Dozens of artists in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace welcomed visitors into their studios the past two weekends (November 9-10, 16-17) for tours.
Since 2013 Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Artists—a collective of visual artists living and working in the two Brooklyn neighborhoods—has hosted annual PSWT Open Studio Weekends, inviting the public to visit local artist workspaces and maybe even purchase original works of art. This year, the "Open Studio Central" at Ossam Gallery (300 7th Street) showcased one piece by each participating artist, offering attendees a preview of each studio as well as information on the artists and maps of tour locations. The diverse selection exhibited at Ossam Gallery ranged from ceramics, collage, drawing, painting, photography, print, and sculpture.
Syncing, Chris Baily, mixed media on canvas, at Ossam Gallery
Coney Island Cyclone, Chris Doogan, woodcut print, at Ossam Gallery
L-R: Torii Gate, Dara Oshin, mixed media; Nested, Karen Giordano, watercolor and ink on paper, at Ossam Gallery
Else, Phil Desantis, photograph, 2019, at Ossam Gallery
9 Block North, Daniel McDonald, 9 panels, acrylic & mixed medium, at Ossam Gallery
Point/Counterpoint, Steve Ettlinger, cedar (epoxy on slate base), at Ossam Gallery
Just off Prospect Park West on 14th Street, Judith Eloise Hooper invited guests into the sunny fourth floor walk-up where she has lived and worked for 44 years. Originally from New Jersey, Hooper grew up in a creative household—her mother was an opera singer, her father a carpenter, and her three brothers musicians.
She moved to Brooklyn to study fashion design at Pratt and worked as a fashion illustrator for several years before taking a class in book writing and illustration at the School of Visual Arts. "[I] did some children’s book illustration but at the time—this was in the 70s—it was very hard for me to get someone to give me [work] that wasn’t black-related," explained Hooper, who is black. In the early 80s she shifted to working in clay, initially creating ceramic objects with an Asian influence—"so that I could have some kind of diversity in what I did," she said—and moving on to create bowls, platters and ceramic landscapes.
Today, Hooper is writing a cookbook, "where food is a character...the recipe is the action within the story," and is working mostly on paper collages—intricate, hand-cut portraits. "The paper work teaches me something different about depth and dimension," she said. "I love focusing on the expressions on people’s faces." She also teaches art therapy to patients at nearby NY-P Methodist Hospital, where she has been volunteering since the 90s. "I was trying to get the patients to do self-portraits," she recalled. "I said they could either be as you see yourself, as you think others see you, or how you want to be seen. I wanted them to have fun with it, so I would do myself and make fun of myself." These early sample self-portraits she created with her students eventually evolved into a series of evocative paper portraits featuring musicians, family members, children, and more.
Paper collage portraits by Judith Eloise Hooper
A paper collage portrait by Judith Eloise Hooper
A paper collage portrait by Judith Eloise Hooper featuring her nephew and his newborn
An early paper collage self-portrait by Judith Eloise Hooper
Japanese Napkin Rings by Judith Eloise Hooper
Also exhibiting work in Hooper's living room was ceramist Lynn Goodman. This is the fourth time the two artists have shown together during the PSWT Open Studios. A native New Yorker, Goodman studied ceramics as an undergrad at Philadelphia College of Art [now University of the Arts] and received an MFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The Windsor Terrace resident works from the Can Factory in a studio she shares with two other ceramists. "I love it there," she said of the creative complex.
Inspired by the shapes, patterns, and colors of Islamic art, Goodman incorporates fun, unexpected elements into her works. "I like urban wildlife, so you’ve got koi, pigeons, and a squirrel. It’s partly that I’m very into certain things and it’s partly that I’m drawing from the environment," she said of her porcelain pieces. "I’ve got a fascination with UFOs. I will slap them on anything."
From sci-fi to physics, some of Goodman's tableware features swirling atoms and Feynman diagrams, mathematical representations of subatomic particles. She said a physicist gave her "these nice juicy images and I’ve been using them ever since." She pointed to an orange platter showing a flurry of particles that pass through a digram in the center and transition into a trio of koi on the opposite end. "It’s probably a stretch in the way I use it," she said of the interpretation before declaring, "artistic license."
Ceramics by Lynn Goodman
Ceramics by Lynn Goodman
L-R: Lynn Goodman and Judith Eloise Hooper during Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios
Over in Windsor Terrace, Robin Roi welcomed a steady flow of visitors to her 18th Street home and studio to check out her mixed media work which includes paintings, ceramics, and works on paper. This was her fourth PSWT Open Studios event.
Roi studied print-making at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and received her MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate University in California before moving to NYC when she was 27. She worked for various arts organizations including the American Craft Museum and the Drawing Center before taking a job at EverGreene Painting Studios [now EverGreene Architectural Arts] where she was the Director of Decorative Painting for more than 30 years. She took up pottery after having kids. "I was always a painter, and then when I had children, it was very hard to do both, to have that career and raise the kids," she recalled. "I started going to a ceramics class on 3rd Avenue where my kids were going for ceramics, and I fell in love with it. It’s hard to dabble and not fall in love with ceramics," she said. Roi focused her personal practice on ceramics for several years, saving the drawing and painting for her day job. "When I retired in 2015 it was like it just poured out. I started wanting to work on paper again."
Family Tree by Robin Roi
A table exhibiting Robin Roi's ceramics
Ceramics by Robin Roi
Roi says that nearby Green-Wood Cemetery inspires much of her work as well as patterns and layers. Her collage work incorporates layer upon layer of dressmaking pattern paper "because it’s transparent. It’s tissue, so you can see things underneath," she explained. She pointed to one work, Family Tree, featuring a letter written to Roi's aunt in the 1940s from a boyfriend in Germany, layered under images of branches and leaves. "That’s why I use that pattern paper because it allows me to layer things up and to obscure some things and let other things show through," she said. "I like that word palimpsest.... It’s the whole idea of something rising up and coming through."
A dining table displayed an eclectic selection of Roi's ceramic work, including bowls, plates, jars, and several pitchers inspired by vintage oil cans. "These are kind of riffs on those old tins. I’m inspired when I see a really interesting shape," she said. "I love that shape."
Also exhibiting with Roi was ceramist Carol Adams. Originally from New Jersey, Adams has lived in Park Slope since 1981 and is a lawyer by trade. "I don’t have any formal training. I’m self-taught," she said. "I went to law school. I practice trust and estates," While studying at Cardozo Law in Greenwich Village, Adams lived across from Greenwich House where she first discovered the joys of pottery. "I’ve always made pottery. I love the tactile nature of it," she said. "There’s something powerful about taking dirt and making it beautiful." Adams added that up until five or six years ago, she'd always created functional pieces, such as bowls, plates, cups, and vases often adorned with sgraffito.
Oxidized metal leaf works by Robin Roi (above, on wall) and sculptures by Carol Adams (below)
Sculptures by Carol Adams
L-R: Robin Roi and Carol Adams during Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios
Inspired by ancient sculpture, mythology, and everyday people on the subway, Adams switched to figural sculptures, first creating angels, then moving on to classical busts as well as whimsical armless characters topped with crowns or rings of flowers. "I always start with the faces and then they develop their own personality," she explained of her process. While Adams still practices law part-time from home, she is now able to dedicate more of her time to creating. "Now I’m doing less law, more art," she said with a smile.
To learn more about Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Artists, visit artspswt.com or follow @ArtsPSWT.
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