BKLN in Progress

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was working on a project, which will be displayed at Smack Mellon on May 22nd, with my mentor Phillip Shung as well as two other Art Ready students, Maat and Tania. In mid-March we decided that our piece would consist of a magazine as well as a photo spread, involving different aspects of Brooklyn life. Recently we decided that our final piece would include a video section. The interviews that each of us are conducting will be documented on film.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, my piece will be the musical portion. Mainly it will revolve around my friends’ band, Any Given Weekday. They were born and raised in Brooklyn so they fit into the theme. I met Any Given Weekday at the Urban Assembly School for Law & Justice because we all attend school there. In April 2012, they performed together for the first time and because of their chemistry, they continued creating music as a group. When I interviewed them, I asked them questions pertaining to the current state as well as the future state of the group. Footage from their practices will also be included in my part of our presentation. I want the viewers of this video to see the ambition this group possesses and why people should support Any Given Weekday, based on the effort the band puts into their practice sessions and performances.

Any Given Weekday before they performed on April 20th

During one of our weekly Art Ready meet-ups, Tania mentioned that she wanted to be an art therapist. With that information, Phill pulled a few strings and set up an interview between Tania and an art therapist from Brooklyn named Jessie Zapo for May 1st. Tania interviewed Zapo at her current office location, which is in lower Manhattan until September. Tania asked Zapo questions regarding her career from the beginning until now. It turns out Zapo is an Art Therapist for teenagers. She encourages her patients to express themselves through art if they cannot do it verbally.

Often Phill asks us about our plans for the next week until we meet again on Wednesdays and Maat’s response is usually the same. Maat attends a program at the Schomburg Center, a research library of the New York Public Library for black culture, every Saturday. Originally Phill thought it would a great idea for Maat to do her piece on Weeksville, a neighborhood founded by African American freemen in the 1840s, since she learned about it at the Schomburg Center and she lives not to far from it. Because Weeksville closes at 4pm, it would be impossible for any of us, including Maat, to visit Weeksville on a Wednesday because of the times we are dismissed from school. Phill decided that Maat would instead interview an illustration artist that lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn on May 10th.

During our meeting on April 24th, we decided on the name of our magazine. It would be called Brooklyn, but it would not be spelled that way. Phill thought it would be creative to title the magazine BKLN. It was an abbreviation for Brooklyn, but it seemed more creative to drop the “Y.” We all decided that having a picture that we took be the cover would not be creative enough for the magazine. I decided that we should have a former Smack Mellon student, Madjeen Isaacs, create the cover because I knew she could draw very well.  She will be drawing a cover that  symbolizes the change that is occurring in Brooklyn.

Being that the magazine would be based on Brooklyn, Phill also thought that we should incorporate the thoughts that people have about how Brooklyn has changed. He suggested that I speak to one of the band members, Zane Durham, about writing a piece on how Franklin Avenue has changed. Phill’s office is close to Franklin Avenue and Zane happens to live on Franklin.

I don’t want to give too much away but to learn more about these artists from Brooklyn, visit the upcoming Art Ready final exhibition on May 22nd at Smack Mellon and see our magazine and documentary.

Post by Dennis Metoyer, Exploring the Arts high school intern

Visit to Sabrina Jones’ Studio

On April 10, Caitlyn, Damarcus, Kayla and Malik met up with mentor, Susan Hamburger, at the studio of comic artist and graphic novelist, Sabrina Jones, in Brooklyn. Sabrina creates graphic novels that focus on political narratives and social justice. She was very generous with her time and answered many questions about how she began her career, what subjects inspire her and how she creates her work. She spoke about tools and materials, writing, collaborating and publishing. We all had a chance to see her completed work as well as work she had in progress. Everyone came away with a much clearer understanding of the process of creating a graphic novel from its origination in the studio to its placement on store shelves. Students contributed with responses to the trip along with photos below:

“Today’s trip inspired me.  I want to draw more now because of it, and it helped me to understand what a career in graphic novels is like. It helped me prepare for the future.”
-Caitlyn

“I learned about different art styles and different jobs… being an artist. The most interesting part about the trip was seeing the process of creating books….” -Damarcus

“Getting to visit Sabrina’s studio was a great experience. I learned all about her life as an artist. Seeing her work … all around her room actually inspired me to do the same.”
-Kayla”

“Sabrina’s graphic novel work was … different from the way I [think of] graphic novels. Her work was non-fiction. She answered my questions about … what steps to go through to be a graphic novelist.” -Malik

 

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“Adorable ‘Living cup of Mocha’ Kitty (courtesy of Caitlyn)

Mixed media works in progress by the mentees of Susan Hamburger and Natalia Nakazawa

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Art Ready Field Trip: Brooklyn Museum, Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui exhibition, 03/27/13

On Wednesday March 27, 2013, Art Ready met as a large group for the first time in almost two months to take a trip to the Brooklyn Museum. Usually on Wednesdays the students do not meet at Smack Mellon anymore because that is the day they meet up with their mentors. This Wednesday was a special occasion because all of the Art Ready students were on Spring Break. We saw the exhibit Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui.

