ArtSpace #15: Avi Glickstein
Friday, October 21st, 2011
We had a last-minute cancellation by one of our artists, so I figured I’d pick up the gauntlet and put my proverbial money where my proverbial mouth is. Here’s my contribution this week.
Task for the week: Take a subway ride from the neighborhood and create something based on it
Artist: Avi Glickstein
“Daylight/Tunnel: A Remembrance While Crossing”
Daylight/Tunnel: A Remembrance While Crossing by dpblogavi
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I’m a perpetual walker/pacer when I work. I have a tough time sitting still. It’s probably in my blood–my father literally built a desk around a treadmill in his office so he could walk and work at the same time. He has meetings with his staff like that. Personally, I need something to walk through or past. If I could find a way to build a desk around my body so I could walk around Ditmas Park and write, I would. But until a less cumbersome and ridiculous solution is presented, I’m happy looping through our blocks, muttering to myself and scribbling on whatever I can find in my pockets or bag.
Tell us about your subway trip and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought along it that inspired today’s work.
I’ve always loved having a commute that involves an outside train and, when living on different lines, used to miss that sort of exhale of emerging onto the Manhattan bridge, especially in early morning and early evening. I felt that I wanted to make an audio recording–something almost radio-like–in the span of crossing the bridge. And so I decided to use my time on the train between Church Ave and the bridge to think of a memory and then to describe it beginning when I first saw daylight peeking into the Brooklyn-side tunnel and ending when I began descending into the Manhattan-side tunnel. Of course, after finishing, I thought of a better way of telling it, of a reason for why this particular image sticks, but that hadn’t been the point of what I was trying to do. So it is unedited and far less than perfect–maybe interesting, maybe dull, but it is what it is.
About Avi
I’m a playwright and actor who works a lot with this company and this company. I also review theatre sometimes for this site and write frequently for the blog you’re reading. Right now, I’m performing in this play (which I also wrote material for)–at a venue associated with a Cortelyou–through November 13. I also have a short play in this collection.
If you’d like to contact Avi about his work, he can be reached at:
dpblogavi@gmail.com (I really need a website)
More info on ArtSpace:
ArtSpace returns in November. And stay tuned for a very special announcement–coming soon!
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Sssnole
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http://www.facebook.com/emmaassin Emma Assin
