{"id":165607,"date":"2025-09-18T14:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/165607\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T14:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:39:07","slug":"capturing-life-on-the-upper-west-side-brushstroke-by-brushstroke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/165607\/","title":{"rendered":"Capturing Life on the Upper West Side, Brushstroke by Brushstroke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy of Robert Beck<\/p>\n

By Claire Davenport<\/p>\n

You may have spotted artist Robert Beck, with his easel and paints, parked on an Upper West Side sidewalk, inside a beloved local small business, or recording some other slice of neighborhood life with his distinctive \u201cvery brushy\u201d style. In this interview with Rag Radio, Beck says he aims to be \u201cin the middle of where things are happening\u201d when he paints the biweekly scenes in his West Side Canvas series. (Home base is the studio you see in the background of the Soundcloud link below, image courtesy of Robert Beck.)<\/p>\n

Just as engaging as Beck\u2019s paintings are the essays that go with them. Last month, to accompany his painting of an NYC bus<\/a> navigating nighttime streets, he extolled the virtues of bus riding: \u201c[I]t\u2019s nothing like the subterranean gloom of the subway, with its echoes, screeches, and kaleidoscopic rushes of light. Going down those steps is like entering a Hieronymus Bosch painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music courtesy of Blue Dot Sessions. And for earlier installments of Rag Radio segments with West Side Rag contributors, listen to Claire\u2019s interviews with WSR Weekend columnist Tracy Zwick<\/a>, cartoonist\u00a0Gary Martin<\/a>, photographer\u00a0Steve Harmon<\/a>, the authors of\u00a0Ruthless Advice<\/a>, her talk with\u00a0Rag cartoonist Bob Eckstein\u00a0<\/a>and her conversation with\u00a0WSR reporter Gus Saltonstall.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy of Robert Beck By Claire Davenport You may have spotted artist Robert Beck, with his easel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,99988,99989],"class_list":{"0":"post-165607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-rag-radio","14":"tag-robert-beck"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}