Musings on the Puck Building in NYC

I have been working at a temp job in the Puck Building and have a few observations to share. First - I love this neighborhood. It's been the neighborhood (and for the record, I'm considering this Soho, because the building is on the SOUTH side of Houston St., but there are those who argue it as Noho) where I have worked and played  happily for many years. When I first moved to NYC, it was the eighties and Soho was the center of the art universe.

One of my first jobs was at a boutique, no longer in existence, where I did alterations on clothing. With a master's degree in art, thank goodness I had sewing skills. While there, I made contact with a gallery owner and went to work for her at the gallery (also no longer in existence). At that gallery I met Miriam Shapiro, a feminist heroine of mine whom I had studied about in college, and became her studio assistant at her Soho loft.

Fast forward a decade and I was taking dance lessons at the Sandra Cameron Dance Center  in this neighborhood, for years.  There were many Sundays when I would have a tango class and then go hang out at Puck Fair, one of my very favorite Irish bars in the city, and have an Irish breakfast (including a Guinness) before going back to the dance studio for a practice session. Often I would sit in the window and look out at the beautiful Puck Building across the street. Sometimes I would see couples in formalwear filing in and out for some sort of special event. I made note that the Outsider Art Fair took place there, too. I never went into the building, but often wondered what it was like inside.

 So, now I find myself working inside the Puck Building.  It's a bright cheerful place to work, with the gigantic windows letting in alot of natural light.

the iconic Puck figure, from behind

 When I look up from my computer, I notice some of the details around me. One of the things I love about old buildings is the decorative detail. It seems decoration used to be an assumption in building design, recognizing the human need for the eyes to rest on something interesting. I miss that in modern buildings.

The cast iron columns around me have some wacky flowers attached to them, way up high, under the classic egg and dart motif. I realized that these flowers have to have been bolted on.  They couldn't have been part of the casting because of their undercut edges. To think that someone would have considered this important enough to go to such effort!

column details at eye level

Just leaving the building is a feast for the eyes. Check out this elevator.

elevator

Or these flowers again - on the underside of the stairway! 

And just before leaving the building, there is this lacy iron curtain over the stairway. 

I'm happy to have been able to experience this building from the inside and satisfy some of my curiosity. I hope the current lobby renovations will be respectful of the building.

The Creative Process: Making Miniature Tango Collages for Holiday Fairs

I've been spending all my energy the last two weeks, with time out for Thanksgiving, on creating collages for local holiday art fairs. I've been focusing on making tiny collages, 4"x4", using the same methods and images of tango dancing that I use in my slightly larger collages. As is always the case in any creative process, I've noticed some interesting developments.

getting small collages ready for holiday fairs in my studio

I find I really like working on this scale. When I shrink the paper lithographs (a fine art process using etching inks and xeroxes as the printing plates) down, the line details show up and I can frame them and focus the eye in a more simple way. Also, I have a tendency towards "more is more" and often get bogged down in applying multiple layers when the image isn't developing well. With the small pieces, I don't feel bad about tossing the piece aside if it's not successful. And, anyway, I can always turn it over and use the back side. I use very high quality heavy paper so that it can stand up to collaging different weights and textures of material and I prepare both sides of the paper so that it will stay as flat as possible. I learned all these collaging techniques from Miriam Shapiro when I was her studio assistant in the '80's. I'll write more about that in another blog entry.

Collages #110 and #111,  tango shoes from patterned paper

The materials I'm using for the small work has changed slightly, too. I have been collecting images and decorative papers for years.  I've had some scraps of handmade decorative papers from my friends at Four Hands Design Studios here on Staten Island http://www.sagereynolds.com/paste. The scraps are from papers often used in hand bookbinding. Sage and Colman at Four Hands have impeccable craftsmanship and color sense, so the papers are very precious. I find that the patterns in the paper, scaled to the intimacy of a book, work well in these collages. I especially had fun using my cuticle scissors to cut out tiny shoes from them, in combination with some origami paper. Okay - full disclosure - I was also influenced here by my first adventure in scrapbooking at a recent baby shower for a friend. THAT was fun - sitting in a room surrounded by beautiful patterned papers and new artmaking tools, all available for us to play with. I mean, all available for us to create a meaningful gift for our friend.

