For the final installment of this month’s ArtSpace series, please welcome back photographer Ilya Nikhamin. Be sure to click on each photo to view it larger and see the incredible textures.
Task for the week: Draw inspiration from a neighborhood material.
Artist: Ilya Nikhamin
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
In the wee hours of the morning, Ditmas Park is a quiet neighborhood and it stays quiet for most of the day. Not every street, and not every window, but the quiet is pervasive. I like that we’re not in the bustle of some neighborhoods and not in the doze of others. I always say to my friends, we are in Resi-ville. It’s residential but with a lot going on. Something about this balance is very appealing and comforting.
Tell us about the material you chose–where you saw it, what drew you to it, etc.
The material is Cement and Steel. Two materials. We are of this stuff and surrounded by this stuff. It’s everywhere and never noticed. But it’s incredibly varied and encompassing. I’ve also included a photo of the bark of a tree–something that neither cement nor steel can replicate.
If you need headshots/portraits, publicity or website photos, or event photos, please contact Ilya at hillclimber@gmail.com for rates and availability. Check out his Flickr page for past work.
To all the artists who have participated in all these ArtSpace series so far, thanks for sharing your creativity with the neighborhood. If you’re an artist who would like to participate in the future, email the following to ditmasparkblog@gmail.com:
Your name
Your email address, phone number, and website (if you have one)
Where you live (cross streets are fine)
What type of artist you are (painter, photographer, etc.)
Task for the week: Draw inspiration from a neighborhood material.
Artist: William Bredbeck
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
We live right across from the Parade Ground and love the proximity to the park and energy of active people running around. In 10 minutes I can walk over and sit by the lake and reflect. Out of everywhere I have lived in this big city over the last 22 years, our neighborhood feels more like a real neighborhood than anywhere else. People smile and say “Hi” to me when I pass them on the street. Also, as Emma noted, it’s a great place to raise a wee family.
Tell us about the material you chose–where you saw it, what drew you to it, etc.
When I was a kid we used to drive up to the Rideau Lakes region of Canada, and on the way we drove through a small town that I think was Lowville, NY. I couldn’t wait to get to that town because all the fire hydrants were painted like different crazy characters. It was like the town was infested with leprechauns! I doubt that NYC would ever consent to such an idea, but I thought it would be cool if our neighborhood had a similar infestation. Eugene, OR and Cleveland, OH, among many others, have had fire hydrant art programs.
About William
William works at a video game company. He enjoys making art and music and being the best daddy, husband, and neighbor he can be. If he could be anywhere. he would be jumping in a lake right now.
You can contact him concerning lake jumping opportunities at wbredbeck@gmail.com.
Today for ArtSpace we have one of our most prolific participants, a talented writer who has looked for a position as a porchsitter, explored poetry with roots in sixth century Arabic verse, and seen a subway ride through the eyes of a first-timer. Thanks for bringing us another, Kasia!
Task for the week: Draw inspiration from a neighborhood material.
Artist: Kasia Nikhamina
Vignette for a Sunday
Inside St. Rose of Lima, bread and wine turn into body and blood. Meanwhile, down the block, in the garden on the corner, an avocado pit, once firm and impervious, falls apart at the slightest touch. It has mellowed in the heat of the bin; it comes out richer.
The collection in the garden gives lie to the notion that these are austere times. Believers come bearing the remnants of their meals – carrot peels, egg shells, apple cores, potato skins, coffee grounds, and much much more. Combined with leaves and sawdust, this will become the blackest of golds.
We shovel in concert, turning the bins in which the scraps are gossiping. The air smells jubilant. “Rejoice! Rejoice!” toll the bells at St. Rose of Lima. “Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
If I had to move to another neighborhood tomorrow, the saddest thing for me would be the loss of the Compost for Brooklyn garden.
Tell us about the material you chose–where you saw it, what drew you to it, etc.
I was inspired to write this piece by sifting finished compost during open hours at the garden one Sunday. I recognized the melody of the St. Rose of Lima bells as a hymn I sang as a child during Catholic Mass, and got thinking about Sunday rituals.
In the photo, the compost is heaped on a cutting board to underscore how things come full circle.
About Kasia
I write The Mayor’s Hotel, a creative prose blog, and plays. I am obsessed with birds and childrens’ books, among other things.
If you’d like to contact Kasia about her work, she can be reached at:
Task for the week: Draw inspiration from a neighborhood material.