Our tour kicked off with an introduction to our tour guide Shanua, who is an intern educator at the Brooklyn Museum. She gave each person a stool that we were allowed to sit on during our visit to the museum, which excited the students. She gave us background information about El Anatsui, who is a contemporary artist from Nigeria.

Upon entering this exhibit, eyes widened and jaws dropped as we walked toward his 2010 installation Gli (Wall). We all took a seat in front of one of his aluminum “walls.” Our tour guide explained to us that although anyone who sees this would assume that the walls were made using recycled material, the truth is they weren’t. Anatsui never made it known how he collected all of this aluminum. This piece of art included many different kinds of aluminum, but in particular bottle caps were used repeatedly. When we looked closely at the wall, we could see different words across the top. Anatsui used different kinds of bottle caps because he wanted each bottle cap to have its own identity. When people look at the bottle caps, they know that each came from a different bottle.

Our tour guide told us, as we looked at two additional installations in this exhibit, that Anatsui has 34 studio assistants to help him put together his ideas. They work in groups to create units of the larger artworks that can take up to a day per unit to make. When looking at his Ozone Layer installation from 2010, I began to understand why 34 people are necessary. Ozone Layer was 165 3/8 high x 212 5/8 in wide. I found it really interesting that Anatsui allows the curators to hang his artwork however they think looks best. For example, in this piece there are fans behind it. Anatsui never meant for there to be fans behind it. The Brooklyn Museum curator had done it because a Tokyo museum had done the same when El Anatsui’s work was on display there.

I believe that this exhibit helped me understand the mindset of this artist. Anatsui comes up with these grand ideas that he has others put together for him because he is more interested in getting more of his pieces into the world rather than taking years to create one installation by himself.

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Post by Dennis Metoyer, Exploring the Arts high school intern

Ring making:works in progress….

Our rings are starting to come along. Next week we’ll put the finishing touches on them so they are clean enough to be brought for casting into bronze or brass. We’ll bring them to a professional casting house in the NYC jewelry district by Rockefeller Center. Stay tuned to see our rings in metal!

A trip to Jazz at Lincoln Center with Phill, Dennis, Maat, and Tania

At the end of the Fall semester of Art Ready, two other Art Ready students and I were matched up with Phillip Shung. He will be my mentor until the end of Art Ready’s Spring Semester. Phill works in the field of graphic design, which is why I wanted to work with him. Graphic design is part of our everyday lives so I wanted to learn more about this art form from Phill.

During our first meeting with Phill, we went over ideas that we felt should be incorporated in our final project, which is going to be a magazine as well as a photo spread.  I have an interest in music so I thought it would be useful to do my part of the project of my friend’s band, Any Given Weekday. It fits in to the overall theme of our project, which happens to be life in Brooklyn. Any Given Weekday is a band of five high school students from my school that all reside in Brooklyn, so I believed that my part of the project could be about young talent from Brooklyn.

We have been on a few trips since we first met in February. The last trip we went on was the most relevant to our music portion of the project. On March 13th, we took a trip to Jazz at Lincoln Center, where we were given a tour by one of Phill’s friends that works for Jazz at Lincoln Center because there were no performances that night. We learned about the different rooms that are used on a weekly basis, which consist of the Rose Theater, the Allen Room, and Dizzy’s. Each of these rooms has a sound station to control how loud the music is, for the contort of the audience. I believe this trip was extremely informative because now I have information that I can possibly give to my friend’s band about performances.

When I was at Jazz at Lincoln Center, I got the chance to take photos on Phil’s Digital SLR Camera. Check out the sideshow below:

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Post by Dennis Metoyer, Exploring the Arts intern

wax carving at Liloveve

Today we began our first project.  In the next couple of weeks, we are going to be working on making a ring from start to finish and completing all of the processes that are necessary in order for it to be “shelf-ready”.  attached are images of our first work day