Meet Your Neighborhood Artists: The Park Slope Windsor Terrace Open Studios Weekend
New York has some of the most impressive museums in the world. One could spend every weekend traveling throughout the city and viewing the creations of countless artists.
During the upcoming weekend, you have opportunity to view a variety of artwork — all in our neighborhood — at the third annual Park Slope Windsor Terrace Open Studios. And you also have a chance to have an experience you just can’t get at MoMA or the Met — spend time with the artist themselves.
Between the hours of 12pm-6pm on both Saturday, November 7 and Sunday, November 8, take a stroll through the neighborhood and visit the artists who also are our neighbors. Thirty-four of them will be showing their work. And every visit is free.
Joy Makon, one of the artists showing work this weekend, tells us that “the range of art on display includes traditional and contemporary paintings, artwork with a social commentary, childrens’ book illustrations, photography, collage, pottery including functional pieces, sculpture, and more, at all price points.”
The tour map lets you either plot out your visits or simply wander throughout the weekend from artist to artist. With the holidays coming up, you may find a great gift — and certainly something you can add to (or begin) your arts collection.
This week, we took some time to speak with a variety of artists showing their work during the open studios. We asked each artist the same question: What makes the Open Studio (OS) a unique experience to you personally?
Lloyd Campbell, a photographer living in Windsor Terrace
“What makes this Open Studio experience unique to me personally is having more freedom in what I display at home, compared to exhibiting at a gallery. Also it’s fun to participate with fellow neighborhood artists.”
Simon Dinnerstein, painter, drawer, and printmaker living in Park Slope
“I was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn and am probably one of the few individuals who live in Park Slope who was born in Brooklyn. Brooklyn from Park Slope to Brownsville has a certain spirit and life force. It has a great deal of heart. Perhaps Brooklyn is a location where the street mixes with the spectral and where the everyday can also be mystical. I hope my work speaks to these issues. It’s a complicated borough and mind-set. After all, wasn’t it Thomas Wolf who said “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn”?
Nancy Doniger, painter, printmaker and illustrator (children’s books, The New York Times) living on the Park Slope/Windsor Terrace border, and Eric Jacobson, sculptor and metalworker living on the Park Slope/Windsor Terrace border.
“This is our third year of participating in the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studio. Art making is mostly a solitary endeavor, especially for those of us with studios in our homes. Opening the studio is the opposite. It has been great to get to know so many of the artists in our neighborhood (planning the event, preparing and distributing posters and maps) and to see the great variety of art-making going on. The artists have been very supportive of each other, and the feeling of community has grown each year.
Opening the studio to the public has been fun. Long time neighbors and friends, and folks we’ve never met from in and outside the city, come in, look, and ask many questions about our materials, process, and intention. My press is in the studio, so I can show and explain a bit of the printmaking process. Children’s books that I’ve illustrated are there to read (and buy) along with some of the originals from those books on the wall — the kids seem to enjoy seeing that and being able to ‘touch’ some things. And I enjoy them! People sometimes remember the illustrations from the NY Times on display, and that is fun for me. Sharing my personal work has been a new thing, and I have learned a lot from the interaction.
Eric’s colorful, mobile, metal and glass sculptures vary in size from wall pieces to outdoor art. Since his studio in Red Hook is more difficult to visit, he brings them to our second floor to show, along with custom pot racks, and hooks. He enjoys the opportunity to share his new work and speak to people about it.
Finally, it is so nice for both of us to get to know the folks who buy the work, at lease a bit, and to be able to to imagine it in their homes.”
Lisa Anne Lincoln, sculptor living in Windsor Terrace
“This is my second year participating in the tour, quite a singular experience for me. I have shown my work in other venues, but inviting the public to my home and studio is altogether different. The diversity among the people who turn out for the tour, and the variety of their questions about the work give me food for thought and inspire me to make more art. This year, I plan to build a clay sculpture or two during the open studio.
This is the only studio tour in 2015 for me. I am glad to be part of such a great group of artists, happy to provide some of the art, that goes so well with a walk in the park, and our neighborhoods’ blocks, wonderful buildings, bistros and bars.”
Darcy Lynn, painter working in oils on canvas living on the border of Park Slope/Windsor Terrace
“For me OS is a chance to showcase my art to the community, get feed back, make some sales and hopefully contacts with art collectors/businesses. Plus it is also a chance to work on a project with my fellow artists in the neighborhood, to present ourselves as the own unique artists group that we are. The support we give each other is invaluable.”
Joy Makon, watercolorist living in Windsor Terrace
“I love it when people I don’t know see my work in the Open Studio setting and comment on paintings so that I see things that had not occurred to me before. For example, at Gowanus Open Studios a few weeks ago, a gentleman saw my painting “Tidal Pool” and announced that he owned an identical photograph of him and his son on the beach from decades ago. I smiled and told him that it’s wonderful that the painting evoked that memory — that was precisely my goal. The OS allows me to have those kind of conversations with people who take the time to check out my artwork. I would miss a lot of that in a gallery or show setting.”
The Park Slope Windsor Terrace Open Studios Rundown
Where: All over the Windsor Terrace and Park Slope neighborhoods. Use this map to guide you to see the artists.
When: Saturday, November 7 and Sunday, November 8, 12pm-6pm on both days
Admission: Free. This is a great chance to buy art, but bring a checkbook in case the artist doesn’t accept credit cards.