Artist: Emma Assin
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I feel at home in Ditmas Park. It’s green enough, quiet enough, and, best of all, brimming with young families like my own. My drawings totally come from the things and faces and attitudes I see around me, and if I walk around here enough, I always return home with an idea. I feel like everyone I meet here is an artist of some description–there’s a lot of creative energy flowing in this pocket of Brooklyn!
Tell us about the material you chose–where you saw it, what drew you to it, etc.
I chose the back wall of Cafe Madeline (is it still called that??). I painted a family portrait using this wall as a backdrop. Cafe Madeline, for a long time, was our home away from home on the weekends. I enjoy the playful decor–specially this one wall of fussy wallpaper, juxtaposed with the unfinished walls around it. We’d been wanting to have a family photograph taken in front of this wall for a loooong time–and we’ve never gotten round to it–so I decided to paint/draw one instead (it’s acrylic, pen, and pencil). Hopefully anyone who knows us would recognize our family from the picture–our 2-year-old amazed me by doing so!
About Emma
Born London 1981; transplanted to NY 2008. Interactive developer; frustrated artist. Delicate flower; Legend of Zelda fangirl. Lover of all things animal. Married to a sweet, sweet guy and mother to an even sweeter one.
If you’d like to contact Emma about her work, she can be reached at bitty-blog.tumblr.com.
Welcome to the third week of February and a new ArtSpace series!
For this round, we asked artists to select a material from around the neighborhood to draw inspiration from. They didn’t have to actually use the material in the work, just had to be inspired by it. So it could be brick from an apartment building, bark from a tree, iron from a metal grate, a section of aluminum siding on a house, a porch’s wood slats, etc.
We’re starting the week off with a bang–introducing a new ArtSpace participant, who managed to incorporate painting and song into his piece. Enjoy!
Task for the week: Draw inspiration from a neighborhood material.
Artist: John Munnelly
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I am primarily a songwriter aka LAUGHJOHNLAUGH! and have been supported and encouraged here. The first place I really played “out” in NYC was the Chris-Punxsatawny open mic at the old Cornerstone bar (aka Solo) on Cortelyou and also later at Vox Pop. I record music at Newkirk Studios right in the heart of Ditmas Park. I was selected to play as the guest performer in the Flatbush-Tompkins Church Spring Concert which was really a tremendous honor and was blessed to have a full choir singing my song “Peace,” and that experience validated my songwriter ambitions. I love the architecture of the Victorian houses; the wooded streets and avenues brings a little of the forest and nature to the concrete city.
Tell us about the material you chose–where you saw it, what drew you to it, etc.
The original inspiration for the song was Avi’s/ArtSpace very first and original theme [which was ultimately scrapped for another idea—Ed.] which was about “autumn beginning in the middle of summer”—the leaves dropping prematurely in august. The artwork on view in the video was inspired by the real fall leaves. Every day I would take a morning walk and revel in the diversity of color and shape of the leaves in the neighborhood which I tried to reproduce in the artworks. A bit like the diversity of the neighborhood itself.
Summary: The music-video is thematically leaves and is a combination of the song inspired by the very first ArtSapce/Avi invitation and later by the neighborhood foliage.
About John
John has written a lot of songs and came to live in America because he always wanted to and happenstance. Born in Cavan, Ireland, he is engaged to be married to a girl from the neighborhood. He loves color, humor, and guitars. He is a live music performer. He loves to have fun, Antigua, creativity, making music, art, and videos. He wants to release an amazing collection of songs, collaborate with other great creators, and has ambitions to finish an animated video/music project, a children’s music/educational/TV show, and basically create great art. He wants to find other musicians for a superb/amazing/class-act band. He lives on Newkirk and he has been a computer teacher and an IT guru and general factotum at an online retailer. As an actor he features as “Link” in a spoof comedy-action movie titled “Hectic Knife,” to be released in 2012.
John would love more local support for his music, video, and art—please buy, review, or tell people about “The Bum Song” single out now on iTunes.
Blog: laughjohnlaugh.com
Music/Mailing List: Reverbnation
Contact: Sign up to the mailing list or email “add to mail list/Ditmas” to laughjohnlaugh at gmail dot com, come to a show, suggest a local venue where I may play, or consider me for a slot/show at your venue.
Coming up on Monday, February 20, we’ll begin posting the 6th of our ArtSpace series, in which five local artists will present a piece inspired by some material found in the neighborhood. From brick to bark, there’s plenty to find, but it’s up to them to see the art within.
In addition to work from four terrific previous ArtSpace artists, we’ve got one new addition who happens to be a musician! So until Monday, please click around and enjoy some of the work they’ve done in the past.
The artists (not necessarily in order of appearance):
If they only knew the fire I’ve salted away these long years.
