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- [00:08]
A
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. If you enjoy listening to us on the radio, you'll enjoy experiencing us in person. We have two events coming up this month that I want to get on your radar and on your calendar. Our October get lit with all of it book club is King of Ashes by SA Cosby. On Tuesday, October 28, we will meet in person to discuss. Plus we'll hear special live musical performance from Yaya Bay. It's going to be a great evening and you can be there with us at the New York Public Library. Get your free tickets now and learn how to download the ebook for free by heading to wnyc.org getlit that is wnyc.org getlit now. Our next Broadway on the Radio event is taking place just two days after that, on Thursday, October 30th. All of the new cast members from Broadway musical Hadestown will be here at WNYC's Green Space for an epic hour of live performances. Go to wnyc.org hadestown for more information to get your tickets before they sell out. We'll see you on October 30th. Again, that's wnyc.org hadestown now those tickets aren't free, but let's just say they are significantly cheaper than seeing a Broadway show. And the Green space is a really intimate, intimate setting. It's going to be an epic week of live events from all of it and we hope to see you there. Now let's get this hour started. Three weeks ago, a fire raged through a Red hook Warehouse on 481 Van Brunt street occupied by Art studios and businesses. The work of more than 500 artists was lost in flames that lasted three days. More than 200 firefighters were on the scene before the fires began. Red Hook was planning to host its 10th annual open studios this weekend and despite the devastation, it is still happening on Saturday and Sunday. You'll be able to walk around the neighborhood and into the studios and workshops of Red Hook makers. Three of its organizers are with me now. Debya Juerget, say it for me. Deborah Ugura, Deborah Jurgurats, Andrea Stanislav and Megan Settles, who are also artists, all join me in studio. Please welcome to the Studio.
- [02:39]
B
Hello. Thank you.
- [02:41]
C
Thank you for having us, all of.
- [02:43]
A
Our listeners, we want to hear from you. If you're an artist in Red Hook or a business owner affected by the fires, please call in, tell us about your work, how it was affected, what the response has been like, and point people to a way that they can help. Our number is 212433. WNYC 212-433-9692. If you're an artist showcasing your work this weekend in Red Hook, call in and talk about it. 2124-3396-9221-2433, WNYC. Megan, you run a space in the building that was damaged by the fire. What kind of work did you do in the space?
- [03:20]
C
I run a space called Hotwood Arts. We've been there for 13, about 13 and a half years. I opened it because I am a sculptor. I'm a multimedia installation artist. But our space has. It's a 7,000 square foot space. Space that houses 20 artists and 17 art studios. And unfortunately, we still have not been able to get in to see our space. And we're hearing that it could be up to another month because we are in one of the most compromised areas of the building.
- [03:48]
A
Andrea, what have things been like in the community over the last few weeks?
- [03:53]
D
Oh, I, I would say that there has been a huge amount of support, empathy, and what I've witnessed. Even though I wasn't directly affected by the fire, my studio's in a different building. It's been amazing to see the way people have come together, both with financial support, moral support, and I think that speaks to the unique neighborhood and artistic community that Red Hook possesses.
- [04:22]
A
Deborah, did you want to add anything to how it's felt since the fire?
- [04:27]
B
I would also agree that the community has really come together. The Red Hook Business alliance and other private businesses and individuals have really chipped in financially and also with materials and space to support the artists who've lost their spaces. And the businesses, too.
- [04:48]
A
Yeah.
- [04:48]
E
Megan, I want to talk about the businesses. This has repercussions outside of just the artists. Can you tell us about what's going.
- [04:54]
A
On in the neighborhood?
- [04:57]
C
Well, again, I have to say that the neighborhood has been. Is overwhelmingly like the support is just so overwhelming. I still haven't really comprehended what happened. I did watch the fire burn all night, but it still hasn't completely sunken in. But there were many businesses, not just artists, who were in 481 Van Brunt. So it's, you know, there's so much loss outside of just the art, the art world, but the neighborhood businesses? Is that what you're asking?
