Letters for Others
May, 2020
Averill Park, NY, United States
Letters for Others was a platform for artists to share experiences, creative and inventive ways to contribute to this worldwide crisis with love and care.
MOONLIGHT SONATA LETTER FOR OTHERS
brass rod and plexi pendants, fishing line and tackle for suspension
2” X 7” X 30”
MOONLIGHT SONATA LETTER FOR OTHERS is intended for mindful reflection - a chance to breathe and sit still. The work is a video of one mobile sculpture - Phrase 1 - from a series of mobiles representing musical motifs & concepts. A still image shows the work before it goes into its slow waltz of dancing shadows and reflected light rays. The work asks if solemnity can be reassuring/healing in a time of crisis.
Rob Snikkar
A former teacher I now make art - Paintings, mobile sculptures, protest poetry, and collaborations. Interests - musical synaesthesia (in paintings and mobile sculpture) - social justice issues (white privilege/racism THE OFF-WHITE PROJECT - An Investigation of White Privilege, and misogyny/patriarchy) I mainly work in oils.
Tell Me Your Story- When in Your Life Have You Felt the Most Free
textile, text, dirt
36” X 8” X 18”
photograph by Damian Pissarra
In a woman’s center in Barcelona, Spain I asked women a question: ¨When in your life have you felt the most free. ¿En que momento/s de tu vida te has sentido lo más libre posible? These responses were sealed into the envelopes and covered the bed.
A bed installation, a collaborative work involving several women from a poetry group I was in. Their poems, are tucked into organza textile envelopes making a bedspread. I have installed this installation several times in different countries and every time it takes on a new life.
Cynthia Fusillo
Cynthia Fusillo is an American artist living in Barcelona, Spain for the past 18 years. Fusillo has a Masters of Fine Arts from New York University and a Masters in Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. Cynthia has lived in New York most of her life where she received two grants from the ARTIST'S SPACE, and has exhibited in the DRAWING CENTER, AIR Gallery, the Queens Museum of Art and the Bronx Museum. Cynthia received the Silver Award in the international competition, ARTFAD, in Barcelona. Cynthia is a multi-disciplinary artist. Her works include, installation, prints, paintings and poetry.
Morphing Covids
foam core, specialty papers, varied adhesives, jewelry findings
14.5” X 11.5” X 2”
Seeing people dying globally from this pandemic, I can’t help but think that this might be the way we will all go. We have no cure. The Covid is running the show and it’s getting meaner and more evil. Will we survive?
Judy Scarlata
I’m Judy Scarlata, an art educator at A.P.H.S.for 22 years and an adjunct instructor in Art Education at the College of St. Rose for 9 years. Now retired, I am enjoying working on various artistic projects.
The Newburgh Papers
ink on paper
8.5” x 11"
My grandfather was a veteran of two wars and a lifetime firefighter, as was my father. As I began to think about biography in relation to history, I focused on my grandfather’s life to create this body of work titled The Newburgh Papers that married my art and writing interests. After researching the squadrons to which he was attached in the Vietnam War, I wrote letters to dead soldiers as a way of connecting with him through them, implying my belief that they would somehow be able to read them across time, place and the physical world itself. This series is ongoing.
Darryl Lauster
Darryl Lauster is an artist, writer, and a Professor at the University of Texas Arlington. He has exhibited nationally at the Amon Carter Museum, the National Metal Museum, the Cameron Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, as well as in Berlin, Paris, London and Rutten. His work can be found in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
I Am Washing My Hands In A Room
video
1920 x 1080
If we pay attention to the little sounds we hear around us daily, we would be surprised by how it reflected this unprecedented time that we are currently living in. However, it doesn't mean that we could not find beautiful moments in those sounds - if we listen attentively and raise our awareness towards them, we could still explore their interesting sonic potentials, as well as bringing peacefulness to ourselves. I Am Washing My Hands In A Room is an improvised piece of mine, recorded in mid-March, with myself vocalizing the phrase "I Am Washing My Hands In A Room" (homage to Alvin Lucier's piece "I Am Sitting In A Room") and making sounds from soap and water. The piece explores the interrelation between phonetics when the phrase is spoken, and the sounds produced when washing our hands. I hope the piece could trigger all of you to pay more attention to the sonic environment around us, explore the beauty of it, and most importantly, wash your hands!
