"It falls on all of us, regardless of our race or station to work together to create a 'new normal' in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts.” ~ Barack Obama, May 29, 2020
We have changed the format of ART YARD CREATE so that each week a different person will take the lead and present a topic of focus. This week Teaching Artist Jane Huntington challenged us to Pay Attention!.
Jane posits: “How do we engage with the everyday?” The challenge this week of create is to focus on the “recognition of ordinary dignity or the accidentally miraculous”.
This thread is still active. Some images and thoughts posted thus far:
Vera Tineo: “I paid attention to solidarity”
Diana Rickard writes: “In the middle of the night I had a dream that woke me up. It had something to do with Floyd’s memorial, and some flying planes or weird dream stuff. Suddenly I was an alarm, I just remembered, I KNEW HIM! And woke up with a bolt thinking ‘he is inside all of us.’”
Felix Plaza added this explanation and painting study: “This is a study of a church in the West Village - St Veronica. It’s a study of clouds, which not many people look at because their noses are stuck to their phones. St Veronica was one of the first places to help in the AIDS crisis. Now It’s just a shell of its self."
Fatima Traore's photograph is a profound image for this topic:
Advanced Studio Senior Curators Kevin Anderson, Evelyn Beliveau, Vera Tineo, Fatima Traore, and Quentin Williamston are thrilled to announce In Reflection: Selections from the Kentler Flat Files will be featured on the websites of Kentler International Drawing Space and ART YARD BKLYN from June 13 – July 31, 2020.
In the curatorial essay for the exhibition Fatima Traore writes: ‘Reflect, Reflection, Reflecting. An ordinary collection of words, yet depending on its intention when used, can have an extraordinary impact. Having duality in its definition, these words can be taken in the literal sense, metaphorically, or conceptually. We see reflections in our daily lives through mirrors, water, light, shadow, movement, and photography. We also reflect by looking back in time historically or looking within ourselves, memories, and actions. Artmaking, in all its forms especially drawing, is a direct form of reflecting what one sees and/or imagines directly onto paper. In a time of great despair and isolation, the act of reflecting may be one of our most vital sources of hope and survival. The curators of ART YARD BKLYN invite you to visually and virtually take a deeper look In Reflection, through a group of profound artists represented in the flat files of Kentler International Drawing Space.”
Included in the exhibition are works by Stephanie Brody-Lederman, Nina Buxenbaum , Karni Dorell, Susan Dunkerley Maguire, Pauline Galiana, Richard Gins, Joanne Howard, LUCE, Meridith McNeal, Portia Munson, Stephen Negrycz, Katsutoshi Yuasa, and Emna Zghal.
This week the talented ART YARD Advanced Studio artists worked with Marie Roberts on three drawings/poster designs inspired by the intricate stylized black and white work of Aubrey Beardsley, delicate painterly color pieces of Charles Rennie MacIntosh and the bold theatrical posters of Paul Davis. We were all very pleased that Sage Sovereign was back to model for us!
To view more of the work from this session check out the Gallery page!
We are pleased to announce ART YARD Summer Session 2020 intensive visual art program will take place July 6 -23, 2020. Teaching Artist Claudia Alvarez will develop this three-week studio art course to delve into a variety of artmaking skills, explore works by master artists and investigate a variety of intellectual ideas as we kick off the ART YARD Year of COMMUNITY.
Claudia leading a demonstration during Summer Session 2019:
Pay attention! We will find fodder for art making, inspiration and the compulsion to enact necessary change!
