Hold on tightly, let go lightly
- frida@artyardbklyn.org
- Oct 3
- 11 min read
Updated: Oct 9
This week at ART YARD BKLYN was filled with artmaking, heartfelt reflection, and exhibition installation. As we continue rebuilding after the fire, our programs are thriving—in Brooklyn, online, and in our school programs.
From Sargent-inspired artworks reflecting upon our traveled experience and emotional deep dives into loss and repair to a colorful school installation and some other art news, here’s what’s been happening:
On Monday AYB Artist Ajani Russell, signing in from Barcelona, lead AYB Advanced Studio on Zoom mix of folks in Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, New Jersey, Kansas, and California—for a beautifully planned session inspired by the travel-based portrait work of John Singer Sargent.
Ajani invited us to create artwork based on a travel memory involving a person we saw or met during our journey. Artists worked in their choice of media—which included collage, watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite—and the session unfolded into a vibrant, story-filled exchange across borders and time zones.
AYB Artist Karla Prickett shared this thoughtful reflection on her paper collage I Traveled to Italy and Brooklyn. “My piece uses collage elements from discarded illustrations by Henrik Van Loon (1937). These images brought back a 2008 trip to Italy, touring cathedrals, basilicas, and the countryside from Rome to the Tuscan Valley, Venice, and the east coast. I remember a wonderful violinist at Piazza San Marco—an architectural extravaganza! And… Brooklyn in 2023!”
Karla also reflects upon the work created in the session: “ I noted a shared palette emerging across the group, especially a beautiful golden yellow that appeared in several works.”
Leah’s piece is particularly compelling with its nostalgic mood and masterful use of color and technique.
Meridith’s Roman mirror painting stood out for its shifting tones, strong tile work, and dynamic foreground-to-background composition.
Fatima created a bold graphic images from her study abroad in South Africa as if captured through a Polaroid camera.
Marilyn painted a compelling view from a train tunnel on a trip to Vancouver.
Richie’s drawing in progress, shows his long commute from Brooklyn to his work in The Bronx.
Aaron’s imaginative merging of two distant places into one fluid scene—a Caribbean beach blended seamlessly with the cliffs of Portugal.
Neah recollected a recent trip to Mexico with friends, capturing the glow of a lit-up swimming pool and the surreal calm that followed a sudden power outage.
Adji returned to her familiar theme: water. Her bold, painterly composition in oil features a central figure perched quietly in a saturated, blue-toned landscape—striking and evocative.
Ajani recalled a sweet encounter earlier in the day in Barcelona of seeing pigeons perched atop an architectural element bending sweetly towards each other, rendered in subtle tones of brown and yellow.
Vera shared an emotionally charged and understandably difficult memory: a visit with her sister to a plantation site in Louisiana. The weight of that experience came through powerfully, adding another important layer of reflection to a session grounded in place, history, and emotion.
Karla sums up: “Each piece came with a story—small personal moments transformed into visual memory. Thank you, Ajani, for guiding such a generous and inspiring session!”
On Tuesday, October 1, our in-person Advanced Studio at 180 Franklin Avenue was lead by AYB Teaching Artist Jules Lorenzo, The class focused on memory, ephemerality, and loss through an intimate and powerful lens. The lesson was titled Snapshots of Loss: Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly.
Jules writes: "For this week's lesson, we took a deep dive into themes of memory, ephemerality, and loss. Leading up to my class, I thought a lot about what migration means to me. While not having my own personal experience with it, nor having the accessibility to the people in my life who have, I thought back to an English class from my sophomore year of high school. My teacher was discussing how his grandma had to flee her home country when she was just a little girl. It was the middle of the night and all she had time to grab was a photo of her with her parents. Years later when she went back to visit, her childhood home and everything in it was gone. The small black and white photo was the only tangible item from her past that she had left. It made me think of all the things people lose when they migrate and how universally we experience the loss of people, places, and things we once knew. Sometimes all we have to hold onto is a memory, despite how faulty and untrustworthy our memory can be.
We focused primarily on the works of John Steck, Jr., Quynh Lam, Susan Rothenberg, and Shea Noland. The examples we looked at from John Steck Jr. were of his pieces Three Rooms and Someone. The works included foggy expired film pictures that depict people and the shadowy interior of rooms. While Steck’s pieces not only incorporate themes of decay, time, and memory, the materials he works with also contribute to the degradation of his pieces over time. Humidity, temperature, and time are all major factors involved in the steady deterioration of his photos.