How many years? Hard to tell.
They wasted theirs long ago, those two.
I can’t see for sure
— a ridiculous notion —
But they have an emptiness about them, a vacuity, a coldness about them.
So that when you are near them, you sense their desperation to hold onto whatever meager kindling they still possess after lifetimes of undisciplined excess.
Whereas I…
I’m ready to burst.
If they only knew what I hold inside me…
They wouldn’t be so flip all the time
Demanding my deference to their “unparalleled field experience.”
I have been careful
Frugal
Sensible
Watchful
A slow-burn sensation, allowing friction to build
For a proper and clean combustion.
But is now the moment, proper and clean, for a proper and clean combustion?
Might there not be a better moment…tomorrow?
Might there not be a better moment…down the road?
I’ve waited this long,
Held tight to my heat in the face of far greater opportunities,
In moments of coarsest and most volatile friction, I did not sway but held true.
I did not squander my gifts.
And I will not do so now.
No.
I will not.
I will not!
I WILL NOT!
I will not be held captive to an imperfect moment like this,
When a better one awaits.
I can hold…
I can contain…
I only…
I only wish…
I only wish I knew…
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Yes, it’s bucolic. Yes, it’s unusual for NYC. Yes, I take a long, pleasant, exhale of relief when I get off the train from Manhattan. But more than anything, those big, glorious houses taunt me. They seem to whisper things like, “If you just work a little harder, maybe there’s the slightest chance you could live here. But now…that’s just a really big IF.” Stupid houses.
Tell us about the past ArtSpace piece you chose for inspiration – which one, why you chose it, etc. – and how it influenced today’s work.
When I was looking at Nu’s little matchbook cats again, I noticed–in the photo of them from the back–a distinct difference between the cat on the far left and the other two. Then, looking at him from the front, a little voice just came out, all secretive and ambitious. I’m not really sure what he’s up to, but, as everyone knows, all cats have something to hide.
About Avi
When I’m not writing for your friendly neighborhood blog, I’m a playwright and actor who frequently collaborates with Object Collection (an experimental theater and music performance group) and is an Associate Company Member of Polybe + Seats. Plays I’ve written can be found in this book and, soon, on this website.
ArtSpace #25: (?) tomorrow
*Due to a little miscommunication, we have a last-minute, empty ArtSpace slot tomorrow. If you’re feeling inspired by the task this week and have a little extra time on your hands before tomorrow, email me asap at dpblogavi@gmail.com to claim it.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Unlike many other places in Brooklyn, I actually have enough space in my apartment that I can leave a mess of fabric spread out when I need to walk away from a project, and it won’t get in the way of anything else. Well, it mostly doesn’t.
Tell us about the past ArtSpace piece you chose for inspiration – which one, why you chose it, etc. – and how it influenced today’s work.
Like Amanda, I often walk past the corner of Westminster and Cortelyou and love how the light hits the apartment building above Cinco de Mayo in the afternoon. But I can’t paint, so I turned her painting into a small quilt. Normally I make large, functional, quilts in repetitive patterns, so it was nice to break out of that and have some fun, almost like painting with tiny pieces of fabric.
About Mary
Besides working on the blogs, I’m a member of the NYC Area Metro Modern Quilt Guild, which I’m happy to provide more information about if anyone is interested–just email me. I’ve been meaning to get to a meeting of the Quilter’s Guild of Brooklyn but have never made it–if you go, let me know!
If you’d like to contact Mary:
All questions, comments, tips, thoughts, anything, as always, please email me at ditmasparkblog@gmail.com.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Despite having lived in New York for the better part of twenty years, I am not a very urban person, so the proximity to Prospect Park is necessary for my happiness. Even though the park has its issues, I love it very much, especially at night, in the snow, or in a storm, when you can pretend you are a million miles away. For similar reasons, I love our “Green Stain” dripping down from the park on Google Maps. I live by the Parade Grounds, and I love the positive energy, the vibrancy of the community, and the feeling that we are all working together to energize the area. All of this helps create the dynamic world that the characters in my work inhabit.
Tell us about the past ArtSpace piece you chose for inspiration – which one, why you chose it, etc. – and how it influenced today’s work.
There were so many great things we created to choose from, but there was just something about Adam Mayer’s imagery in this poem which made me want to step out of my comfort zone and interpret it. Maybe it was thinking back on the excitement of Irene. Or maybe I am just a person who sees things left around and tries to imagine what the stories behind them are.