Collage #120, using envelope

I have another friend, Phyllis Forman, who makes the most exuberant and original collages and assemblages, all from discarded materials. She has been using her junk mail as raw material for years. Lately, inspired by Phyllis, I have incorporated some envelope linings from my own junk mail that have beautiful colors and patterns. I am also recycling my old prints and collages that haven't worked in whole, but that have some small parts that I can use.

All of this flurry of activity is in preparation for a couple of holiday fairs on Staten Island that I am doing in December. The first is this Saturday, Dec. 3 at the Noble Maritime Collection  at Snug Harbor (see flier below) and the second will be at the JCC on Dec. 11.  I wanted to have a new product that was even more affordable than my $60 collages. These mini pieces will sell for $23 unframed. And, as with all my collages, each one is handmade and unique. NO computer-generated images here! If I'm successful, I may add this size to my Etsy shop as well. http://www.etsy.com/people/DeniseMummArt

Visiting Editions/Artists' Book Fair in NYC

I visited the Editions/Artists' Book Fair on Friday evening, Nov. 4 at the invitation of my friend, Susan Happersett. She makes books with Purgatory Pie Press and was at their booth. 

The fair's website http://www.eabfair.com gives a complete listing of all the participants and a little background information about the fair. The little catalogues given away at the door are beautiful objects themselves, even moreso than those for the big splashy art fairs. In addition to having an image for each exhibitor, they contain a helpful description of their mission and focus.

 Green Topia Chairs by Barbara Gallucci

The moment I stood in the doorway I remembered how impressed I had been with the quality of the art the last time I had visited. There is a wide variety of styles, scale, and approaches to books and multiples,  but the craftsmanship and originality was inspiring and reassuring to me. I could very much feel the hand of the artist throughout. Despite the technology available to us to create masses of multiples, I'm very happy to see that the traditional methods of production are thriving, that artists find them relevant and also find ways to be innovative with them.

I stopped at the booth for the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. The first thing I did was poke (with permission) at the odd cast-paper catfish "nests" that Willie Birch had made from real catfish nests in his backyard. 

The second thing that caught my eye were some prints made by Chakaia Booker. I'm a great admirer of her sculpture made from castoff tires. My printmaking teacher, Herman Zaage, had said that sculptors make some of the best printmakers and I think these prints proved that. The Workshop representative shared with me the approach that Chakaia and the printshop worked through so that she could be comfortable in the printmaking process. The resulting prints look "built", with fluid embossed lines and chine colle elements in addition to the printed lines. A picture of them would not catch the subtleties.

I remember meeting Bob Blackburn when I was working at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in the eighties. He came to an opening for Faith Ringgold. He had done a series of prints about war with Faith in the sixties and I believe that was Faith's first printmaking experience. He was a printmaking evangelist, approaching me as I worked behind the gallery desk with a "you should come over and make some prints". The Workshop carries on his mission of helping artists discover something new about artmaking through making prints.

Kristen Martincic's work is in the middle booth,
with her old fashioned swimsuit print/sculpture.

Another booth that grabbed my attention was The Print Center. They were featuring simple, quiet iconographic prints that were really sculptures by the artist Kristen Martincic. In addition to her delicate paper swimsuit in this picture, she was showing some small printed "pillows", 3" in diameter, that were intricate and masterfully executed monotypes printed on rice paper and then stuffed. They were priced at an incredible $110 each. See more about this artist at http://printcenterstore.myshopify.com/collections/martincic.   But, you have to see these pillows in person.