Quynh Lam is another artist that uses old photographs in her work, as well as plant matter, to emphasize both memory and ephemerality. We examined a street sketch from Lam that depicted a French colonial building in Saigon that now no longer exists, a common phenomenon we experience here in New York with beloved store fronts and restaurants closing more often than we’d like. 'Not only is it destroyed now, but when I do research about it on the internet, which I did this morning, I cannot find any good article or relevant information about that building. It feels like when something disappears physically, its remnants are also erased.'
We also examined her piece, Landscape of the Dead 1889, which was a recreation of a mausoleum her relatives visited in old photographs. She used decaying pigments on paper to parallel how these works will eventually fade like her family photos and traditions.
Artwork from Susan Rothenberg was also included to display how memories can be portrayed from different perspectives, as shown in Dogs Killing Rabbit. 'You see things from different heights here, the topography changes—sometimes you’re looking down on the land, sometimes you’re climbing up the land,' she said. 'So a kind of shifting perspective came into my work.'
Lastly we focused on Shea Noland, whose work Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly was the main inspiration for this lesson. Her piece uses plaster, moss, and dirt to recreate the foundations of her childhood home. She uses these materials to explore the relationship between memories and the ephemeral nature of the physical objects used to 'contain them.' 'While material items allow us to make moments tangible, they cannot fully capture their everlasting impact and remain vulnerable to decay and destruction. This exhibition invites viewers to reflect on how we ascribe value to objects, encouraging us to hold on tightly to what truly matters and let go lightly of what does not.'
For class work, artists were instructed to recreate memories of a place or person that isn’t here anymore. They were encouraged to think about not only depicting different perspectives of these memories, but also to consider what these memories smelled like, felt like, tasted like, etc. After having two minutes to jot down notes and mentally map out our memories, we got started. The work that came after, which by now should be no surprise, was truly magnificent.
Use arrows to scroll through images of class at work
An excellent example of shifting perspective was shown through Chase’s work. It depicted the memory of a flower he and his brother tried to take a picture of while in Lima, Peru. The picture was described as being a little over-exposed with a bright white background and tons of bright colors of the flower being distorted in the tiny digital frame. Chase’s recreation of this literally lifted off the page as we were transported not only to Peru but to the inside of his camera as well.
Another piece with a 3D element came from Flo, where he created a box of St. Louis sugar. He shared his memory of his grandma only giving him and his siblings three cubes of sugar a day. Sometimes they would trade cubes with one another in order to help with chores and such. The woman depicted on the box was an homage to his sister who had recently passed. She lost one of her front teeth and while she was urged by her family to get it fixed, she simply wasn’t bothered by it. We see her with a large toothy grin on the cover of the box with a hole punctured through one of her front teeth. The real kicker comes in when you open the box to reveal a pack of sugar and a piece of popcorn representing her 'missing tooth.'
Florian Velayandom Neven du Mont, Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly.
Cindy recreated a memory of a family get-together bathed in warm yellow light. Brown kitchen cabinets and a long table framed her loved ones. In the drawing she included her mother sitting on her uncle’s lap, a moment where she realized that her mom was just a sibling too. Her work also drew some comparisons to courtroom sketches.
Brenn shared a memory of her experience with Hurricane Charley while she lived in Florida. The storm tore through her grandmother’s house and ripped open the lanai that once shielded the pool from critters and debris. The pool was now a dark and murky green, a stark contrast from the crisp clear blue she remembered it as. Her drawing shows the brief moments after her sister bumped her into the pool 'by accident,' in which she says she was in the water for about two seconds before she hopped right back out."
Leah’s painting represents a memory of a room from the childhood home she lived in between the ages of 1–4. The shadowy and monochromatic piece evokes a soft somberness that is by no means shared in her bright retelling of herself playing patty cake with a ghost named Charlie in that same room. Apparently a man named Charlie died in that very room before her family moved into the house. What better way to start the beginning of spooky season than with a ghost story.
By the end of class, we had each received a closer look into one another’s lives. Recounting memories from our childhood, vacations, and neighborhoods provided the reminder that we’re not all as different as we’re sometimes led to believe. While it’s important to not dwell on the past, keeping the spirit of our loved ones and spaces that we hold dear to us alive through conversation, memory, and art is something that is so incredibly healing. Coping with loss is an ongoing practice, one that I am personally navigating myself. However, I try to remind myself to hold on tightly to what matters the most (my loved ones, happy moments, laughing till my belly hurts) and let go lightly of what is out of my control."