Pak Hei Leung
Born and raised in Hong Kong, LEUNG Pak Hei (Alvin Leung) received the Bachelor of Arts in Music from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is currently a Master of Music student at the Bowling Green State University. His principal teachers include Professor Christopher Dietz, Professor Mikel Kuehn, Professor Wendy Lee, Professor Victor Chan, and Dr. Lo Hau-man. His works were featured in Earth Day Art Model (U.S.), highSCORE Festival 2018 (Italy), as well as New Generation 2014, 2016 & 2018 (HK).
A Letter to You
5.5" x 8.5"
My main form of communication is snail mail. I enjoyed making food-like postcards and envelopes to mail to friends around the world. The habit paused when the virus hit NYC hard, but my thoughts accumulated. I am still not sure what I could write to people of so many different cultural backgrounds and of so many different medical viewpoints, but I hope that people are not disabled by their fear of the future or regret from the past. A little bit of self-care can stop an outbreak of anger.
Muyuan He
Designer, teacher, and plant-sitter living in New York City: I make art about the food and I write songs for my green onions.
Wuxing
audio/video
On March 7th I asked 5 different artists to pick an element and compose a 60 second song reflecting on that element. Simultaneously I worked on composing five 60 second correlating short films. Over the course of 3 weeks I shot edited and composed the films and scored them with the music submitted by participants. My personal goal for this project was to focus on long distance collaboration during times of social distancing.
Sarah Darby
Madeline Darby is an audio/visual artist based out of Troy, NY. Her goal as a performer is to capture a room and create a psychedelic journey through the ethers of the mind using synthesizers, contact mics, and vibrators. Live sets are a reflection of the dualities of life and have been noted as beautiful/ambient/harsh. Her music can be found at Madelinedarby.bandcamp.com.
Postseason
acrylic on canvas
94” x 31” x 1”
Postseason series of paintings deals with gentrification of my hometown Split, Croatia as a consequence of post- conflict privatization crimes after break-up of Yugoslavia, following a complete reliance on tertiary sector of economy – tourism.
Split, 1979. The Koteks complex has been completed, as have the Poljud public pools and the Poljud football stadium; an underground railway tunnel has been opened from Kopilica to the city center. Split 3 is nearing completion… The city is being built, according to plan, for its citizens.
Split, 2019. So many apartments for rent you can hardly find an actual home among them. 70,000 new beds have been secured for private accommodation, the rising number of yearly overnight stays is celebrated, while I write this in my parents' home, saying my goodbyes to Split.
How much longer will citizens be treated merely as extras in the production of ''the Mediterranean As It Once Was''? Will tourism take a turn for the sustainable? What will remain written in the concrete? How about in the population census? And will my name be on it?
Split, 2020. Covid-19. Season becomes Postseason. Nobody is expecting tourists this summer. What now?
Josipa Krolo
Josipa Krolo was born 1992 in Split, Croatia. She obtained her MA at the Arts Academy of Split. She studied one semester at the Facultat de Belles Arts in Barcelona. She had several solo and group exhibitions both in Croatia and abroad (Germany, France, Slovenia – Gallery Dobra Vaga and Ravnikar Gallery Space, Romania, Serbia). She is a member of Croatian association of artists. She participated in The De/construction of the Painting, art residency in Leipzig.
Love letter to the world
photograph
Living under lockdown since mid- March, my balcony has become an entry point to the external world. A gate to communicate and receive messages. I am, by this way, sharing my love letter to the world.
Christoforos Pavlakis
An Athenian curious mind experimenting with various media, including photography, theatre, poetry and kinesthetics. Believer in the subversive nature of arts to capture the 'invisible' and 'untold' and their power to build blocks of utopias that can contrast with dystopic realities.
we sat alone
buddha like
in our cells
darkness came
like slow moving
storm clouds
an aloneness came
to each dwelling
even though
warm for the season
we shivered
someone opened a
balcony door
and shouted …
“hello out there”
somebody else
opened a window
and sang …
“i seeeee you!”
front and back
doors swung open
people stood together
at the thresholds
and waved
up came the
garage doors
as if hearing
the same song
in the air …
“hello out there
i seeeee you
hello out there
i seeee you”
love is never still
no matter how hard we try to hold on to it
it can only exist
when it is given away
Heart Quarantined & Heart Relay
drawings and poetry
8" x 11"
The work is an exploration of the questions: What if we leaned in and led with our hearts? What would we discover? I started heart doodles as a daily morning gift to my wife Nadine. The practice slowly grew into a form of meditation. I cannot draw a straight line or copy any form with accuracy. The heart from allowed me to be playful and tap into a nonlinear part of myself. I look forward to not knowing what will be drawn and what text might be found hidden beneath the picture.
