Theresa Buchheisteris a successful artist because she is a generous one; through multiple festivals and off-the-beaten-path venues, clandestine locales and dive hives, she has created myriad opportunities for creators of various stripes to express themselves and their craft. How fitting that she should rise to be The Brick’s new Artistic Director.
The Brick (579 Metropolitan Avenue) has long been a haven for comediennes, interpreters of classics, and everything in between. Now, Theresa — founder of the lauded and Brooklyn-based Exponential Festival — takes her vast producorial and artistic know-how to Williamsburg’s vital and ever-evolving destination for cutting-edge theatrical experience. Get to know this indefatigable artist in this week’s Thursday Spotlight!
Greenpointers: We cover artists in Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg — but it’s certainly not uncommon for folks to move in and out of the boroughs. If memory serves, you’ve moved around quite a bit during your time in New York, but so much of your work has touched these neighborhoods, right?
Theresa Buchheister: Indeed. The first shows I did in the early 2000s were more in the East Village and LES, as that is where weird and wild stuff was still happening. But, as that started to really really change around 2008, I found myself more and more in Brooklyn doing shows in the backs of CC Rentals (as part of the Night Market), on boats on the Gowanus Canal (with Jeff Stark), and in DIY music venues (RIP Silent Barn, Secret Project Robot, Shea Stadium, soon The Glove), as well as lovely theatrical spaces, like The Brick.
Title:Point was a part of Silent Barn for almost four years, and that was the first home we ever had. It really taught us a lot about what is possible when you have even a little patch of land to build on. Vital Joint is in East Williamsburg and we started doing things there almost three years ago, which has also been a great home base, especially being on the same block as Panoply Performance Lab, now called Parallel. There is a vibrance that comes from relentlessly working with artists of all practices and learning from them and also struggling to make things work — I have dealt with more dead rats and sewage and toilets than I ever predicted I would.
I love Brooklyn. It is my home. It is where amazing people live and venues come and go. But we all still keep finding ways.
National Sawdust is a leading non-profit music venue dedicated to building new audiences for classical and new music
National Sawdust, the hot-on-the-rise performing arts institution in Williamsburg, announced its landmark fifth anniversary, “Take Root.” This season will be focused on celebrating the artistic process, from incubation to dissemination, while honoring the local and global artistic community that National Sawdust serves.
An artistic home for creatives and an incubator of vital new works, National Sawdust has practiced a devotion to representation of voices. In its fifth season, National Sawdust deepens its ties to its community and digs into its roots with the Artists-In-Residence program, which takes artists’ work from incubation to dissemination. This season’s class of residents are Lucy Dhegrae, Ash Koosha, Against The Grain Theatre, Kinds of Kings, Mwenso & The Shakes, and Sonic.
For its fifth season, National Sawdust is dedicating a week to each of its diverse National Sawdust Curators to better ensure that the organization’s curatorial model provides an invaluable platform for the artists selected and guided by the curators to advance their careers through performances on National Sawdust’s stage. This season’s curators are Black Thought (Tariq Trotter) and Ted Hearne.
“Take Root” also sees the public debut of National Sawdust’s partnership with Juilliard: the BluePrint Fellowship Program, a dual-track career, project mentoring, and commissioning course designed to leverage the extensive project development and presenting experience of the National Sawdust team and guest women and female-identifying mentors to help bridge the fellows’ training and bring their interdisciplinary projects to completion at National Sawdust. Guest composers for this first round, spearheaded by Prestini, include Prestini, Claire Chase, Reena Esmail, Nathalie Joachim, Alex Temple, and Laura Kaminsky.
Also, National Sawdust continues to stretch the boundaries of creative possibility through the launch of a long-term sound partnership with legendary Berkeley company Meyer Sound. With the installation of Meyer Sound’s Constellation® acoustic system as well as its immersive component Spacemap®, National Sawdust builds upon its already stellar reputation as a place for bold experimentation and creativity. Spacemap’s sophisticated, multi-channel panning system provides artists an extraordinary amount of freedom to explore and play with three-dimensional spatial sound, while Constellation offers an almost unlimited palette of acoustic possibilities with the press of a button.
