{"id":460508,"date":"2026-06-04T11:09:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/460508\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T11:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:09:27","slug":"the-small-miracle-of-greenpoint-open-studios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/460508\/","title":{"rendered":"The Small Miracle of Greenpoint Open Studios"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday afternoon, May 31, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell happily greeted visitors who crammed into Yashar Gallery<\/a> in Brooklyn\u2019s Greenpoint neighborhood to admire her acerbic New Yorker cartoons.<\/p>\n

The solo exhibition<\/a>, timed to run during the weekend-long Greenpoint Open Studios<\/a>, was ironically titled it\u2019s crowded \u2014 a nod to the universal experience of navigating New York City\u2019s cramped quarters with like-minded people. Campbell was thrilled with the reception and sold several prints, but she had a nagging feeling that there were additional drawings buried under a large pile in her studio that she could have shown. She realized she needed a flat file.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I\u2019m looking for a cartoon, it’s like having a little heart attack. \u2018Where is it!?\u2019\u201d she told Hyperallergic in an interview. \u201cNew York has good energy. If you\u2019re looking for something, it will find you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same could be said for Greenpoint Open Studios itself, which has delighted visitors on and off since 2011<\/a>, when it began as part of the now-defunct L Magazine\u2019s Northside Festival. Jen Galatioto<\/a>, editor of the local blog Greenpointers, relaunched it three years later<\/a> (Hyperallergic briefly served as a media partner).<\/p>\n

\"\"Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, “Triple Decker Diner,” ink and watercolor on paper<\/p>\n

The fact that the festival continues to run is a small miracle. During the pandemic, the open studios went on hiatus for three years until neighborhood artists revived it in 2023. Those volunteers, including Mary Younkin, Kelly Olshan, Melanie Reese, Ann Cofta, and Loretta Lomanto, organized hundreds of artists, distributed maps, and coordinated with local businesses. Now its participation has doubled to more than 260 artists.<\/p>\n

Younkin has felt connected to the event since 2019, when she met an artist moving out of his studio during the event who alerted her to its availability. Younkin took over the space, which is now filled with colorful gouache-on-paper close-ups of her perspective while breastfeeding her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back through my camera roll and took tons of selfies when I was breastfeeding,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to share in private what you\u2019re doing for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Mary Younkin\u2019s breastfeeding selfie wall<\/p>\n

At the center of this year\u2019s festival was the Leviton Building, a former electrical wiring factory that left the neighborhood in 1975 and was converted into scores of artist studios and small businesses, including Clay Space<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the third floor of Building 8 on Greenpoint Avenue, artist Amanda Browder laid out swaths of fabric strips that she uses to create colossal quilts, which she then drapes over one- or two-story buildings with the assistance of around 800 volunteers. For Browder\u2019s most recent installation, which covered five buildings in Sioux City, Iowa<\/a>, in 2024, local participants stitched the strips together on the floor of a hockey arena over several months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI encourage people to create work beyond museum walls so they feel like they\u2019re part of the art experience,\u201d Browder said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Caroline Harrison\u2019s samples of graphics for heavy metal bands<\/p>\n

Down the hallway, Caroline Harrison hung up a large sample of intricate graphics she designed on commission for heavy metal bands such as KEN Mode and Scarcity. Nearby, filmmaker and painter Amanda Barker displayed a handful of noirish self-portraits resembling spy film stills, which she noted became a way for her to explore her identity and gender.<\/p>\n

On the first floor, Debra Salomon<\/a> was brushing a layer of white paint onto a small sculpture made with pieces of stamped tin, corrugated cardboard sheets, and piles of wood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do a lot of drawings to get my brain in the vocabulary of what I want it to be,\u201d Salomon explained. \u201cIt\u2019s a puzzle that I put together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her neighbor, installation artist Sara Shaoul<\/a>, displayed a sculpture of a banana on a shelf next to one of her video works. She planned to create a series of soft sculptures and other mixed media pieces, including an oil slick and an audio of an \u201980s-style breakup song playing over a video about smoothies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the notion of economic imperialism, when the US comes into a nation, destabilizes it, and takes over its resources,\u201d Shaoul said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sara Shaoul begins a new series<\/p>\n

Several other highlights of the festival were nestled in smaller converted factories scattered throughout the neighborhood. At 253 Greenpoint Avenue, Myles Hunt presented oil and acrylic portraits of compilations of facial expressions he picked up through hours of lip-reading. Just as intriguing were Katie Hubbell\u2019s eerie paper pulp sculptures and Rochelle Voyles\u2019s striking sculptural collages, comprising found photographs of bodies dancing, playing pool, and competing in rugby on hand-cut wood.<\/p>\n

Around the corner, the Java Project included a group exhibition of Claire Lachow\u2019s plastic sculptures resembling sea anemone, River Valadez\u2019s intricate blown glass, and Zach Seeger\u2019s impressionistic flower bouquets, curated by Good Naked Gallery\u2019s Jaqueline Cedar. Across town, inside a warren of oddly shaped studios at 67 West, Ali Ha\u2019s playful abstract paintings and Sophia Rauch\u2019s painted cyanotypes on cotton canvas grappled with the complex emotions of being aware of time passing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tom Koken’s wall of oil on canvas paper ice crystal pattern works<\/p>\n

In a building overlooking Newtown Creek, Tom Koken hung a series of atmospheric oil-on-canvas paper works containing small, reticulated marks. Koken said the blueish patterns were meant to resemble ice crystals at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a whiff of nostalgia. It takes you into the past and you feel emotional in a few different ways,\u201d he said. There\u2019s the association of feeling blue, but it also feels comforting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downstairs, James Dinerstein\u2019s massive concrete sculptures resembled chunks of the Statue of Liberty\u2019s robe from a distance. But their smooth curves and unusual forms evoke a sophisticated yet lost civilization with its own non-verbal language. Dinerstein mixes the concrete by hand with water from 100-pound bags, which creates a lot of dust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI make small batches at a time,\u201d he noted, \u201cbut when I get very successful, I will have to get my own concrete truck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"James Dinerstein’s concrete sculpture studio in the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center\"\"A wayward Carri Skoczek sculpture on the fifth floor of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center\"\"Linda Miglierina shapes a ceramic work at Clay Space.\"\"Clay Space’s biannual sale at Greenpoint Open Studios<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday afternoon, May 31, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell happily greeted visitors who crammed into Yashar Gallery in Brooklyn\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-460508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}