Ira Baumgarten
I'm Ira, I'm 68 years old and a local community supporter of ALN. Currently doing child care for our grandchildren in CA while their parents work from home. I've written two short books on end-of-life issues and recently been exploring doodling and poetry as meditation each morning.
Optics / Acoustics
dye Infused Aluminium Panel
approximately 40"x60" and 48"x72"
Sight unto itself is unique. When perfect vision becomes impaired and dissolves into blurred structures and undefined edges, does it affect established memories of objects, home, and place? Do the blurred contours of life meld and wash over time-worn memories of objects and place?
Freshly opened and squinting eyes reveal a world taking shape as loosely defined shapes of color and light inform our lives giving us meaning, distraction, joy and pain. These visual boundaries build over time to allocate language, love, and kindness. This body of work speaks to the separate, shared and unique connection sight has to memory.
Doug Winter is an established editorial and fine art photographer and filmmaker whose work has been exhibited internationally. He works in both abstract and representational photography, with a focus on social awareness. Doug is inspired by light and reflective colors in nature, creating textured atmospheres with a goal of instilling a sense of quiet and balance in the viewer. Companies and individuals collect his artwork within the comic book and information technology communities.
Cityscape
music/visual
duration: 7 min
Set to classic etchings of New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge, "Cityscape" traces a trajectory of darkness to light through a nearly unbroken wall of sound. Composed in March 2019 in NYC, the dark to light narrative takes on special significance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Described as “beautiful, lyrical” and brimming with “unexpected harmonic shifts” (International Trumpet Guild), the music of Macedonian-American composer Zach Gulaboff Davis centers on the core elements of musical narrative: Emotion, drama, and expression. The winner of the 2019 American Prize in Composition (Vocal Chamber Music division), Zach maintains an active schedule as a composer and collaborator across the globe. His works have been performed venues including Carnegie Hall, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Bulgaria’s National Palace of Culture, Norway’s Arctic Cathedral, Hamburg’s Zinnschmelze Cultural Center, NYU Steinhardt and Shanghai, the DiMenna Center, International Trumpet Guild and National Saxophone Alliance conferences, and at schools and conservatories throughout the country.
Spontaneous Creation Making
dry erase marker on dry erase board
24” x 36"
In response to this global pandemic, I created a few ephemeral works on dry erase board. Intending to find healing and catharsis on multiple levels as inspired by traditional Navajo sand painting rituals, I practiced breath work, grounding, and rhythmic mark making in a communal practice with an online collective to create 4 pieces. Studio M* (Studio Matrixial, Calgary, Canada) is an arts based research lab through which I facilitate and support international, virtual communal sessions of spontaneous creation making with individuals of all backgrounds. The point of these sessions is to connect, create, and process these uncertain times together. So, the message in my Letters for Others perpetuates my collective's intention of connecting in a time of isolation, going with the flow of mark making and trusting the process, and exploring what creative spontaneity can afford the immune system.
I'm Hallie Morrison, an a/r/tographer (artist, researcher, teacher) deeply passionate about equitable arts education access and empowering others in their creative senses. My artwork is transformed by the sensitive duty of being a Teaching Artist working in social justice. In line with restorative social practices, my artwork is healing in its own making, and stems from reflections on lived and dreamt experiences, as well as contemplative methods. I practice "living inquiry," and chase questions about my own cognition and behavior.
Installation for Mobile Speaker and Tape Loop
acrylic on cardboard, mobile speakers, cassette tape, effects pedals
8' x 3' x 6'
Lirra Skirra created this piece from the repetitiveness of routine, habit, and conversation during quarantine life. Looping isolated elements of guitar improvisation, distorted apartment noise, and a single sustained tone, the installation generates a sonic space in which individual, repetitive phrases transform into ever-evolving cycles of collective rhythm and melody. This piece is part of an ongoing installation series using mobile speakers. Only our cat got to experience this one.
Lirra Skirra (Chrystine Rayburn and Patrick Glennon) is a music project based in Philadelphia, PA. Their approach to composition weaves guitar, clarinet, and synthesizer with tape loops and field recordings. Their recent work includes an April performance in the Ruido Vírico sound art festival run by the label Audiotalaia, an installation entitled “d(a(y))” that debuted in January 2020, and an album called “You Mean Except Almost Always” released in November 2019.
"Women's issues"
acrylic on canvas
20” x 27”
Women have always had to face many problems in society. Now, in addition, they have to face one more that is taking care of their health and that of their loved ones, and many of them (doctors and nurses) even have to take care of others. This work aims to be a tribute to them.
