LIC-A DISCOVERS RAINFOREST ART FOUNDATION IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD

Artists are abundant in the areas of Long Island City and Astoria. Long Island City Artists, (LIC-A), a non-profit organization is based out of Plaxall Gallery, a 12,000 square foot gallery that opened in 2016. Neither Board member and artist Nancy Gesimondo, or artist Elsie Apacible realized that there was an arts foundation in their own backyard, namely the Rainforest Art Foundation until they were invited to the opening reception of an exhibit, 80 and Still Going Strong. Running through November 27, the focus is on artists over the age of 80 that are still active.  

 

What were their reactions to the gallery and meeting both Marlene and James Yu? “It was such a wonderful surprise to visit this gem of an art space amidst an industrial block of warehouses and a carwash,” said Gesimondo. “One can easily walk right by the simple modern three story building.  There is no obvious banner announcing its presence. Its understated soft white facade is punctuated by large decorative gates painted a cheerful chartreuse. Entering the building I sensed I was about to discover something very special.”

“James and Marlene Yu were so warm and welcoming. James immediately greeted me and my guest, fellow LIC artist Elsie Apacible, and he showed us to the buffet. There were several large round tables filled with artists and friends laughing and enjoying a meal. It was like being at an intimate family gathering. It was amazing to meet the artists, to see their work and learn of their long and accomplished careers.”

“Marlene was so friendly and vibrant.  After dinner she led us up to her studio on the third floor.  We packed into the small elevator totally unprepared when the doors opened to a vast open planned studio filled with several enormous paintings. Marlene's work is a joyful expression of her love of nature. Her color palate is as lush and lovely as nature itself, from the cosmos to the depths of the ocean and everything in between.  It was absolutely astonishing to comprehend how this petite woman created work of this scale.  Her many decades of making art is evident in the amount of paintings on display and on large movable walls that she herself pulls back and forth to show us one after another of her gorgeous paintings.” 

“I am delighted that both James and Marlene have asked me to curate an exhibition with LIC artists who also share a passion for nature and preserving the environment.  Elsie and I are looking forward to working with them soon. As a curator and board member of LIC Artists I can think of several artists whose work would be in harmony with the exhibition goals of the Rainforest Art Foundation.  LICA is very happy that discussions are underway for an upcoming exhibit.”
Elsie Apacible shared her reactions as well. “It was an amazing event as if my relatives got together; warm and welcoming. James and Marlene are an amazing host and hostess. Good team. It was a wakeup call for me to aim bigger, in terms of my artwork. Marlene is an inspiration. When we went to her gallery/studio, the amount of artwork that was displayed was mouth watering and jaw dropping. I almost could not believe how a tiny woman could make such an enormous amazing pieces. AMAZING work; both charged and full of energy and somehow put me to shame when I feel lazy and re-evaluate my work and accomplishment. I immediately put something in my canvas as soon as got home a small piece that could remind me of my experience with them.”

“I also hope that we can entice them to share the space for LIC Artists for few selected events as they are so concentrated on their goals in preserving the rainforest. As mine and Nancy's observation, the building is way too low key for the amount of energy and intention of the foundation. I am sure, we can contribute to give awareness for the same cause and maybe raise funds, or even for social reason because these people are so great.” 

Three Queens Artists Are 80 Plus and Going Strong at Rainforest Art Foundation

Long Island City locale’s Rainforest Art Foundation held their opening reception on September 28 with a focus on seasoned and accomplished artists over the age of 80 who are still producing work in relation to the foundations mission.  This exhibit presents a wide range of media, offering a broad perspective of both styles and concerns and three of the artists reside in Queens. 

 

88-year-old June Chao, who lives in Flushing, loves nature of which most of her paintings are sceneries that are of specific locations.  Her piece, “Waterfall” is set in Taiwan and the “Sea of Clouds With Pine Trees” depicts a very famous mountain in China where the trees grow out from the rocks in the mountains.   Both pieces have been done on paper completed this year.  