My next stop was to see my friend Susan Happersett at Purgatory Pie Press. Susan makes math-based art. See her work here http://www.happersett.com/home. She shared some books she had made, completely by hand, which included complex original drawings based on chaos theory. She also pointed out some lovely new handprinted postcards by Dikko Faust, one of which had a dizzyingly intricate pattern of circles on it. Purgatory Pie uses a letterset press to produce their material. Check them out here  http://www.purgatorypiepress.com/.

My parting glance of the fair was a wall-sized print created out of variable modules by Daniel Heyman. It's a commentary on war and a very ambitious project. I was drawn to it because of the rough quality of the print, with a woodgrain background. It was well positioned on a back wall and a fitting parting tribute to a fair that features artists pushing the envelope through editions and books.

Where Photographers are Blinded, Eagles' Wings are Clipped, at left, by Daniel Heyman

Tango Collage Suitcase Show & Sale: July 22 at Triangulo, NYC

Next Friday July 22, from 4:30 to 8:30 pm I will be presenting another Suitcase Show & Sale. It will be held at the Afternoon Milonga at Triangulo, which is hosted by Maura and Richard. My tango collages and I will be ensconced in a corner of the room, some on the wall, and some in the antique suitcase I use for transportation and display.  All the collages are one of a kind. The prices range from $50 to $75. The Afternoon Milonga at Triangulo is my regular hangout on a Friday night and I'm so excited about sharing my art with all the friends I've made there.

This will be the second time I am bringing my collages directly to the NYC tango community. The first time was at the invitation of Anthony Blackwell. He asked me to show my work at his Monday night milonga, Casa de Tango. I was pleased to share my tango art with a tango audience, people I dance with  and talk to every week, but who  have no idea what else I do. Our conversations throughout the evening were about hand and feet positions, the importance of the embrace, and their own creative endeavors involving tango. They got the work in a way that my artist friends don't.

my setup at Casa de Tango

table with unfinished collages in my studio (fig tree outside window)

I've been furiously creating in the studio in the intervening time since the Casa show. I've been rummaging around in drawers, pulling out "bad" prints and partial prints that had the germ of an idea but were never developed. As I am thinking in terms of building a collage, these pieces look more like inspired jumping off points than failures.

I'm also doing new drawings, based on recent photos I've taken at Volvo Tango on the Christopher Street pier. That early evening milonga gives me a rare opportunity for  some well-lit photos of dancers.  I recycle images ad nauseam, giving myself permission to do that when I saw how Rauschenberg used the same images over and over, always making them fresh. Now I feel I've reached the point of saturation for the current set of images I've been using, so I want to refresh them with a whole new set.

(c)2011 Denise Mumm      
new drawing 

I'll make xeroxes of the drawings and then take them to the Noble Maritime Collection and use their etching press to crank out a series of paper lithograph images to use in collages. You can check out my website to see a series of process photos explaining the paper lithography process denisemumm.com . The website shows some pictures of finished collages like the small ones I am working on now. I am also selling the small collages at my Etsy shop DeniseMummArt

The Noble museum has been very welcoming, allowing me to use their press in between children's classes. When I go there, I bring along a variety of papers, some patterned, some colored. I also bring a lot of extra images, including some that are just patterns. The patterns I will print onto other patterned papers to use in building translucent layers, or onto a background surface to use as the bottom layer that will be built upon. I usually print for several hours and I never know what direction the session will take, so I try to come prepared for spontaneity, whether it comes from inspiration or failure.

I still have lots of collages to finish, mat, label and package for Friday, so I'd better get back to the studio!

Art on Staten Island: Lumen 2011

I had heard reports last year about Lumen, a multimedia arts installation festival,  from my friends. I live in the neighborhood where it was held and had stood outside the gates, pondering whether to go in or not. Nothing was visible from the street and I had just had news that my father was gravely ill, so was in no mood. I just went home.