I hardly noticed when NYC’s gritty vibe, with graffiti ubiquitously peppering the subways, started fading away. I notice it more now, now that it has devolved into the realm of nostalgia, of how things used to be, and reemerged into a respected art form – enough to have mass-market appeal and allow a rebellious kid who went around tagging up to grow up and make a career out of these once seemingly aimless interests.
“Beyond The Streets,” an exhibition celebrating “street art, graffiti, and beyond” is the brainchild of Roger Gastman, born from his affinity for counter-culture. Underlying the grandiose scale at which the works of 150 artists show in over 100,000 sq ft of space at Williamsburg’s Twenty Five Kent, is a personal homage to the excitement and allure of those formative years that buttressed the evolution of his passions into a sold-out show in L.A. In its NYC debut, the array of art including new works from widely recognizable names like Shepard Fairey, show alongside ephemera for context and memorabilia from Roger’s personal collection.
The juxtaposition of underground and mainstream, of play and profound, sets a unique experience of discovery that appeals to visitors of all ages. One minute you stumble upon a collection of graffiti-ridden model trains by Tim Conlon and the next minute you will find yourself immersed in a beautiful installment of flowers by DabsMyla. The majority of artwork has been made exclusively for the show, and for those of us who are locals you might see some familiar names – FAILE, whose mural dons the brick wall in Transmitter Park, is one of the participating artists.
Brooklyn celebrates artists of all stripes, but it’s rare you get one as versatile as Josh Craig. A professional DJ and, now, also a zine publisher, Josh has been a staple in the Brooklyn community for a few years. Now, he’s pulling double duty as he paves the way for his new publication, 11-18. Get to know this disk-spinning neighbor in this week’s Thursday Spotlight!
Greenpointers: Do you live in the neighborhood, and if so for how long? How’s it treated you?
Josh Craig: Currently I’m residing in Mallorca, Spain but I’ve been in Greenpoint for a good three years now. It’s treated me well. I’ve made some solid relationships, leveled up as a creator here and built my 1st home recording studio.
How did you get your start as a DJ, and what advice would you share with young artists getting their start?
I got my start DJing as a kid in New Jersey going to DMS parties on Fulton Street in Newark and making mix CDs for my friends with the Jersey Club tracks everyone loved at the raves we attended. Those mix CDs were my first stab at DJing. It wasn’t until I moved to Bushwick like six, seven years ago that I started playing records in clubs. Shouts to KLIENFELD of Suavehaus who put me on game.
The advice I have for any young artists getting started is to play what you feel in ya heart. Play your friends music not just top 40. Support only what is real and invest in some turntables. Vinyl helps too.
Wythe Hotel (80 Wythe Avenue) is now hosting Sunset Songs, a five-part series curated by IAMSOUND at Lemon’s — the newest summer rooftop concept by Jon Neidich and Golden Age Hospitality. Zsela, a rising singer and songwriter of melodic, folksy ballads popular with the bicoastal art and fashion scene, recently kicked off the program, and the lineup continues on various Tuesdays this summer.
Attendance to Sunset Songs is free with RSVP, and guests are encouraged to secure their spot early. See below for the full details!
WHO: Sunset Songs curated by IAMSOUND
WHERE: Lemon’s at Wythe Hotel, 80 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn NY
WHEN: See artwork above for various Tuesday dates from 6–9 PM
Spring 2019 Creators-in-Residence (courtesy of Kickstarter)
Greenpoint-based Kickstarter is seeking NYC-based artists and creators for their fall 2019 residence program to gain mentorship on projects by staff at the company’s headquarters.
The fall 2019 Kickstarter Creators-in-Residence program runs from 9/10 – 12/13 and the deadline to apply is 7/31.