Min-Tsu Tseng, was born in Taiwan in 1938, moving to Flushing in 1969.  She became what she called a “housewife artist with an intense love of nature.”  Tseng didn’t have to go far for inspiration as much of her focus is the plants and flowers in her backyard.  “I grow all of my vegetables. In order to appreciate their shapes and colors, I preserve them and assemble them into paintings.  The early works were given away as gifts to friends and family.”  As time passed people took notice of her art work and invited her to display them in art shows. 

  

Two of the pieces displayed are: “Midnight Forest Leaves” 2015, dry leaves and acrylic on paper; and “Mapa Morning”, 2011, maple leaves and acrylic on paper.  “I wish people would pay more attention to our environment and make an effort to preserve it, so that later generations can appreciate them as well.”  

Marlene T Yu is both a world-known artist and the founder of the Rainforest Art Foundation. Her husband, James is the curator.  “Global warming continues to be our greatest environmental hazard, causing destruction everywhere.  I shall depict the energies display by nature in all of its forms and colors.  Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and forces of wind and fire are all too visible to ignore. My efforts in the Environmental Green Movement in art only provide a glimpse and appreciation for the awesomeness of the forces of nature.”  

Yu, who recently turned 81 had taken 6 months to complete the 54 foot long, 20 foot high, canvas acrylic this year. With a multitude of paintings to choose from in her upstairs studio, she opted for two pieces based on their outstanding colors. “In putting together the exhibit I took note of what color might be lacking,” said Yu.  “Purple Crystal” and Purple Swamp ” are on the pieces on display, each of them completed in 2017. 

Born in Taiwan, Jen-Jen Liu has a first love for science and took painting lessons during her working years at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.  “In our daily lives, art plays and important role. We all need the arts.  Art influences us and can have a huge impact on our moods and emotions.  It can even inspire us to do something in a positive way.”  Liu paints abstract geometric compositions as well as landscape paintings.  Two of her pieces are: “Fun City” more open to one’s own interpretation than “Yehliu Waiwan,” as landscape oil on canvas.  

Elizabeth Molnar Rajec, born in Bratislava, Slovakia, showcases artwork that captures her extensive travel all over the world including her life in New York City.   Her unique collection of photographic artwork features original kaleidoscopic images that are a one-of-a-kind composition.  “The message from viewing my pictures is to inspire that time goes by very fast and only the clicking of the camera at a given second captures a particular moment in our lives.” Two of her pieces on display are: “Baobab Tree” and “Tree Trunks.” 

Gaby Chien, born in 1938, has a particular painting on display that relates to global warming, “Baby Penguin: Mom, I am hungry” portrays a Mother Penguin . “I have to warn about the urgency of global climate change,” said Chien. “The painting represents a call to action against the heavy toll that humankind’s activities have taken on Mother Earth.  After Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, was published in 2016, I was inspired to visit Antarctica. I witnessed calving glaciers where penguins swam searching for food such as krill and squids.  As the temperature of oceans increases, they will suffer in hunger and die.”  

Bill Creston, born in 1932, was a founding member of the Brata Gallery in the late 1950s who display of “Thirty Landscape Paintings in Fifteen Frames” lined a part of one wall.  His inspiration lies in what he sees looking out of a window.   Here, they are small oil paintings on cardboard.  Said of the cardboards itself, Creston pointed out that he got them free from a liquor store formerly used to pack between bottles of wine.  “I like their irregular rectangular shapes, like bricks on my studio wall”, said Creston who was also the first video artist in the 1960s working in Super 8 film in the 1970s. 

Guo-Dong Li, is a leading contemporary Chinese calligrapher who has exhibited 83 times at the United Nation Headquarters and a permanent honorary chairmen of the Global Artist League Council.  On display are his pieces “Long Life” and “Good Fortune”, ink on paper both completed this year. 

