Category Archives: Visual arts

2014 Kickstarter: “We Are Culture” T-shirts

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A couple of days ago we launched our Kickstarter campaign to make new t-shirts. They’ll be free for performers like before, and you can also get one for $25 by backing our project!

weareculture1 002

The 2014 shirt

BuskNY 2014: “We Are Culture”

by Matthew Christian

Art by Heidi Younger, Chris Wright, Marina Ross, and Ron Richter

Art by Heidi Younger, Chris Wright, Marina Ross, and Ron Richter

We also have made a Facebook event for our art show SHOWTIME: Underground Arts, which so far features art by Chris Wright, David Everitt-Carlson, Ron Richter, Marina Ross, and Heidi Younger and will be opening October 3. We are hoping to get more artists involved before the Sept 19 deadline– if you have any art to submit or would like to perform at the opening, please send me an email at milo@buskny.com.

“SHOWTIME: Underground Arts” OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

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BuskNY is pleased to announce that we are open for submissions for our upcoming exhibition. Please submit your work or share this information with any artists you know whose work is relevant to our theme!

“SHOWTIME: Underground Arts”

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

BUSKNY ART SHOW at Armature Art Space

logosm

BuskNY and Armature Art Space invite you to submit work for “SHOWTIME,” an exhibition of art made in and about the subway and public transit.

BuskNY is an arts advocacy organization that was created in 2013. Our mission is to generate broad awareness of the legality of artistic performance in the New York City subway, in order to end wrongful ejection, ticketing, and arrest of subway performers. While our primary focus is on musicians and performing artists, we also promote the creation, promotion, and sale of art by independent artists in the subway.

Through SHOWTIME, we will support visual artists whose work deals with or is made or sold in public transit and public space, with a particular focus on art made in the subway system itself. SHOWTIME will refocus the subway art dialogue on work made by independent artists, and publicly reemphasize that all New Yorkers can participate in the creative process.

Our partner, Armature Art Space, is a Bushwick gallery that showcases local artists using traditional media. Armature, which describes itself as “the support (or “armature”) on which artists can express themselves and around which artists may build community,” has graciously offered its gallery space free of charge.

The opening reception for SHOWTIME will feature refreshments and live performances by visual artists and prominent subway musicians.

Show dates: October 3-12
Opening: Friday, October 3 7-11 PM
Submission deadline: September 19
Work dropoff times: Minimum 3 days before opening
Work pickup times: Sunday, October 12 1-5 PM
Address: Armature Art Space, 316 Weirfield St, Brooklyn, NY

Submission information appears on the following page. We appreciate your interest, and will respond to all queries in a timely manner. Please feel free to forward this message to other artists, and to connect with us online at buskny.com or armatureartspace.org.

Milo Wissig

BuskNY Co-founder

milo@buskny.com

Submissions

Please send all submissions and inquiries to Milo Wissig, milo@buskny.com, with SHOWTIME SUBMISSION in the subject line. Please include an image of the piece[s] you would like to submit with the file name formatted as: Name_Title_HeightxWidthxDepth_Medium_Year.jpg.

The images should be 72 DPI JPEGs about 1000 pixels wide. Please include the following information:

Name

Title

Dimensions

Medium

Year

Retail price

If you choose to sell your work, you will receive 100% of the retail price. (Armature Art Space takes no commissions).You may submit up to six pieces for consideration; we will likely choose 1 to 3.

Open_Call_SHOWTIME (PDF)

Painting Underground: Chris Wright

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Compared to musicians, we don’t encounter many visual artists in the New York subway system. Sure, the MTA has done significant work bringing visual art into public spaces, but we rarely see the process: even people sketching strangers on the train in little Moleskine notebooks are a rare sight. So I’m always excited to hear about somebody painting down there:

Chris Wright, the professor at Pratt who taught me how to paint with oils, has been posting pictures on his Tumblr blog of oil paintings he’s done on the G line platforms (as well as just about everywhere else!)

Flushing Avenue G August 16, 2013 (12:00-3:00 pm)

Flushing Avenue G
August 16, 2013 (12:00-3:00 pm)

Classon Avenue G September 7, 2013 (12:00-2:00 pm)

Classon Avenue G
September 7, 2013 (12:00-2:00 pm)

Very exciting to see painting not only on display, but actually being made in the transit network. Clearly, this is something that the public has an interest in protecting. You can see more of Chris Wright’s work at his web site, chriswrightpaintings.com.

Zoom Balloons in the 14th Street Sixth Avenue Tunnel

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On our way back from Harlem, Matthew and I stopped to pick up some cheese at the Westside Market on 14th St. and ran into balloon sculptor Zoom in the tunnel. We had met Zoom a few times before, and in fact still have a gift from him, one of his heart flower balloons, slowly shriveling on top of a dresser.

This time, we got this great balloon clown. Everyone was jealous of it. Or terrified. It was hard to tell.

Matthew and Zoom

Matthew and Zoom

Nothing seems to lower Matthew’s inhibitions quite like holding a silly prop does.  Enjoying the reactions of strangers to the balloon man, he asked our train neighbor what we should name it.

He responded, “Charlie Sheen.”

Matthew and Charlie Sheen

Charlie and Matthew reflected in the train window

Zoom’s web site at http://www.zoomballoons.com/ appears to be down, but I found an article about him on the blog Manalapan Patch. If you’re in the tunnel between the L and the 1 on the 14th St Sixth Avenue station, check out his work!

 

Busking log 6/07: Screen-printing, movie-making

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As promised, today was spent hard at work on the sample run of BuskNY t-shirts. (I can disclose by now that we’re planning a Kickstarter, with one modest goal: equipping every last NYC busker with a bright, dashing “Music is Legal!” t-shirt).

We started with the acetate sheets, which Milo had inked with the “Music is Legal!” design.

ink on acetate

The design was then transferred to the screens, a process which involved this large, frightening vacuum machine:

don't ask: i don't know what's going on either!

In the end, we succeeded in printing all 7 shirts. (Well, okay — two were bloopers, but only because of me!) Here’s the final product:can't wait to wear 'em!

We also spent a number of hours filming and editing for the Kickstarter video, which is now complete. We had a lot of fun with it, and think you will too. The Kickstarter approval process takes a few days, so stay tuned — it’ll be up before we know it!

In the meantime, we’ll be back to regular busking updates soon. After all, one’s gotta make rent somehow around here!