So, I was determined to attend this year and see if it lived up to the hype. The publicity leading up to it was astonishing for a Staten Island art event. We are used to being overlooked by the mainstream media, despite a LOT of effort. The Daily News will cover us sometimes, but the NY Times sends us a Metropolitan section in our Sunday Times, which is all about New Jersey (?????) and NEVER includes Staten Island listings. However, this year Lumen was covered prominently not only in the NY Times (in a couple of places AND with a picture!), but also in Time Out New York. And those were only the items I saw.  The director of our arts council (COAHSI), Melanie Cohn, told me that it was due to the very hard work of two marketing interns from CSI. Kudos to them! 

Staten Island Ferry boats as seen from the neighboring pier.

Lumen took place from 6:00 pm to midnight. This being the time of the year with the longest days, that meant that this festival featuring projections and lights took place during some daylight hours. That gave us some time to check out the site itself, a nearly abandoned "public" space which includes a recently renovated pier with some public art, a couple of plaza areas with permanent tables and seats, several large fenced-off abandoned historical buildings that were to house the National Lighthouse Museum (now moribund) and one small but beautifully renovated building. This was the site for SICC's Art by the Ferry festival in 2010.

The Verrazano Bridge as seen from the pier.

The pier was the site for performance artists, although there was one lone dancer performing in the dark near the abandoned buildings. You never know, she could have been moved by the moment and the ambience and was actually a talented interloper. Anyway, I was more distracted by the view on the pier than the performance artists; one lounging in a tent, one getting her hair cut, another performing what looked like a Santeria ritual (I steered clear - the machete made me nervous).

Inside the renovated building, which was pitch black even at this daylight hour, there were several interesting installations, as well as a band warming up. All evening we ran across several drum kits and musicians warming up, but no actual live music. But we left at 10:15. Perhaps that was for the last hour.

Sculpture made from construction buckets

After the sun set, my sister (my companion for the evening) and I planted ourselves at one of the permanent tables and chairs. For the next hour or so, we just pivoted in our seats, taking in the action around us. We were perfectly situated to see several projections on both screens and buildings, a very effective but simple sculpture made from alternating red and white construction buckets, some costumed people and the crowd.

This woman had to have been influenced by Ana Mendieta
who did many "silhueta" installations. 

Ana was a grad student at the University of Iowa when I was an undergrad there. She was a big influence on my own work when I was exploring female empowerment images.

We were greatly entertained overhearing a 20 minute conversation between a young man with a cooler, trying to explain to his friends at the ferry how to reach the site. I was astonished that so many people actually managed to find their way to the site. Every obstacle possible is put in the way of the most direct route; blockaded areas, signs that say "danger", "no entry", narrow almost invisible passageways between fences, and car traffic from the ferry. Seriously. Only armed guards with guns could make it more intimidating (but they are usually in the ferry terminal itself). I digress . . . back to the festival.

On the walk back towards the ferry terminal there was an avenue of sorts, with installations at perfect intervals. I especially enjoyed the ones which used the buildings as part of the pieces.

Such a perfect evening and like all successful site-specific art pieces, it highlighted the site as much as the art. The only drawback was that it needed beer, as per last year. It was such a laid back hanging-out-on-a-Saturday-night kind of thing that beer would have made it perfect. This was a big topic of discussion among the friends we ran into throughout the night. The word was that the public organization that controls the site had given an ultimatum "Do you want beer or do you want a festival?" Too bad.


Many thanks to Ginger Lynne Shulick, curator, and to COAHSI for sponsoring this festival. LOTS of people, time, effort and dedication is necessary to pull an event of this scale off and make it a success. AND the luck of good weather!

Summer in NYC: Dancing Tango Outdoors

One of the perks of living in this city is all the free outdoor culture offered in the unique public spaces. I've only taken advantage of a couple of them this year, but the summer is still young.