About William
William has climbed mountains and made oil paintings in Alaska, worked as the lead animator of a show on Nickelodeon, as a crewman on a three-masted schooner, and as a bike messenger in Manhattan. He also plays the saw and the accordion. He currently lives in Caton Park, Flatbush with his lovely daughter and wonderful wife and is the Senior Art Director at Arkadium, a game development company.
If you’d like to contact William, he can be reached at:
This week, as 2011 wraps up, our artists do a little bit of creative retrospection. We asked them to select a piece from past series and use it as inspiration for something new. The only two caveats were that a) the piece they selected couldn’t be their own and b) no two artists could use the same piece. Enjoy and consider this the first of an annual ArtSpace December tradition.
Task for the week: Use a past ArtSpace post as inspiration for a new one
Sometimes our whole cities would collapse, skyscrapers spiral halos into windows we ask ourselves if we can hold back the pressure we built structures. Created summer spaces where metal branches occupied sightlines and sunshine sunshone off each and every crevice.
In those summers we relished respiration, the singular breath at the moment of collapse. The fluttering of humming lungs hanging humid (we were) smoke ring halos, mastering the art of consequence and building caverns into crevices we could hold oceans in our palms and galaxies in our lungs.
These days we build our summers sparingly, preferring to languish amiably on humid subway platforms we exist so fleetingly, seeming only to echo the fireflies as they spark thunderstorms in the crevice of the evening. We wear our halos at the moment of collapse.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Living in Ditmas Park provides me with a place to get outside the rush of the city, to find the solitude and serenity necessary to escape the bustle and enter the space in which I can create art.
Tell us about the past ArtSpace piece you chose for inspiration – which one, why you chose it, etc. – and how it influenced today’s work.
I chose to respond to Kasia’s prose piece because it’s a medium that I forget how much I like, and because I really liked the tempo of her piece. I tried to capture that element, and in a way I think my piece is more a reworking and adaptation, or maybe an extension of an idea found within hers, than it is a response.
About Adam
Adam Mayer is 24 years old, a native of Berkeley, CA, a waiter, a poet, spoken word artist, and a graduate of Haverford College.
If you’d like to contact Adam, he can be reached at:
Next week is a busy one with Chanukah starting Tuesday night, Christmas on Sunday, and…the last ArtSpace series of 2011. In the grand tradition of year-end retrospection, the artists have chosen one past piece to use as inspiration.
Your anticipatory task this month: Take a look back and try to guess which ones will be used. Which are you inspired by? Feel free to post in the comments here.
And special note about next week’s series: keep an eye out for the ArtSpace debut of a certain Ditmas Park Blog Editor.
Looking ahead, we’d love to highlight the work of even more artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, etc–crafters of any kind–in the coming year. If you’d like to participate in an ArtSpace series in 2012, please email the following to dpblogavi@gmail.com:
Your name
Your email address, phone number, and website (if you have one)
Where you live (cross streets are fine)
What type of artist you are (painter, photographer, etc.)
The hunt is over–neighbor David tracked down the ArtSpace artwork hidden by the Sssnole tucked into the flowers atop the stanchion on the corner of Church and Stratford!
Thanks, William, for having such a great idea, and for literally putting your work out there.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Oftentimes, I feed crickets to my work and find that the park has a wealth of crickets-even in autumn. The crickets occasionally give my work indigestion, especially if they are hoppity.
Tell us about the corner you chose and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought while hanging out there that inspired today’s work.
In order to find my corner solve the following puzzle:
If Miss Sills got off the train and walked past the smoking street, broke through the scrum, made a right to the mall, took a left, and then made another right to cross the river at the fender guitar, and walked 1 block, she would be at the corner that I made my picture. My original piece of artwork is there for the first comer to take home with them. Look up.
Special Request: If you find and claim the Sssnole’s work for your own, please email us at ditmasparkblog@gmail.com, preferably with a photo of you on the corner with the artwork. But mostly, please email us so others don’t go hunting for it!
About the Sssnole
The Sssnole was found under a giant leaf by a series of woodland creatures, each of whom adamantly refused to dance with him. His never-ending quest for a dance partner eventually lead him to ice skating, where he found the beautiful Sssnolette. Together, through a very complicated boogie session, they created a magic Sssnoling (also known as Maggles). He is still occasionally found under giant leaves, so be careful when raking.
If you’d like to contact the Sssnole, he can be reached at:
All three of this week’s newartists have brought new mediums to ArtSpace. Today, we have the last of the three and the third “first”…oil painting.
Task for the week: Pick a corner, stay there, see what comes up.