Chuang Teng, born in China in 1934, also does calligraphy, but in a different style from Li.  He has used a variety of tools and technics to accomplish his artwork including brush, ink, and paper.  This particular exhibit features Teng’s new choice of media using adding acrylic and canvas as tools.  Three of his piece are: “After Napping on a Rock Pillow; ” “Sail Boat;” and “Overly Intricate Technics Yield No Meaning.” 

80 Plus and Going Strong will be exhibited until November 27, 2018. Rainforest Art Foundation is located at 36-58 37th Street. (917-682-3630. Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 1pm to 5pm.  Phone 917-682-3630. 

A true story from behind the bench comes to Maple Grove Cemetery by Merle Exit

Judge Gloria C. Coco, the first Italian-American woman to sit on the bench in Chicago, wanted to satisfy her mother’s dying wish, to find an uncle’s burial place.

Like many families that came to the United States, her mother, widowed grandmother and uncle were aboard a boat. Riding storage from Sicily, they landed at Ellis Island. Uncle Alfio Freddie Manninici, born in 1917, was only four years old when he died while they waited for their papers in 1921. Nobody could tell her where her brother had been buried when the search began in the mid-1990s, until it ended in 2000 at Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens.
What began as a search turned into a one-woman show, “Finding Uncle Alfio,” which Coco wrote and has been performing for several years. She will be sharing the true story at Maple Grove Cemetery for the first time on Saturday, June 16, at 3 p.m. 

While still on the bench in 1994, Coco went back to school to get a degree in radio, television and film at Northwestern University. As part of her senior project, her assignment was to write a play in a storytelling class. 

“My mother would tell me about these heartfelt sad stories about what it took for her mother and her children to come to the United States where the government first had to decide if it was feasible for them to stay or be sent back,” Coco said.

Although her mother was given a death certificate, it was not clear as to how her brother died or what was done to his body, most likely due to a language barrier. 

“My mother had a sister, 14 years her elder, who had already come to America which is why they were able to send for the family,” Coco said. “When my mother died in 1993, there were no computers for us to do the seeking. My sisters and I decided to do a search in the ‘40s through the ‘70s where one could only do it by mail and by going through various New York authorities, National Archives and Burial of Vital Statistics.” 

The death certificate listed Maple Grove as the burial cemetery and when she went there in 2000, the executive director searched through the ledgers and showed her more handwritten information that included where he was buried.
“It was described to me as a ‘mass grave’ where many of the children of immigrants coming through Ellis Island were buried,” Coco said. 

As for her play, “Finding Uncle Alfio” was a smaller portion of a drama, “The Passages of Grace,” that started her acting career first performing at theatre festivals in Chicago. 

“There was a book written called ‘Italian Women in Chicago,’ edited by Dominic Candeloro, in which 20 women were asked to write about their Italian heritage,” Coco said. “I was asked to write the story in my mother’s voice. The book was translated into Italian. I then performed my play as part of a book tour for the Italian Senate and then went back to Rome for the 100th anniversary of the death of Mother Francis of Cabrina, the Patron Saint of Immigrants.” 

“For every story that you hear about people coming to America as the ‘land of opportunity,’ there were several stories about this country not being ‘the land of hope’, including tragedies of those who did survive,” she added.

A few years ago, Coco connected with historian Carl Ballenas, the president of Friends of Maple Grove, along with Executive Director Helen Day. Ballenas asked Coco if she would perform her play at the Center and Coco obliged.
“As an actor, you become a conduit of human emotion. This is one story that everyone will be able to relate,” she said.

Maple Grove Cemetery is located at 127-15 Kew Gardens Road. Reservations for the show can be made by calling (347) 878-6614. There will be a Q&A session after the 30-minute performance and a reception to meet Coco will follow.