Memory Hold On Tightly, Let Go Lightly pieces by AYB Artists Jules Lorenzo, Cheyenne Rivera, Maria Polanco, Shellorne Smith, Briana (Cammi) Camacho, Adji Ngathe Kebe, Nayarit Tineo, Jazz Gilette, Sophie Lee and Ariel Abdullah. (in that order)
Critique in action
This week, we launched our first school exhibition of the season through ART YARD Art Matters in the School at PS 34, The President Barack Obama School in Jersey City.
Throughout the week, ART YARD BKLYN Managing Director Dennis Buonagura, along with Teaching Artists Lenika Silva and Leo Emebat, worked collaboratively to prepare and install student artwork. The team mounted pieces created during September’s intensive artmaking sessions, wrote and printed explanatory labels, and transformed school corridors into a celebration of student creativity and cultural identity.
The exhibition—on view through October 15, 2025—is part of PS 34’s broader celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. On display are three standout student projects: Mariposas, Talaveras, and Foods of Hispanic Cultures, both inspired by our overarching theme for the year: The Year of Migration.
These works reflect thoughtful exploration, storytelling, and artistic experimentation from students across multiple grades. We are proud to be part of the school’s ongoing cultural celebration and to highlight the power of visual art in building cultural awareness and pride.
Panels of installed artwork at PS 34
We’re Still Rebuilding—Here’s How You Can Help
In the early hours of Thursday, September 18, a five-alarm fire destroyed the building that housed our studio, storage, and archives. The roof collapsed. We lost everything—artworks, supplies, tools, furniture, and years of documentation.
We are devastated—but we are still here. Thanks to your generosity, we’ve already reached 61% of our fundraising goal and resumed programming in our temporary space. But we’re not done yet.
If you’re able to help, here are two meaningful ways to support us which we encourage you to share with family and friends:
Donate or share our GoFundMe:A Devastating Loss and a Path Forward for AYB
Shop our Amazon Wish List to send us essential supplies:ART YARD BKLYN Amazon Wish List
Every donation, every item, every share brings us closer to full recovery.
OTHER ART NEWS
AYB Artist Evelyn Beliveau writes: “I took the opportunity to visit Gail Mitchell's studio at Bushwick Open Studios last Saturday and absolutely loved it. The work on view was mainly wall-mounted sculptures and a couple of hanging sculptures, constructed from found objects (coiled and twisted wires, rusted and dented metal, screws and hooks, weathered wood, mechanical parts); found photos; and paper printed or scrawled with partially obscured text. Across the wall, geometric forms emerge and break down--a grid of paint-spattered screws, a glimpse of the honeycomb pattern of chicken wire, the partial curve of a section of model train tracks. In the middle of the space, metal hoops with the air of old machine parts hang from a wooden crossbar, suspended on chains.
Artwork by Gail Mitchell
Striking a balance between eclecticism and precise curation, the work asserts a strong internal logic that nevertheless defies direct communication. One gets the sense that there is a careful web of choices underlying each piece: a language of motifs, such as attention to surface texture, partial submersion, fastening and cutting, for which we do not have a Rosetta Stone. Venerable materials with patinas of age are gathered in new configurations that neither rely on nostalgia nor deny their histories. I felt a palpable love of the materials themselves and a compelling intentionality.”
This week, I (Meridith) visited Kremer Pigments, which is closing its New York store after years of being an essential resource for artists. I went in thinking about the fire and hoping to find some reds to capture that energy—and fittingly, that’s all they had left. I ended up with 15 gorgeous watercolor pans: 13 reds, one grey, one pearlescent white, plus two brushes. It felt like a poetic send-off from a place that has long celebrated color and craftsmanship.
On my way back to the subway I swung by Poster House on 23rd Street. Recommended by several AYB artists, it was my first visit. Near the entrance, the subway posters advertised historic NYC cultural activities we still appreciate, like The Botanic Gardens and exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum.
The posters come from campaigns by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), which opened NYC’s first subway line in 1904. The fascist-era posters were grand and bold—a bit reminiscent of Tamara de Lempicka’s style—while the Parks Department posters were playful and fun, though the typefaces were wild! Definitely pre-drop-down-menu days. I found myself wondering if the lettering was press type or hand-done. A standout was a mod pink and red Statue of Liberty from 1971 that felt poignant and made me think of our view from the studio at BWAC.
Love, tightly and lightly,
P.S. Just as I was wrapping up this recap, I came across a photo of the fire in progress I have not seen yet. Sharing it here as we continue to move forward, together. ❤️🔥
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