Last spring the company hosted 11 creators “to work on Design & Technology, Journalism, Art, Comedy, Publishing and Games.” More on the residency: Continue reading →
This is the first summer in 14 years where North Brooklyn is without the SummerScreen series in McCarren Park, which was produced by Northside Media. But if you’re seeking to view an outdoor film this summer in Greenpoint, there are plenty of screenings planned in Transmitter and McGolrick parks.
A forward-thinking dance class presented by Rule of Thirds at A/D/O (29 Norman Ave.) with hip hop and house dance foundations will launch its summer residency on Tuesday (7/16).
The five-week Groove Therapy class is for the type of person “who has always admired dancers but finds the idea of stepping into a dance studio horrifying.”
Image courtesy of Rachel Klein
Groove Therapy founder Vanessa Marian, brings inclusive dance classes to “non-studio locations with no mirrors and dimmed lights,” with classes emphasizing cultural and historical contexts while teaching “how to own a dance floor.”
Groove Therapy at A/D/O will have five workshops in total on Tuesdays (July 16, 23, 30 and August 6 and 13) 7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.; classes are $15 per lesson or $65 for a five-class pass.
One of Carri’s #DrawingADay portraits, as seen on her Instagram
Carri Skoczek has enjoyed a decades-spanning career, in which time she has shown from everywhere from the Coney Island Mermaid Parade to Clem’s Bar. Now, she’s enjoying the dedication and regiment of #DrawingADay, using social media as a vehicle to exhibit (and often sell) her works. She also has a show now at Figureworks (168 North 6th Street) where her interest in dolls of all shapes and sizes is on full display. Get to know this local artist and her versatile craft in today’s Thursday Spotlight!
Greenpointers: You’ve had a number of shows in Brooklyn and have lived here for a bit. Can you briefly describe your trajectory and how you came to live in the borough?
Carri Skoczek: I moved to Brooklyn when i was 40 in 1997, a year after meeting my New York-born and bred partner in crime, David Hurd, in New Orleans at Jazz Fest. It was magical. We discovered we had the same friends.
Kerry Smith from the Right Bank Cafe insisted I run his gallery, which I did from 1997 to 2001. It was the perfect way to meet local artists and gallerists in the heyday of the Williamsburg art scene.
My first solo show in Brooklyn was at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Society in 1997. I curated an annual mermaid show celebrating the Coney Island Mermaid Parade for 10 years. I was also an award-winning participant in the parade. (I was a costume designer in Milwaukee for 12 years and that satisfied my urge to play dress up and design costumes for my friends.) I’ve shown at Holland Tunnel Gallery since the beginning. Participated in every annual epic group show Ritchie Timperio put on at sideshow gallery. I also had a solo show there in 2016. I was represented by Causey Contemporary from 1999 until she closed the gallery doors in 2015.
I’ve been in funky group shows in the local bars. I did a drunk girl show at Clem’s Bar in the late 90s. Two drunk girl chalkboard drawings are still in the window.
The “drawing from observation” class starts on Monday, July 15, and meets once per week through August 12th. The five-week class is $250 and all skill levels are welcome and materials are provided; register here. The class description:
Enhance your drawings by developing your observation skills. In this five-session class, we will practice looking deeply and creating mindfully. We will look at our surroundings in new ways and translate what we see into sketches and drawings using a variety of drawing materials. Strengthening our observational skills gives us more information and allows us to draw with intention, making artwork that is uniquely our own. Enjoy a relaxed, nonjudgmental class; all levels welcomed and encouraged to come.
For those looking for a one-off or weekly drawing session, Eckford Street Studio offers a BYOB figure drawing session with a live model that happens on most Tuesdays from 8 p.m. – 10 p.m. and participants provide their own supplies.
Another five-week class, the “essentials of acrylic painting” is also in the works, which would tentatively meet on Wednesday nights; details for the acrylic painting class are still in the works.