Artist: Amanda Kavanagh
“Cinco de Mayo”
6″x8″ oil on canvas
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I’m always looking for interesting old buildings to paint, so I’m like a kid in a candy store when I walk around this neighborhood. I’ve been here for 14 years and I still find something new and inspiring every time I go for a walk.
When we first moved in, we rarely went down to Cortelyou Rd. There just wasn’t much there. It’s been amazing to watch a wonderful, diverse community sprout up and come to life. After so many years, I feel like I finally have a neighborhood to go with my home.
Tell us about the corner you chose and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought while hanging out there that inspired today’s work.
This particular building on the corner of Westminster and Cortelyou (above Cinco de Mayo) catches my eye whenever I walk by. I always give a silent shout out to the person who decided to paint the cornice bright orange. It just explodes in the late afternoon light. I’ve taken so many photos of it, but this time I decided to spend some quality time and paint it.
About Amanda
Graphic designer by day, painter by night, mom all the time.
If you’d like to contact Amanda, she can be reached at:
It’s a week of firsts. Yesterday, our first film; today, our first musician. And he’s a musician with the last name Viola, so you know it’s gonna be good. And it is. Have a listen. Or two or three or….
Task for the week: Pick a corner, stay there, see what comes up.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Living in Ditmas Park is a great inspiration to my work; the neighborhood’s intense diversity of people, language, and music are always presenting me with new inputs and new ideas. People also move to Ditmas Park for the space, and that extra space has also allowed me to set up a small studio in my apartment. Finally, a great community of artists exists here. My building is populated with working and talented filmmakers, musicians, and sculptors.
Tell us about the corner you chose and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought while hanging out there that inspired today’s work.
The corner I chose was the north side of Cortelyou Road and Argyle Road, in front of the Cortelyou Library. The farmer’s market was happening that day, so I knew that corner would feature lots of foot traffic, a variety of voices, people lingering in the street, and not too much vehicle noise. My work was directly inspired by the sounds I captured there. My piece is made up entirely of sounds taken from one continuous, 8-minute field recording on the corner and in the farmer’s market. It was recorded mid-day on November 6, 2011, using an HTC Liberty smartphone. The piece was edited, composed, and produced in Ableton Live 8.
About Rob
Rob Viola was a drummer, and played in bands in Montreal, Philadelphia, and NYC (Sackville, Matt Pond PA, The Trouble With Sweeney, Haywood, The Red & The Black). He now mostly plays guitar and makes electronic music as statikluft and under other names: (FACULTIES, VCheKa, The History of Winter). He is a father of two daughters and re-designs streets for pedestrians for the City of New York.
If you’d like to contact Rob about his work, he can be reached at:
Back in September, we had our first wife/husband posts. Now, we present our second. While he may have been beaten to the punch in that department, Arsenio can lay claim to another ArtSpace first–a film, in which Ditmas Park meets War of the Worlds. Enjoy!
Task for the week: Pick a corner, stay there, see what comes up.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I find the neighborhood a great mix of young, creative energy, but also a very supportive place to raise a family. Often, I see people having to pick one over another, but Ditmas allows folks to do both.
Tell us about the corner you chose and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought while hanging out there that inspired today’s work.
I grew up loving the old black and white serials of BuckRogers and FlashGordon. Not for the heroes…they were all vanilla, All-American Californian quarterbacks. More interesting were the robots, aliens, and monsters. Therefore, what better bunch of folks to move into our nabe than some colorful cardboard creatures. Not a menacing bunch; just out to get some some coffee at Cafe Madeline…the corner on Cortelyou I chose.
About Arsenio
Filipino guy born in the motherland, grew up in Queens but now a Brooklyn dad to a great kid. Works as a film instructor, but plays on the weekend by working on fun, goofy projects with his partner in crime and wife, Emma. Fan of 50s sci-fi B-films, ninjas, rabbits, ninja rabbits, and ramen.
If you’d like to contact Arsenio about his work, he can be reached at:
For this series, we went the opposite of last month’s subway task: We asked our artists to pick a corner in the neighborhood, stand/sit/lean there for at least half an hour, and create something based on what they see/feel/hear/etc.
And we’re starting the week off in the same high fashion as our “subway week” – with Emma Assin. Enjoy!
Task for the week: Pick a corner, stay there, see what comes up.
Artist: Emma Assin
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I feel at home in Ditmas Park. It’s green enough, quiet enough, and, best of all, brimming with young families like my own. My drawings totally come from the things and faces and attitudes I see around me, and if I walk around here enough, I always return home with an idea. I feel like everyone I meet here is an artist of some description–there’s a lot of creative energy flowing in this pocket of Brooklyn! Oh, and I’m not sure if I could actually live without Cafe Madeline’s lattes now.