- [05:28]
D
Yeah.
- [05:28]
C
Yes. The neighborhood businesses have been incredible. There's been benefits all weekend this past weekend. There's more benefits coming up. There's so many people have reached out to us and just asking what they can do. Everyone wants to help. So it's. Yeah, it's just so overwhelming, and it's an incredible community.
- [05:48]
E
Deborah, after the fires, did you doubt whether you should have the open studios?
- [05:53]
B
Never.
- [05:54]
A
Never. Tell me more.
- [05:55]
B
Well, first of all, there are over 40 other studios that were not affected by the fire, in addition to the 10th anniversary sculpture garden that we organized to celebrate our 10th anniversary. So, no, I never, ever wanted to cancel. And they're like crazy rumors out there that we. That we are not holding it. But yes, we are holding it and we want you to come.
- [06:20]
E
What did you think, Andrea? Were you for holding it?
- [06:23]
D
Absolutely. Absolutely. But I was absolutely heartbroken when the fires happened and deep concern if artists could continue. And there has been a support with outside exhibitions taking the work and giving other spaces that Meghan and Deborah can speak to. But also I'm working as the curator of the sculpture exhibition and using that sculpture exhibition also as a platform to talk about the fires and also to present the resilient nature of the artists of Red Hook. For sure, but artists are resilient, so that's one thing we can do. We can literally. I think it's where Phoenix is rising from the fire here.
- [07:14]
E
So let's talk to Matthew, who is calling in from Red Hook. Matthew, thank you for calling all of it.
- [07:20]
F
Hey, longtime listener, first time caller.
- [07:22]
E
Oh, I'm glad to hear it.
- [07:26]
F
Yeah, so I own a glass studio in Red Hood, Brooklyn, called Shiny Sparkle Studio. We're a couple buildings down, but, you know, we had studio assistants that were affected by it and a lot of friends that really had a. It just was just so heartbreaking and so horrible.
- [07:43]
E
So do you want to invite people to come to your space? Tell us a little more about it.
- [07:47]
F
Yeah, so we are going to open our space up for Red Hook Open Studios, where people can do a pop in class as well as, you know, just kind of learn more about the space and kind of the people that are affected. And also we just want to invite anybody that was affected into the space, also bring people, you know, the ability to continue doing the work and, you know, whatnot.
- [08:08]
E
Matthew, thank you so much for calling. Megan, you said that people are reaching out in ways to help. How can people help?
- [08:18]
C
It's still hard to say because we haven't been able to get in and see the space yet. People keep asking how to help it. We've literally lost everything as far as we know. So, I mean, I've been in the space for 13 and a half years, and I don't you know, our space is a 7,000 square foot space. And as far, like I said, as far as I know, everything is gone. I would say art supplies, tools. You know, there's been a lot of financial support, but, you know, it just. There's already also people who have been dropping off art supplies, but I would say more art supplies. There's Quite a few GoFundMes. If you go to the Red Hook Business alliance website, there's a list of many people in the space and we have one specifically for us. It's Hotwood Arts, a gofundme for us to rebuild. Because we do hope to rebuild. We don't know where yet, but we're really hoping.
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E
Yeah, Deborah, in terms of the GoFundMe.
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A
Where can people find it?
- [09:12]
B
You can go to GoFundMe. F. GoFundMe. It's a little long. It's through the. It's the Red Hook business alliance.
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A
Gotcha.
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B
GoFundMe. It's GoFundMe.com.
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A
Yeah, we have somebody from the Business alliance on the phone. All right, let's talk to Carly from Reno.
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B
Before Carly goes on, I just want to say how you can support us, and that is to show up on Saturday and Sunday.
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D
Yeah, we'll talk about that in a minute.
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A
Let's talk to Carly from Red Hook. Carly, you're in charge.
