares their recent ceramic sculpture “Veyra, a surreal, retro-futuristic sci-fi portrait of Veyra, a full-bodied Black Dominican woman mid-performance. She wears an elaborate blue bodysuit with glowing patterns, a golden-blonde wig, and face paint that softly illuminates in the dim light. Her algae-wrapped bracelet pulses as she conjures holographic figures into the air. The scene is set in a shadowy gathering space lit by glowing fungal lanterns. Audience members sit in awe, their faces lit by shifting hues. The illustration blends organic and technological elements, evoking classic pulp sci-fi with a sense of mystery and wonder.”
Vee Tineo, Veyra (two views in water) 2025, ceramic
Furthermore, congratulations to Vee who leaves tomorrow for a two-month long artists residency at Taoxichuan Ceramic Art in Jingdezgen, China.
Kevin Anderson explains: “After working so much with color during ART YARD Summer Session, I decided to begin understanding color theory on my own. I think the best way to learn something is to center it around something that interests you, and what had interested me lately is the movie "K-Pop Demon Hunters". I based this drawing on the lead character Rumi, who has a beautiful mix of contrasting yellow and purple attributes.”
Leni Silva made a welcome studio visit to her sibling Elias Silva’s studio in Bushwick. Leni enthusiastically compliments Elias excellent new paintings in progress!
Elias Silva, Paintings in progress in the studio. Photos by Leni Silva.
Travis Pereira shares a drawing in progress and the story behind it: “I made this shirt for my friend to wear to the Beyoncé Cowboy Carter concert, and it was the first time in a while that I created an outfit for someone other than myself. designing it—and figuring out how to bring the vision to life—was such an experience. After it all came together, I felt really moved. I’ve actually been thinking about turning it into a piece of art, maybe a watercolor or something inspired by the shirt. It left such an impression on me.”
Evelyn Beliveau shares: “Here are two finished paintings and one in progress from my series on dolls and figurines!”
Evelyn Beliveau, Dolls and Figures l, ll, & lll, 2025
I (Meridith) am reveling in painting a medium regular-for-me sized painting. Here it is in progress, with a studio view to show the scale.
Meridith McNeal, Roman Window from Shoe Store with Enrico (Piaza Navona, Rome) in progress & studio view.
Cindy Zacarias shares: “I went camping this weekend to Adirondacks with Latino Outdoors (non- profit focused on connecting Latinos with the outdoors). I drew a sketched in my AYB sketchbook in oil pastels at one of the swimming holes. On the last day, I went out to Heart Lake to paint and it turned into a mini art session with the group.”
Cindy Zacarias, Swimming Hole, 2025, and works by Cindy and friends participating in Latinos Outdoors
Leah Eliopolus has been traveling, and like Cindy, is keeping up work in her sketchbook. She also had two recent paintings framed.
Paintings by Leah Eliopolus
Exhibitions to See in NYC
Jazz Gilette has been busy crocheting. She adds: “I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I loved looking at Monet’s cloud paintings!! And this piece by Charles Henry Alston from the Dandyism exhibition caught my eye. I would love to find a print of it to hang on my wall.”
Maria Polanco is “working on a new oil painting for my partner, I’m not too familiar with oils but it’s definitely exciting! (image to follow).
I also went to the Whitney Museum and saw something very interesting. This painting that portrays a folklore from where my family lives.”
From the exhibition wall label: “In Firelei Báez's painting Untitled (Tabula Anemographica seu Pyxis Navtic), a furry brown body with hooves for feet and eyes at knee-level erupts from the center of the composition decorated in an assortment of flowers, beaded headdresses, and cowrie shells. A trickster creature from Dominican folklore with roots in Taino mythology.”
Maria continues: “Seeing this, which is beautiful! got me really curious about what the legend might be, I researched a bit and even asked my family to see if they had ever heard of ‘la ciguapa’. it’s basically a legend of a creature having woman form, blue or brown skin and backwards feet. she lures men in for them to never come back.”