Tell us about the corner you chose and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought while hanging out there that inspired today’s work.
I chose the corner of Ocean Parkway and Avenue C. We’ve lived in apartment buildings on Ocean Parkway for 3 years now so it’s home to me, and I find it a fascinating roadway/park with a real sense of community and just the best place around to people-watch! The most memorable sight for me that I associate with the parkway is groups of older European guys playing games, both on the chess tables, which are a fixture on the pathway, and on card tables, which they bring out of their apartments and set up on the sidewalk. I watch them play, and every game is like an epic battle, full of noise and emotion, and so I decided to create them a medieval-ish crest and imagine them as a club (of warriors).
About Emma
Born London 1981; transplanted to NY 2008. Flash developer; frustrated artist. Delicate flower; Legend of Zelda fangirl. Lover of all things animal. Married to a sweet, sweet guy and mother to an even sweeter one.
If you’d like to contact Emma about her work, she can be reached at:
If the end of Daylight Savings Time has left you feeling a little droopy, make sure to check in on the blog next week for a bit of soul revivification. Beginning this Monday, November 14, we’ll be posting the 4th of our monthly ArtSpace series, and this one should be pretty exciting. For this series, we went the opposite of last month’s subway task: We asked our artists to pick a corner in the neighborhood, stand/sit/lean there for at least half an hour, and create something based on what they see/feel/hear/etc.
In addition to the fact that we have three new artists, one of them is our first musician! And just because I’m nice like that, I won’t make you wait to find out who the artists are. If you want to get a preview of what to expect, take a quiet moment or two this weekend to check out their other work.
The artists (not necessarily in order of appearance):
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
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:
Is it wrong to feel so happy that we’re developing some excellent series regulars? For this one, I think the transition to first-name-only status is appropriate. Ladies and gents…Kasia.
Task for the week: Take a subway ride from the neighborhood and create something based on it
Artist: Kasia Nikhamina
“Maiden Voyage”
He asked whether the station platform would collapse. We said it would hold.
He asked why there were so many policemen. We said there’s a lot of everything in New York.
He asked whether we were heading towards the ocean. We said we were moving away from it. He was relieved because there could be nothing good near the ocean. He said some trouble was afoot off the coast. He’d seen all the Irene footage.
He asked whether he is Jewish. We said that was complicated.
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
The daily commute to midtown is an uncurated radio show. My favorite characters are trios of Russian women. Their conversations often have a chirrupy quality. If one gets a seat, she inevitably takes her companions’ bags to hold on her lap. This week, when I had my ears especially open for a story, my train rides were unusually quiet–go figure.
Tell us about your subway trip and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought along it that inspired today’s work.
Last weekend our nephew visited from out of town, and we took him on his first subway ride ever–from Ditmas Park to the High Line. He’s in the first grade and he is very aware of disasters, both natural and man-made. He asked questions the entire ride. When we were above ground, he wanted to know when we’d go below ground, and vice versa.
About Kasia
I write The Mayor’s Hotel, a creative prose blog. In my spare time, I am obsessed with birds and composting, among other things.
If you’d like to contact Kasia about her work, she can be reached at:
Task for the week: Take a subway ride from the neighborhood and create something based on it
Artist: Noah Apple
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I’m inspired by New York City. Ditmas Park is a nook of quietude in the bombastic heart race of the boroughs.
Tell us about your subway trip and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought along it that inspired today’s work.
I’m a huge fan of subway crossing involving the bridges. Traveling over the Manhattan Bridge on the Q allows me to see the hot-mess miracle I’m about to plunge into.
About Noah
I am a teacher, puppeteer, visual artist, and wallpaper maker. At the moment, I’m focusing most of my energy in starting a one-room schoolhouse called Brooklyn Apple Academy.
If you’d like to contact Noah about his work, you can find him at:
Today’s ArtSpace post is pretty unconventional, but very internet-specific. You’re going to have to take your own quick ride away from our blog to see it. Just click on the graphic.
Task for the week: Take a subway ride from the neighborhood and create something based on it
Artist: Ingrid Burrington
“10/9-10/14: Where I Went, What I Did All Day, and (a selection of) What I Listened To”
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I like being able to see almost every kind of architecture in New York within like a fifteen-minute walk of my neighborhood. I’m interested in how places are defined and how they change, so it’s interesting to see so many kinds of places in Ditmas Park.
Tell us about your subway trip and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought along it that inspired today’s work.
