We began the day by traveling to Williamsburg, Brooklyn where we met with abstract painter Laura Newman. She greeted us with snacks and refreshments, even despite our lateness (due to a train delay), which was absolutely wonderful and so nice. Inside her studio and apartment space we gathered in a circle of chairs to discuss her paintings. She explained that her work focuses on the exploration of space and that she draws inspiration from modern architecture and other painters such as Matisse. Her work, which features deep blues and bright pinks and oranges, is very geometric and spontaneous. She told us that this is on purpose. Rather than beginning a painting with a set goal she, in her own words, lets the painting surprise her. Despite the spur of the moment style, her work draws you in with its bold colors and dynamic lines. So does her attitude, she was warm, friendly and interested in our opinions. She also spoke about her career as an artist and how the art world has helped and influenced her. She said something that I think will stick with me: “there are many different art worlds.” I think she meant that there are many different people out there with many different tastes and that it’s important to stay true to yourself and your style/ideals. If people aren’t interested in your work then you just haven’t found the right crowd yet. I also appreciated that she spoke about her experience as a teacher and within the world of education. I feel that this is a difficult topic and that you could really tell she cared about her students. Her assignments seemed fun, engaging and interesting. It was also nice to hear about this, as it gave some perspective about what it is like to live in the contemporary art world and how to make it sustainable. She also showed us a number of her paper works and unfinished or in progress pieces. I was not expecting this kind of intimate treatment and I found it extremely refreshing as, so far, the world of contemporary art in NYC has felt very static and non inclusive.
Later in the day we traveled to a small section of Queens called Ridgewood, where we met with another artist, David Opdyke. He has a studio attached to his house where he not only conducts his own work but for the last few months, has been showing other artist’s works as well. The makeshift gallery included works focused around the work made during quarantine. It was really interesting to see his work juxtaposed against other artists and to see what they were all making during quarantine. One of my favorite of the works was a piece called Feel My City Breaking & Everybody Shaking by Jennifer Dalton. The piece consisted of diary entries and corresponding Covid threat levels, starting at the beginning of lockdown and ending with vaccination dates. I also really liked the two sweaters knitted by Jennifer McCoy. They were a fun, humorous, light hearted take on the difficult aspects of the covid pandemic and quarantine. I also really enjoyed Opdyke’s work. In his massive installations, he displays an array of postcards on a wall in his studio. He then paints with gouache over them to create fantastical scenes. I felt that many of these scenes were environmentally charged and maybe even politically charged. The work itself is absolutely beautiful, with tons of small details. He also employs an interesting technique of using paper cutouts as his sketches. His view of the NYC art world was interesting to hear and I appreciated his realism. However, I felt awkward asking him questions and that by doing so I was somehow offending him.
