NYCxDESIGN – Brooklyn Artisan

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for April 6 and 7

A short list of weekend openings and events

John Singer Sargent, Villa di Marlia, Lucca: A Fountain, 1910. Watercolor over graphite pencil on paper. The Hayden Collection—Charles Henry Hayden Fund. At Brooklyn Museum, now.

S A T U R D A Y

Maker + Materials: tree house architect Romero. (Photograph, Caroline Voagen Nelson)

A Tree House grows in Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Wood from reclaimed trees felled by Hurricane Sandy is showing up in many uses and locations. Reclaim NYC, with designs implemented out of Sandy debris, will be exhibiting at NYCxDesign in May. Opening Saturday, tree house architect Roderick Romero is constructing a new site-specific installation using trees downed by Sandy. This promises to be part artwork, part open-air classroom, and will certainly be fun to view and walk through.

New exhibition, “That Perfectly Arranged Mouth,” paintings by Katharine Colona Hopkins. At 440 Gallery, Park Slope.

Inaugural exhibition, “Next Generation,” by Park Slope artist Lori Nelson.
At Ground Floor Gallery, Park Slope. 6pm-10pm.

GO: New exhibition, “John Singer Sargent Watercolors,” plus Target First Saturday. Brooklyn Museum.

Great for kids: Spring Seed Celebration & Swap, an annual celebration of making things grow. At Old Stone House and Washington Park. Park Slope. 10am-4pm.

Lumpia Shack’s back @ Smorg

Return of Smorgasburg! Over 100 vendors in a new location in Williamsburg, at East River State Park. 11am-6pm.

Smorg vendors I’m seeking out: Brooklyn Piggies, Bolivian Llama Party, ISH Premium Horseradish, Lumpia Shack…let us know what you recommend.

Jazz Healing Force of The Universe. Saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett does two sets at Sistas’ Place Coffee House, Bed Stuy. 9pm and 10:30pm. Part of the month-long Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival presented by the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium. For the 14th year, this longest running grassroots festival features more than 500 artists performing in 50 venues throughout Brooklyn.

S U N D A Y

Whether at Smorgasburg, above, or at a Food Truck Rally, food always seems to taste better al fresco.

The food trucks return to the Park with a Food Truck Rally at Grand Army Plaza. Every first and third Sunday of the month will give everyone the chance to dine in style at Mike’n’Willie’s, Milk Truck, Rickshaw Dumplings, plus a dozen more vendors. Afterwards, you could run or walk it off around the Park’s 3.35 mile loop. Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza. 11am-5pm.

Return of Smorgasburg! Over 75 vendors are back at the historic Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park, DUMBO. 11am-6pm.

Recycle easily and safely: Spring NYC SAFE (solvents, automotive, flammable, electronics) disposal event. Here’s a one-stop way to get rid of potentially harmful household products. Depending on the product, materials collected will either be recycled, blended for fuel, or sent to licensed hazardous waste treatment facilities for safe disposal. Prospect Park, corner of Parkside Avenue and Prospect Park SW. 10am-4pm.

W E D N E S D A Y, April 10

Purchase tickets soon for A Taste of Fifth at the Grand Prospect Hall. We’re liking that $20 of your $45 ticket will go to a non-profit Fifth Avenue BID member of your choice. This is a chance to try some of the most talked about food and drink from places you never seem to get to, such as Fleisher’s, Campo Di Fiori, Leske’s Bakery, Pork Slope, lots more. The Grand Prospect Hall has to be one of the more ornate party places in the area—can you name a film it appeared in? Park Slope. 6:30pm.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com

Joy’s Best of Brooklyn for February 15, 16, 17

Just call it fun and make something! Like Lego Gadgets. At the Makery Pop Up, students explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) competencies using traditional design tools in addition to advanced digital fabrication tools. See Saturday for details.

Just call it fun and make something—like these Lego Gadgets!
At the Makery Pop Up (see Saturday, below), all ages have a chance to make cool things using
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) competencies that make use of
traditional design tools and advanced digital fabrication methods.

On this Maritime Sunday, witness the struggles of the Thomas D. Witte tug as it manages a barge into place on the lamentable Newtown Creek. That’s the City’s “Newtown Creek Dock”, tenanted by the mill of the titanic SimsMetal operation.http://newtownpentacle.com/

Could this be the most polluted body of water in the United States?

About that border between Brooklyn and Queens…

Friday Obscura Society: “Up the Creek” a talk with historian Mitch Waxman. Is Newtown Creek, running along the border between Brooklyn and Queens, the most polluted body of water in the United States? Mitch Waxman will lead you through an evening of discussion featuring his research and photographs of this 3.8 mile-long waterway that was named to the Superfund list by the Federal EPA. The NYTimes recently named Mitch as “Your Guide to a Tour of Decay” in part for his passion of documenting the obscure and forgotten area that was once one of the nation’s great manufacturing centers. Part of the Atlas Obscura Speakers series at Observatory, Gowanus. 7pm-9pm.

The Makery’s instructors are part of HTINK.*

Great parent/child activity

Saturday The Makery Pop Up on Bergen Street. Call it a portable digital playground, a 21st century shop class, or Dad’s garage workshop (if dad was an MIT grad). The Makery aims to be a venue where all ages can become Makers using cool, new technologies. Today’s event will have Makers building a Drawing Robot using simple circuits, soldering, 3D design and printing. Through April 30 this pop up space will have weekend and some weeknight sessions offering topics such as DIY Cell Phone Projector and Intro to Soldering, all led by instructors with engineering backgrounds. *Instructors and The Makery team are part of HTINK (pronouced tink) an educational services cooperative focused on spreading technical learning and creative problem solving skills to as many people as possible. BOCOCA.

Stream this entire event live

Saturday TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat.” This year’s conference has a theme that rings loud and clear to us: to explore and bolster sustainable ways of eating and producing food. An interesting mix of speakers include Gary Hirshberg, chairman, Stonyfield Farm, Anna Lappé, founding principal, Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund, Bill Yosses, Executive Pastry Chef, The White House, along with film clips and music performances. The disappointing news is that tickets sold out awhile ago, but the entire event is available for livestreaming from 10:30am-6:00pm.

Base Design’s branding for NYCxDesign.

Citywide design event just announced

NYCxDESIGN, a 12-day citywide event to showcase and promote design of all disciplines, chaired by City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn. “We have more designers in New York City than any other U.S. city, but we do a terrible job promoting them in their totality,” she told the NYTimes. The idea behind NYCxDESIGN, planned by Fashion Week founder Fern Mallis, is to make design visible to people who don’t normally think about it. Many types of programs are planned, including exhibitions, installations, trade shows, talks, launches and open studios. All will be culled from design disciplines of graphic, product, architecture, fashion, digital, urban, furniture, plus design thinkers and educators. The BKLYN Designs 2013 exhibition of contemporary furnishings and home accessories at St. Ann’s Warehouse, DUMBO will be an official event of NYCxDESIGN. Check the website to see how you can participate as well as attend events. May 10 thorough May 21.

Portlandia is just Brooklyn spelled differently.

They like their artisanal stuff as much as we do.

Joy Makon curates Brooklyn Artisan’s Craft & Design coverage and creates the weekly Best of Brooklyn lists. Send items for listings to brooklynartisan@joymakondesign.com