So it looks like I pretty much totally broke the rules because this isn’t really a “magic story of one subway ride” project. Most of my recent work has been around Missed Connections, so honestly I was kind of sick of thinking about things happening on subways–I’m already so paranoid about watching for people watching people at this point.
When I started thinking about the assignment I was mostly interested in how I use the train and trying to figure out what the hell it is I do all day, and how the places I actually go in New York affect how I understand it. I tried to generally keep track of other things about my week (how much I slept, how many hours I spent in coffee shops, how many hours were spent watching a Bruce Willis movie [151 minutes]), but those statistics aren’t very precise or necessarily interesting/relevant to the assignment.
I also wanted to make something kind of web-specific since this is a blog and everything. You kind of have to click around on the map to get an idea of what the different paths led to or when they happened.
One thing I generally notice on the train is how people get really, really into whatever they are listening to. I get really into what I’m listening to also. So I kept track of what I actually listened to on the train and assembled a sampling of the things I listened to as a sort of musical overview of my week. Each song is one song from each album I listened to. I can direct you to the episode of Planet Money and the two episodes of Stuff You Should Know that I also listened to, but didn’t think those would really work on a playlist.
This was kind of an anomalous week, but actually most weeks are anomalous weeks these days.
About Ingrid
Ingrid Burrington uses words, data, and places to better understand words, data, and places.
It’s the third week of October and that means ArtSpace!
This month, we tried something a little different. Instead of a theme, we decided to give our artists an exercise–kind of an artistic task. In honor of the B line’s restoration to express service (whether it’s turned out to be more convenient or not), we asked them to take a subway trip and create something based on it. We only had two rules: they had to begin in the neighborhood and the work should be inspired by the trip itself rather than the origin or the destination. It could be a routine ride, a ride somewhere new in the city…whatever they wanted.
And we’re getting the week off to an excellent start with Emma Assin. Enjoy!
Task for the week: Take a subway ride from the neighborhood and create something based on it
Artist: Emma Assin
“Morning Q”
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
I feel at home in Ditmas Park. It’s green enough, quiet enough, and, best of all, brimming with young families like my own. My drawings totally come from the things and faces and attitudes I see around me, and if I walk around here enough, I always return home with an idea. I feel like everyone I meet here is an artist of some description–there’s a lot of creative energy flowing in this pocket of Brooklyn! Oh, and I’m not sure if I could actually live without Cafe Madeline’s lattes now.
Tell us about your subway trip and what you saw/experienced/felt/thought along it that inspired today’s work.
Just my regular commute–Q train from Beverley Road (or Cortelyou Road if I need to hit Madeline first…) -> Canal Street. I do it 4 days a week. I collected faces to memory during 6 or so of these journeys, and packed them into one train. This is the kind of train you get when you wait for 20 minutes for one to show up. And you have to get on or you’ll be even later, so you shuffle past the giant backpacks, under armpits, around large hairstyles, searching for something to hold on to. It doesn’t happen terribly often, but it did the day I read this week’s ArtSpace subject! So there you go. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is probably not coincidental.
About Emma
Born London 1981; transplanted to NY 2008. Flash developer; frustrated artist. Delicate flower; Legend of Zelda fangirl. Lover of all things animal. Married to a sweet, sweet guy and mother to an even sweeter one.
If you’d like to contact Emma about her work, she can be reached at:
We’re ending our second series with our second repeat artist, albeit with some work of the non-reptilian variety. Hope you’ve enjoyed your daily dose of neighborhood creativity.
Our next series is scheduled to go up the third week of October, so if you’re interested in taking part, please email me at dpblogavi@gmail.com with your name, email address, cross streets where you live (we’re sticking to DP-area artists at the moment), and the type of art you make. We welcome all sorts – not just the kind of work you’ve seen here so far (I’m talking to you, musicians!). So get in touch. Now on with #10.
Weekly theme: debris
Artist: William Bredbeck
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Despite having lived in New York for the better part of twenty years, I am not a very urban person so the proximity to Prospect Park is necessary for my happiness. Even though the park has its issues, I love it very much, especially at night, in the snow, or in a storm, when you can pretend you are a million miles away from Manhattan. For similar reasons, I love our “Green Stain” dripping down from the park on Google Maps. I live by the Parade Grounds, and I love the positive energy, the vibrancy of the community, and the feeling that we are all working together to energize the area. All of this helps create the dynamic world that the characters in my work inhabit.
What was your approach to this week’s theme – “debris”?