Posted 12:00 am, June 11, 2018

©2018 Community News Group

Long Island City Restaurant Gives Local Art a Home

Dan Dougherty and his brother, Shaun — the owners of Crescent Grill restaurant in Long Island City — are proud to house local art in their eatery as part of the LIC Arts Open. The Crescent Grill — located at 38-40 Crescent St. — features its own art venue, known as Dougherty Gallery. 

As part of the LIC Arts Open, the restaurant featured five large acrylic paintings by New York City artist Suzanne Pemberton, as well as oil, acrylic and mixed media paintings and drawings by other city artists, including Joseph Meloy, Mike Serafino, Brandon Sines, and Paul Zepeda. They also featured actual New York City parking meters that were modified by artist Conrad Stojak. 

Dougherty said the May 16 event was a success and he was pleased to be participating in the LIC Arts Open for the fifth year as a gallery.

“It provides an opportunity for new people to come to Dougherty Gallery and Crescent Grill and further reach out to the community,” he said. 

For the artists, there’s an opportunity to display your art and build a connection with the community. Serafino’s connection to Long Island City runs through his work as a studio manager and assistant at a long-time LIC artist’s studio.

“I’ve been working in the neighborhood since 2006,” Serafino said. “My personal work has been exhibited at Crescent Grill Gallery in at least 10 shows over the course of the last few years.”

He considers his style of artwork to be experimental and adventurous.

“Most of my work has an element of chaos and chance in which I will try to find a moment of clarity and order,” Serafino said. “The works are often searches for a feeling rather than executed preconceived ideas. I use virtually every type of paint in my studio; oil, acrylic, watercolor, gauche, enamel, encaustic and ink are all found splattered on the floors and walls. Each has their own strengths that can be necessary for a project or balanced against one another to bring material contrast into a piece.” 

Two of his favorite pieces in the show are: “Antibes” and “The Whale Hunt.” Serafino cites traveling and a constant appetite for reading about science as the main two inspirations for his work.

“The visual component to travel impacts my subsequent art. Whether it is the new landscapes or the culture of the place I’m visiting, travel always affects a change in my mind which comes out in the studio upon return.”

As for being a part of LIC Arts Open, Serafino called it “an invitation to join and art community that isn’t captured by the commercial gravity of the nearby Manhattan art megalopolis.”

“There is a [do it yourself] aspect to the community — the sense that it is a place being created, with much opportunity available for whoever has the courage to seize it,” he said. “Additional­ly, I sense an esprit de corps among the Long Island City artists that we’ve all chosen this path for a good reason; that a life spent creating and expressing are worth the struggle in this city.”

Pemberton has been painting landscapes for many years moving to what she refers to as “more abstract interpretations of land and seascapes in the past few years.”

She said uses acrylic paint and acrylic inks to create layers that convey the atmosphere in and around the sea.

Pemberton has been working out of the Reis Studios in Long Island City for the past four years and said she is proud to be a part of the LIC Arts Open.

“The LIC Arts Open brings together fellow artists and the community which otherwise wouldn’t happen,” said Pemberton. “Arts should be an integral part of any healthy community.”

Meanwhile, Zepeda said that he considers his style of work to have roots in Modernism. He works in oil paint — often incorporating gold or silver leaf — and also dabs in watercoloring and an oxidation process that he says creates rust and patina on canvas.

“I am inspired by the beauty of the world around me which may be found in everything from the human form to flowers, seascapes and architectu­re,” he said. 

One of his pieces that he said he is particularly happy with is the rust patterns created in “Rusty Subway Car.” Zepeda has an “NYC Subway Token Series,” which he says has proven to be a popular one.

“Curating for and being a part of the LIC Arts Open for the last few years has given me exposure to the wonderful community of people in Long Island City as well as giving me the opportunity to meet and share the work of my fellow artists in the area,” said Zepeda. “The exhibitions I help put on at Crescent have grown to be a staple of the LIC events calendar with monthly receptions on every third Thursday.” Posted 12:00 am, May 30, 2018  ©2018 Community News Group