The tango community moves outside in the summer.   Many of us are still mourning the original outdoor Milonga at the South Street Seaport. That was a victim of real estate-development, like so many other good things in this town. Also, I believe the Seaport Museum had something to do with the upkeep of the pier and they have fallen victim to the economy in recent years.


The rustic wooden surface of the pier was always a challenge to dance on, but became dangerous toward the end, with splinters and holes. But the ambience was hard to beat; the Brooklyn Bridge, the stately tall ship Peking docked next to us, the moon and the stars . . . all irresistible to people already under the romantic spell of the tango. Tango has its cliques, but EVERYONE showed up at the seaport.

My first outdoor milonga this year was at the Christopher Street pier. We dance there under a pavilion,which functions to contain the music, keeping it from drifting on the breeze out to the Hudson. 


The wood on this pier is new and we only have to worry about spiked heels getting caught between the boards and a little bit of slipping on the smooth surface. There's always a breeze off the Hudson to cool us down after the warmth of the sun, the exertion and the closeness of each other. 

When the sun sets (ah, the sunset) it cools down even more. The lights from the Lackawanna terminal in Hoboken, the Empire State Building, and The Statue of Liberty are all in view. 


Sometimes we are so taken with the ambience and good company we almost forget to dance.
This time at the pier I was happy to see that some of my regular "pier partners" were there. Some of them I only see at this milonga. Although we knew each other by sight, the names had slipped from memory and we had to re-synch our movements to each other.


The other outdoor milonga I love is at the Shakespeare statue in Central Park. I actually like the surface of the blocks for dancing, with just the right amount of traction. The area is usually swept clean and a little talcum powder applied. Sometimes a guitarist and bandoneon player provide us with music. The cool leafy surroundings and handy benches make it very inviting. Unfortunately, Saturdays are difficult for me to drag myself in for another day of commuting into Manhattan after what is usually a full day of running errands (which I do all on foot) and garden work.


This year there is a new outdoor milonga at Union Square Park. The reports have been positive and it sounds like everyone is showing up in the kind of numbers that used to frequent the seaport. I'm planning to check it out this weekend. I'll do a report.

Suitcase Show and Sale of Tango Collages

I've been graciously invited to exhibit and sell my tango collages on June 6th, 2011 from 6:00 to 10:00 at  Casa de Tango, a milonga hosted by Anthony Blackwell. I will be at the milonga with my antique suitcase packed with collages inspired by the tango. Casa de Tango is held upstairs at Central Bar at 190 E. 9th St. in New York City.

This milonga is very intimate and friendly. I always maintain that a milonga's tone is set by the host. The first time I went, Anthony made sure I was comfortable and introduced me to some of the people there. Due to those introductions, I danced with some really fabulous partners I probably wouldn't have before. The gender balance there is good, too. And, I think because everybody is very visible in the small room, people get to dance.

There's a camera flashing constantly during the milonga (now I know how celebrities feel with paparazzi), but it's a great marketing tool. Anthony will then post tons of pictures from each milonga on Facebook. I know I'm not the only one who scrutinizes the pictures, not only to find myself in them, but also to see if friends and dance partners were at the milongas I didn't attend.

Anthony has been promoting the sale on Facebook as well as on his website http://www.blackwellassociates.com/. Last night I was passing out flyers for the sale at the milonga at Triangulo and people were remarking that they already knew about it from his efforts.

I still have a lot of preparations for the sale this weekend; matting, labeling, etc.  And, knowing me, I will probably want to complete a couple more collages, because I can't help myself. Here are a couple of the collages. All are small and under $100.

(c) 2010 Denise Mumm, Collage #39
7½"x11", paper lithograph, collage on paper

(c) 2010 Denise Mumm, Collage #44 10"x7 1/2", paper lithograph, collage on paper

More peeks of the work I will be selling can be seen at my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/DeniseMummArt and more about me and some of the more expensive (but still affordable!) work I do can be found at my website http://denisemumm.com.