I had an idea to show Flatbush rising from the not so distant past above the debris of violence and negativity. I wanted to show some of the really amazing landmarks of central Flatbush which could anchor that positivity and hope for our future: The Loews Kings, the Dutch Reformed Church, and Erasmus. I knew I wanted the people to be the most important part, and also to involve lots of trees and bits and pieces of some Victorians too. There’s even a feral cat. I had a bit of an ink bleeding issue (someone please open an art supply store in the neighborhood), and as I was fixing it in Photoshop it turned into a t-shirtish design that i think came out pretty cool. I hope you like it.
About William
William has climbed mountains and made huge oil paintings in Alaska, worked as the lead animator of a show on Nickelodeon, as a crewman on a three-masted schooner, and as a bike messenger in Manhattan. He also plays the saw and the accordion. He currently lives in Caton Park, Flatbush with his lovely daughter and wonderful wife and is the Senior Art Director at Arkadium, a game development company.
If you’d like to contact William about his work, he can be reached at:
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
Ditmas Park’s canopy of trees, their branches meeting over the streets, the smiling children at the cafes and the diversity of our neighbors makes me glad to be living here. I can just walk around Ditmas Park and be calmed by its lazy streets. Artistic work needs that repose but also needs the occasional shot of caffeine–which we have no shortage of either.
What was your approach to this week’s theme – “debris”?
Debris, as I imagined it, was too large to photograph. I kept recalling the image of landslide that took out part of the West Side Highway a few years back. I tried to find something that resembled that image and realized that there’s so much debris right underfoot. The trash that people discard, the chips of asphalt, concrete, brick that “adorn” so many walkways, buildings’ stoops. I wanted to give the feeling of discard and abandon but wanted it to feel far larger than it was. The tonemapped HDR image gave the photograph some color depth, making the scene more alien than it really is.
If you need headshots/portraits, publicity or website photos, or event photos, please contact Ilya at hillclimber@gmail.com for rates and availability. Check out his Flickr page for past work.
This year’s Newport Folk Festival is just two months out. Today, tickets for an amazing Deer Tick hosted after party on Friday, Saturday and Sunday went on sale…and already sold out. Deer Tick will be curating three Newport Folk Fest after parties at the Newport Blues Cafe on July 27-29. According to the band’s publicist, […]
Festival season is officially kicking into high gear. This afternoon, Bonnaroo’s lineup schedule for the 4-day music and arts fest in Manchester, Tenn. was announced. In case you need a lineup refresher, one of the most notable acts *is (*IMHO) Fruit Bats – the band fronted by Eric D. Johnson that fell off the radar […]
Want to lose weight but not seeing results? You could be making one of these 3 biggest diet mistakes. In this video, licensed nutritionist Lisa Jubilee of Living Proof Nutrition/Fitness explains the 3 most common mistakes people make when trying to lose weight. Interested in trying our kickboxing program? Get 3 kickboxing classes and a … […]
Powerful Words is the name of our character development curriculum here at Urban Martial Arts. It’s designed by one of the nation’s leading childhood development experts, Dr. Robyn Silverman. Every month, we’ll focus on a different Powerful Word, or concept around character development. This month’s Powerful Word is TRUSTWORTHINESS. Here’s a video from Dr. R […]
Echinacea pallida, Pale Coneflower, growing in my urban backyard native plant garden. I was appalled to see the National Wildlife Federation publish on their Web site, without qualification or counter-point, a press piece by the "Brand Manager... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] […]
We wanted to make sure you knew about a Groupon of ours that just went live this morning. For $30, you get 4 kickboxing classes with a 40-minute personal training session, and a pair of free boxing gloves. or… For $50, you get 10 kickboxing classes with a 40-minute personal training session, and a pair … […]
Not only are there a few handfuls of awesome shows happening around the five boroughs this week, there’s a helluva lot goin’ on this weekend in the way of festivals. Basically, it’s going to be like Mardi Gras … minus the beads … and a lot of other things. First, it’s the 4th Annual Brooklyn […]
Now that THE LILY MAID is safely off to my agent, I’ve begun work on another project: relaunching this website. It’s a major project, frankly, and one which is overdue. The last time I redesigned the site was for the launch of DOOMED QUEENS. Since then, I’ve moved onto writing fiction, creating iPhone apps and […]
So many good shows this week, so little time. Justin Townes Earle is back in town, up-and-comers The Whiskey Collection hit Rockwood again, Jonathan Wilson and Jenny O do their thing, and the list goes on. Keepin’ it short and sweet, folks — check out the packed lineup below, and plan wisely! Monday, May 14 […]
How does living in Ditmas Park feed/inspire/affect your work?
About Ilya
About William
