This Weekend Discover Art & Artist studios in Park Slope & Windsor Terrace

Facing East at Pemaquid Point, watercolor by Brooklyn Artisan executive editor Joy Makon. At letter R on the weekend open studio tour.

Weather reports forecast a beautiful late-fall weekend, November 7 & 8—a perfect time to wander about Park Slope and Windsor Terrace and pop in and out of the 34 artist studios that will be open for viewing this weekend.

The third annual Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studio Tour features a mix of cutting-edge, classic and experimental work from established and emerging artists who make Brownstone Brooklyn their home. Many of the artists on the tour recently participated in Gowanus Open Studios and if you had a chance to discover art there, you’ll be pleased to find a lot more this weekend.

Information: Tour website, downloadable map & suggested itinerary, Facebook
Look for the green balloons outside of each open studio location. FREE.

Some highlights from the 34 artists on this year’s tour:

NORTH SLOPE studios: painters Gregory Frux and Janet Morgan, letter I on the map; distinguished classical artist Simon Dinnerstein, letter F on the map, mixed-media painter Jerry Friedman, letter H on the map.

SOUTH SLOPE studios: metal-sculptor Janet Goldner, letter Y, will be doing welding demos over the weekend; David Weiner, also at letter Y, will create event-based sculpture in real time; abstract painter Joy Walker, letter X; printmaker, illustrator, painter Nancy Doniger and kinetic metal sculptor Eric Jacobson, showing at letter G; digital/photo/social commentary artist Bob Hagan, letter M; plus 9 additional open studios—check the map.

WINDSOR TERRACE studios: sculptor Lisa Lincoln, letter P, will be creating with clay on Sunday; functional potter Caryn Kreitzer, letter O; at letter E: monoprints, watercolors by Susan Greenstein plus watercolors, photography by Phil DeSantis, plus 4 additional open studios—check the map.

Plenty of great places to stop and refuel along the route…but you knew that already…

13 Ways of Looking at Some Fallen Leaves

The artists' collective gallery at 440 Sixth Avenue has a friendly, neighborhood feel.

The artists’-collective gallery at 440 Sixth Avenue has a friendly, neighborhood feel. (Photos: Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool)

ROMANS BELIEVED IN GENIUS LOCI, the spirit of a place, and religious cults often sacrificed to their local genius or guardian spirit. Photographer Tom Bovo, whose current exhibit at the 440 Gallery is titled Genius Loci (described by the gallery as “portraying the spirit of autumnal locales”) notices the way each block or avenue of his native Brooklyn derives much of its visual aspect from the collection of plants growing there, the shapes and colors of the leaves and the patterns they make.

This haunting image does not depend on the typical blazing colors of fall .maple leaves

The power of this image does not depend on the blazing colors of typical fall maple leaves

Bovo’s view is not sentimental, and the 13 leaf photographs in this show are not about physicial perfection or Vermont Life-like brilliant colors. The prints of his digital photos are scaled up from the actual size—the images are larger-than-leaf, in other words —and they’re both technically interesting and visually compelling.

He had to work out how to photograph the rapidly drying and curling leaves.  Eventually he put the leaf (or leaves) between two panes of glass propped in a window and then “placed a sheet of white paper onto the back of the glass sandwich to diffuse the light” coming from behind them, the gallery notes explain. Some of the images are of torn, browning, imperfect leaves.

Three of the smaller images sold right away.

Three of the smaller images sold right away.

Tom Bovo studied painting and printmaking with a notable faculty at Columbia University and his own work has been show in galleries across the US, including the Rush Arts Gallery in New York and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.

The show is in place at the 440 Gallery until December 1.

SPECIAL KIDS EVENT AT THE GALLERY: On Sunday, November 10, gallery member Vicki Behm will hold a workshop for children 4 to 12 years old to look at Bovo’s photographs and then to draw their own images from actual leaves. What time? Ah, 4:40 in the afternoon, of course.

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