What We Are Reading
After Adji’s wonderful poetry centric classes during Summer Session I have been on a bit of a poetry kick! In that funny synchronistic way, when I cracked open Margaret A. Bruscia’s The Key To Everything: May Swenson, A Writers Life (Princeton University Press, 2025) for the first time to a random page, I landed on a photo of poets May Swenson and Elizabeth Bishop flanking none other than Beauford Delaney!
Brucia’s biography is a window into the life of poet May Swenson (1913–1989), one that also brings the time and place such as artist teeming Greenwich Village in the early-mid twentieth century. Perceptive and sympathetic, yes, but she’s also wisely restrained, allowing Swenson’s own voice—drawn from diaries, letters, and prose reflections—to carry the emotional weight of the story.
I appreciated insight on to how fiercely Swenson pursued her art even when the world didn’t quite have a place for her. As a queer woman, as a poet from a working-class background, she navigated spaces not always welcoming to her presence—and yet she found her way. Whether transcribing folklore for the Federal Writers’ Project or whispering secrets to Elizabeth Bishop across decades, Swenson’s voice remains clear, searching, alive.
Philip Hoare’s Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World
(Paperback, Pegasus Books, 2022) is a mix of art, nature, and personal narrative, with a meandering perspective as per compelling tag line in the subtitle.
Hoare opens with Albrecht Dürer but quickly draws us into a broader, mythic constellation—with a wide swath of historical artists and other folks from the past including William Blake, Marianne Moore, Shakespear, Thomas Mann, W.H Auden, and David Bowie. Hoare evokes folks as part of his story telling as if summoning spirits, twined with thoughts on Dürer.
Book cover and Albrecht Dürer, St. Jerome in His Study (1514), engraving.
The title Albert and the Whale refers to a journey Dürer undertook in 1520—crossing treacherous winter seas to glimpse a beached whale in Zeeland. (Spoiler: the whale had already drifted back into the deep by the time he arrived.) And yet, as Hoare reminds us - It’s not about seeing the whale, it’s about seeking it.
Hoare’s language is magical, lush and evocative. Each chapter centers on a work by Dürer—the fur of the hare, the holy glint in the eye of a bird, the quiet thunder of Melencolia I. And through Hoare’s meandering narrative, these familiar images take on new luster. In short, this book is a dreamlike, scholarly, and a bizarre.
Stay tuned – sitting on my coffee table for my next read is Philip Hoare’s William Blake and The Sea Monsters of Love (Pegasus Books, 2025). I can’t wait!
Abriel (bob) and I adapted a recipe for Greek Butter Beans with Tomato which we brought to a Brooklyn in Corfu party. We watched two episodes of The Durell's of Corfu and played with Cappuccino (Kyra's sideways bunny). The food was great and we thought you would enjoy the recipe!
Greek Butter Beans with Tomato
◦ 1 white onion chopped
◦ Several cloves garlic chopped
◦ 1 red pepper chopped
◦ About 2 tablespoons tomato paste
◦ Oregano (we used very fragrant Greek oregano)
◦ Olive oil
◦ 2 cans organic butter beans drained & rinsed
◦ 1 can Mutti cherry tomatoes
◦ 1/2 cup vegetable broth
◦ 1/2 cup white wine
◦ 2 Bay leaves
◦ Fresh parsley
Sauté onions, garlic & peppers and oregano in olive oil
Stir in tomato paste & continue to simmer
Add beans & tomatoes, bay leaves simmer
Lightly crush tomatoes for more juice
Add wine & broth for desired consistency
Stir in parsley
Greek party feast (butter beans bottom center) & screenshot of a dinner scene from Durell's of Corfu
We have a full roster of teaching artists signed up for zoom and in-person Advanced Studio Session for the fall 2025. We will resume on September 8th in zoom with Assata teaching & in the studio at BWAC with Ajani on September 9th.
Register through the link on our home page at 5pm on Sunday September 7th!
Keep sharing your art news! It is great to see what everyone is up to.
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