co-working – Brooklyn Artisan

Lingering After Images of Creative Studios at Industry City

The artist Dylan Vanderhoeck, with “Gibsonia,” a 2013 work.
(Brooklyn Artisan Photo Pool.)

“I CAN SEE THROUGH MY HANDS’ is what the young artist Dylan Vandenhoeck called the work he was showing Saturday in his @SO WHAT SPACE in Industry City Building B, where he has space B424 (that signifies his room on the 4th floor of Building B in the huge complex that formerly was the Bush Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn).

Yesterday was Industry City’s first Open Studios day. Organized cooperatively between Industry City and some of its creative tenants, the event was an invitation to interested visitors to “get a rare glimpse of works in progress, and discover how each tenant has customized a raw studio space to fit his or her medium and personal style,” its brochure said.

Two contrasting images form a single piece, the real and the after image.

“Gibsonia” is based on a real place remembered, Dylan explained to Brooklyn Artisan. It was done in oil on canvas. The contrast is exaggerated between the dark room and the soft rug with vibrating colors, and the brilliant scene beyond the window sill’s plants.

In “Palm at the End of the Mind/After Image,” right, a newer work in oil on linen, which appears to be two pieces joined into one, the contrast is as though you stared at the bright palm fronds on the left and then closed your eyes, seeing the after image on your retina and in your mind.

That concept sets a theme for the whole day’s happy experience of wandering from studio to studio, seeing work in progress and talking with the artists, photographers, designers and artisans practicing their craft. Over coming days, Brooklyn Artisan will report on more studios we visited.

Former editor-in-chief of Working Woman magazine and the Art of Simple Living, Anne Mollegen Smith also writes about personal finance for investopedia.com.

Move Fast! 50% Off Basic Rate at 3rd Ward Right Now

URGENT UPDATE: The Good News: Will Sansom of 3rd Ward has confirmed with brooklyn-artisan.net that people who join as new Basic Plan (usually $99 a year) members today through midnight, Monday night, October 15, can get a special rate of 50% off. Mention Brooklyn Artisan when you inquire.

The Not-so-good News: Thursday night’s session on using Kickstarter to raise funds for your business project was so packed that even people who’d registered in advance, like us, (but arrived two minutes late) were unable to squeeze in even to stand among the spillover crowd in the back. Craning our necks to peer around the corner, we could see the edge of a chart on a slide, couldn’t hear a bit better, and did become an annoyance to the people we were leaning on to get a peek.

Speaking of numbers, though, here are some stats on 3rd Ward. (Also, scroll or click down to our earlier story, below.)

Member transport: Bikes locked to the radiator along a 40-foot hallway.

It’s a story of 2’s. 3rd Ward recently took over Floor Two of the warehouse building, doubling their space overall (to about 30,000 square feet). Staff? Around 20 people. Courses offered? About 200. Membership? 2000. Members who work there fulltime? 200. How long has Will himself worked there? 2 years. Doing what? A lot of construction such as putting down plywood patches on the strip oak floor upstairs.

A somewhat, er, collegiate aesthetic on a bathroom door.

So all of the old wood strip floors upstairs are rough and patchy, yes, but still kinder underfoot than the gleaming polished concrete downstairs.

You can pay less now, but soon get more. Sansom also outlined expansion plans, some visibly under way, others still under (plastic) wraps. A members’ cafe. More classrooms. An expanded shop for metalworkers, to match the new woodshop. A brand new sculpture room. And new, better bathrooms are promised, forgoing the, um, old college radio station aesthetic. [Read more…]