Juan Ramiro Torres was born in Lima Peru and has lived in the United States since 1984. He graduated from Parsons School of Design (NY) in 1991, since then he has worked as Art Director of many newspapers.
He currently works as fine artist, art teacher, graphic designer and journalist.
His artwork has been exhibited in major events and galleries in the
United States and other countries (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Argentina, New Zealand, Italy, France and China). He has been recognized with numerous honors and awards, and his works are part of important private and public collections.
In 2014 he was among the 100 artists selected to show their work on a giant screen in Times Square, in New York City. In 2016 and 2017 he participated in the Salon International D’Art Contemporain at the Carrousel du Louvre in France. Most recently his work was selected for the Beijing International Art Biennale that was held at The National Art Museum of China in 2019.
Festival of Things-in-Themselves Ⅱ
digital video work
1920 × 1080 pixels
Entering the 21st century, a new speculative trend, called “Speculative realism” has arisen. Naive “Humanism” was replaced by “Post-Humanism”. How should we media-artists consider and face that?
As is well known, things consist of smaller things, for example this desk consists of molecules, then molecules consist of atoms, and so on. So finally, every existing thing is a set of particles!
For expressing this idea, I made “Particle-Rhythm”, “Particle-Melody”, and “Particle-Atmosphere”. And in the video part, I made full use of expressions of particle. And this work is 2nd piece of “Festival of Things-in-Themselves” series.
Having got master's degree by writing a master's thesis about Deleuze’s philosophy. After graduated, crossing between academic philological studies and investigation of philosophically unique position of myself, and trying to output these results as performance, electronic music and digital video work. My Video-Art work “Nostalgia Mass” was selected at the 2019 ElectroAcousticMiniFest at Washington State University. My electro-acoustic work “Fragile Water” was selected at eviMus 6. Saarbrücker Tage für elektroakustische und visuelle Musik 2019. My Video-Art work “Hell of Light” was selected at Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium 2020.
Words of Encouragement from Afar
music
5” x 7” x 0.5"
A post-card sent from a filmaker to their composer collaborator set to relaxing music. The video has original music and allows the viewer to relax and reflect on their dreams.
Stephanie Henry is a classically trained pianist and composer from Minneapolis, MN. She has
performed with classical and theatrical ensembles, as well as with rock bands. She composed original works for film, a web series, musical theater, orchestras, quartets, and solo piano. Her music has been applauded for its originality and charismatic charm. She studied music at St. Olaf College and received her Master's from Hamline University. In 2018, Stephanie participated in Oregon Bach Festival Composer’s Symposium as a composer and pianist. In 2019 , Stephanie composed music for the Minnesota Film Score Festival.Outside of composing and performing Stephanie has maintained a piano studio where she has taught music to a people of all ages.
Taktle
watercolor and ink on paper
8" x 5.5"
I've been having a hard time navigating how to write what I’m processing during the pandemic, everything feels just as heavy in each moment as it does fleeting. The words are just starting to form before the feeling is gone again, so I've been laying it down as sketches. I’m immunocompromised and I've been missing the tactile experiences of my life pre-quarantine. Walking down the street tracing my finger down the brick walls. The feeling of dirt on my exposed legs as I'm scavenging through a demolition site. The smell and sudden blast of humidity whose doing their laundry.
Philadelphia based artist, Samantha M. Connors, creates work examining capitalism’s effect on the collective's mental and physical health and the condition of the world around us. They are a multi-disciplinary artist utilizing tactile fiber processes and materials as well as urban detritus to create sculptural forms and objects reflecting on issues surrounding gentrification, chronic illness and harm reduction. They hold a BFA in Fiber and Material Studies from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Samantha is the Co-Chair of the Exhibitions Committee at the South Philly gallery, Da Vinci Art Alliance and a member of Paradice Palase in Brooklyn, NY.
Fragment in the Key of Luk
graphite on paper
9" x 12"
I'm pairing a devotionally rendered drawing of a late Grecian Apollonic bronze fragment with a quotation from Sharon Luk's beautiful book "Life of Paper", an academic rumination on the epistolary impulse under carceral capitalism, and an excerpt from a love letter I wrote in 2016. COVID-19 has contributed to more than one exponential spread - loneliness and isolation is changing everything about our collective brain chemistry in unprecedented ways, so to explore the texture of longing in 2020 is to embrace a project defined by nothingness, by un-discovery. I am invested in finding what lies at the center of unraveling.
Torey Akers is an artist and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She has done residency turns at Arts, Letters and Numbers, Penland School of Craft, Mass MoCA, and Vermont Studio Centers. She has written criticism for Art Spiel, Artspace, Art Papers, Big, Red & Shiny, and Two Coats of Paint, among other outlets.
