#roberta sutton

[artsinbushwick]

A Community Grows in Brooklyn

by Roberta Sutton

Arts@Renaissance, a sprawling arts space on Kingsland and Maspeth, is participating in the upcoming Bushwick Open Studios (BOS) weekend, May 31-June 2, as a hub space and as an open studios space in one of the most enticing buildings in Brooklyn, replete with signs of its former life as an outpatient clinic and, perhaps even, the former lives that passed through it's long-closed morgue.

Visit during BOS and you'll be able to meet artists selected for their studio program - in their studios. And, on Saturday night, 15 to 20 performance artists will be participating in the fourth show in the AUNTS series, which has been "chain-curated," meaning the previous event's performers curate the next event's show. A@R is the arts arm of a comprehensive community initiative called GREC or the Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation, a neighborhood non-profit that has worked nearly 30 years on housing, health, workforce development and most notably, repurposing a campus of 7 beautiful public works buildings for affordable housing, healthcare, and homeless shelter, administered by St. Nick's Alliance.

A@R is a model for community outreach via arts organizations. Organizers developed their program by first surveying the neighborhood to understand what both long-term residents and the emerging creative population needed most in the arts. They learned that newer artists to the neighborhood wanted performance space and work space. Long-term residents wanted classes and affordable art events, taking place in their neighborhood. One example of how A@R is meeting those needs is a new senior art workshop that will begin June 3, offering seniors 2 hours of free art instruction a week, sponsored by City Council Member Diana Reyna.

As the director, Chris Henderson, explained, it's unfair to expect long-term residents to start showing up for avant garde dance events without asking the community, first, what they want in an arts space. However, by offering art classes, affordable events, and requiring artists to create at least one public program during their residence, a variety of people are overlapping and meeting and sharing their creative endeavors. Community grows.

Suiso Oguwa and Emma Quajtman prepare for "Blessing," a performance piece

Henderson expanded on this notion, pointing out that most people who live in Bushwick are here because it's cheap, not because it's cool or artsy. It's easy for art graduates to identify with fellow graduates in professional careers, but economically, they have much more in common with their neighbors because they are all likely struggling to pay the rent. Likewise it will be the same artists and long-term residents that are displaced when rents begin to rise. Henderson poignantly concluded his perspective, stating, "We have a real opportunity here to not be a first wave of gentrification, but it's up to the creative community to decide if that's something they want to resist. Unfortunately, many are too busy holding down three jobs to pay rent." That's where a civically engaged arts center can serve the community in meaningful ways.

Artist-residency programs at A@R include their site-specific resident program, which provides North Brooklyn artists an opportunity to work and perform, and the studio program, which gives an artist from anywhere free space for 4 months. It's merit and need based and, after Hurricane Sandy, two artists who lost their studios to the storm were given priority. The next round of applications will be available online in June for studios in Fall, 2013.

A@R received acclaim from Ben Brantley of the New York Times when he called "Then She Fell," an interactive theater performance based on Lewis Carroll's writing, a top 10 show of 2012.

The A@R dedication to community involvement seems to resonate with Arts in Bushwick. Henderson praised BOS as "a wonderful event that has maintained its mission over time. While other arts organizations have become more and more exclusive, BOS has remained inclusive."

Arts@Renaissance is located at 2 Kingsland Avenue (@ Maspeth Avenue) Garden Level, Brooklyn, NY 11211. HINT: To enter, walk along the building on the Maspeth Avenue side and walk down the stairs to the lower courtyard.

[artsinbushwick]

Pushing Boundaries at Armature

by Holly Shen Chaves

Roberta Sutton, left and Christian Finbar Kelly, right, owners and directors of Armature Art Space, located at 316 Weirfield St., off the L Halsey stop in Bushwick.

On April 13, 2013, the International Exhibition of Modern Art Armory Show celebrated its centennial birthday, marking a radical step toward challenging the boundaries of art - most memorably with the unveiling of Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2." - and ushering in a new era of exhibitions organized by artists themselves.  So it seemed no coincidence that Armature Art Space opened its doors off the Halsey L stop on the same day, expanding the less-traveled side of the Bushwick art scene literally and figuratively, as the gallery's goal is to provide emerging artists with a crucial resource that includes space and organizational support. Roberta Sutton, one-half of the soon-to-be husband and wife team that runs Armature out of the refurbished basement of their home on Weirfield St., explains that the name Armature arose out of the desire to offer true support to artists, "to be the bones on which NYC artists, working in traditional methods, can sculpt, drape, focus, paint and build community."

Christian Kelly, Sutton's right-hand man, is also an artist, with a photography practice focused on analogue printing methods . The couple, self-described as  "low-income New York artists," have long dreamed of having the appropriate space to live and create," have also been able to expand the gallery to include a dark room. "We were lucky to close on this house in 2011," Sutton says, "Which is not only on an inspiring beautiful tree-lined street, but also has ample space in the basement for art studios, and now, a black and white dark room." 

The inaugural exhibition, Arena, highlights a group of six local and international artists and remains on view through tomorrow, May 4, - so don't miss the last chance to see this debut show. And on June 14th, the gallery will open a solo show by Arjuna Routte-Prieur, featuring an opening party in the couple's dreamy tea-lit backyard garden. To celebrate the opening of the dark room, Armature will host a launch part of sorts during the weekend of Bushwick Open Studios. The gallery, continuing a 100-year long tradition of expanding boundaries, operates outside normal gallery conventions, promising not to take commissions from any artist who has an opportunity to sell and not charging for use of the exhibition space. This is definitely a space to watch closely in 2013.