Balloons
wool, silk, cotton
3” x 2” x 1”, variable dimensions
I began "Balloons" while quarantined, teaching a fiber-focused art course online. What began as a refresher on crocheting 3-D forms slowly transformed into my longtime artistic interest in balloons, especially deflated latex balloons in various stages of breakdown. Because my work has been text-based for many years, I am surprised to find myself void of language “during this time.” The balloons have started to form sentences and sentiments of breath, sadness, and whimsy. This project continues and I hope to find its finished form.
Sayward Schoonmaker is an artist and assistant director of Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, NY. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, most recently at Weinberg Newton Gallery and The Hyde Collection. She is the author of one chapbook 3259 (Dancing Girl Press). She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the department of Fiber and Material Studies, and an MLIS from the Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. She resides in Syracuse, NY, close to family, a bit farther afield of friends, all of whom she considers co-authors.
Building Dreams In The Dark
mixed media , print
8” x 10”, 10” x 15”
Perhaps we are facing some of the hardest days of the century.
Well I have seen death from very close. I have sailed through hardest time of my life and I was confident that I am a real fighter….. Those days of my life taught me that being creative in any form keeps us moving and that is the kinetics of life. But I have never thought of an enemy or an obstacle which is unseen and which a threat to the entire human race......Fighting odds was a part of my life but this is completely unprecedented……. A war like situation …….. A war where you are fighting an unseen enemy ….. A war which can be won only by sitting at home …..Yes…. doctors are fighting to save only when you become a victim of the war. This secession of normal life is stressful and the situation around us is undeniably tragic……. But history has shown us that hard times has always acted as an incubator of great ideas, philosophies, and acted as a Launchpad of revolutionary creative movements…… This is the time to refocus from external to internal , from outer self to inner self……….. This is the time to return to the roots……..Being a creative practitioner and an aviation professional at the same time I am experiencing life at this very critical juncture from a different perspective……. Being in the battlefield and being creative in your bunker is where real art germinates …… working in both fronts is bit difficult but new things emerges when you learn to merge the experience of life into creativity. This is what I usually practice…… and now its real time to implement ……. The irony is that I had conceptualized a show few months back titled ‘Hollow Times’ and we have suddenly plunged into a new hollow time where we are fighting an unseen enemy…….. I am sure that light will emerge out of this Hollow Time……..
Born in 1970, Rajib Bhattacharjee passed preparatory painting in 1991 from Govt. College of Art and Craft Kolkata and subsequently studied Western Painting at Govt. College of Art and Craft Kolkata. Studied Bachelor of Electronics at APC College, University of Kolkata. Did intense residency on nature art at YATOO, South Korea. He has been invited as the formal speaker of the 4th Beijing international art biennale conference, Beijing, China. 2010. Conducted workshop and delivered lecture presentation on upcycling and multimedia art at Kolkata Centre for Creativity. Has a number of international project and paper publication.
Works as an executive at Airports Authority of India, Kolkata.
Being an independent creative practitioner he has been engaged in practicing art for the last twenty five years with many media such as painting, graphics, ceramic, paper-making, installation, video and nature art practice.
Invited to participate Florence biennale ( Italy ) 2011. He has participated in 4th Beijing biennale ( China ) 2010 and 2012. Participated in Santorini biennale ( Greece ) 2013. Selected among top 20 Busan biennale sea art festival 2013, South Korea. Participating artist of KHOJ Baithakkhana project 2014, Kolkata, India. He was the invited artist of the Multimedia show – Birla Academy of Art / collateral show CIMA, Kolkata, India, 2015. Invited participant of Video biennale GNAB 2018 South Korea. Invited for Solo show at Youngeun museum of contemporary art /Residency at Youngeun museum of contemporary art ( South Korea ) 2017. Group show - Nature Art Cube – GNAPB biennale, South Korea 2017. My Kolkata In Kolkata – photo-graphics show at, Kolkata Centre for Creativity 2019 curated by Reena Dewan. Group show of Painters 80 at Academy of Fine Arts Kolkata 2019 – the show titled IN AUSTERE TIMES. Solo show in gallery Time and Space 2009 ( India ) curated by Akumal Ramchander. Solo show gallery RANGE, Kolkata 2017 (India ) curated by Anirudh Chari. Solo show YATOO 2014 (South Korea), self-curated. Solo show at gallery finix 2013 (Belgrade) curated by Ivan Pavic. One of the landmark project – two 8 feet x 70 feet mural installed at NSCB international airport, Kolkata, India.