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F
Oh, thank you so much. I just want to reiterate how great the community has come together around this. And our front page, the first thing we did was ask people to sign up if they were affected or if they had ways to support. And that's how some of this got rolling. So the extra space that got stood up to exhibit a lot of the Red Hook Open Studios artists. What came through that page of people wanting to donate furniture and the space itself and help moving, this is really a full scale emergency response that will be continuing for months. And so we are in the process of working with national experts and standing up an incident command system. So we'll be, you can, at our front page, not only see all the GoFundMes, but also volunteer to be part of an ongoing recovery. Because this is, you know, helping with insurance claims, helping with grant writing, continuing to procure supplies that help with PPE and working with some of the materials coming out of the building. People are still waiting to get access to certain areas of the building that are not yet safe. So I just want to share that there's so much more yet to be done. In addition to being able to donate funds, donating time and Participating in recovery work will be another way that people can participate.
- [11:09]
E
Carly Baker Rice, thank you so much for calling in.
- [11:12]
A
I'm also speaking to Deborah Ugarets, Megan Suttles and Andrea Stanislavs. They're all organizers at Red Hook Open Studios, which is this Saturday and this Sunday. We're about to talk about the lineup. Listeners, if you are a Red Hook artist, we want you to call in 2124-3396-9221-2433.
- [11:38]
E
Tell us about what you're showcasing this weekend.
- [11:40]
A
Or if you're someone who was affected by the fire, call in. Tell us about your work, how it was affected and what the response has been and the ways that people can help. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. Deborah it's the 10th anniversary of Red Hook Open Studios. How did it begin?
- [12:01]
B
How did it begin? About 10 years ago, a couple of people in my studio building, which is door 14, got together and said, why don't we open our studios to the public? Because there was no Red Hook Open Studios prior to that. And so we decided to just organize a very small group of artists. We got in touch with Megan, who is the organizer of Hotwood Arts, and we just started doing it little by little. And it's grown every single year for the past 10 years.
- [12:37]
E
Megan, what do you like, what did you like about Open Studios?
- [12:41]
C
We're in this, in this warehouse that is just full of artists and we're all hidden. And I just, I wanted to people to know what we were doing in this building. And like Deborah was saying, it just started in our building. It was very small. And now I believe we had about 300 artists. This year there was 130 locations with about 300 artists. But it started out with about 30. So it has grown tremendously. So yeah.
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A
Andrea, why is Red Hook such a.
- [13:10]
E
Good neighborhood for open Studios for people to spend the day?
- [13:14]
D
Well, first, there's the history of Red Hook. It's a destination. I have friends that come from Manhattan and they say it's like a seaside village, but it has this other feeling to it. It also, and I hear this from many visitors and friends that come, that it has this feeling of this sort of this lost neighborhood of New York. It's like something is still real there. Something's very personal. There's dynamic sight lines. You're on the waterfront. There's incredible views. You can see the Statue of Liberty. There's parks, there's great places to have Beverages and dine and art galleries, the studios. There's Andrew Logan. Shout out to Andrew Logan, who helped with the Sculpture park, by the way. But it's. It's a beautiful place to walk and to people watch. And I just think it. It delivers a unique. A unique experience that is. Is New York, is definitely Brooklyn, but it's also definitively Red Hook. And there's something very singular about Red Hook.
- [14:21]
E
Yeah. Deborah, what is special about the art scene in Red Hook?
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B
I would say that it's a little bit hidden. I mean, there are all these old warehouses that used to be involved in the shipbuilding and repair business, and those have been taken over by artists. Kind of a shout out to Gregory o' Connell, who first developed these. These old Civil War period warehouses. It's just a very special place. And there's so much creativity going on and it's all hidden, you know, because it's a working. It's really a working space. And every artist, I think, inspires every other artist. And so we really thought that it would be very cool to kind of reveal that to the public and provide an opportunity for people to meet the artists, the creators and interact with them, to learn about their process and also to buy directly from them.
- [15:23]
E
Let's talk to Haysham, who is calling from Greenpoint. Hi, Haysham, thank you so much for calling all of it. You're on the air.
- [15:32]
G
How you doing? So I am an artist, but my friends who run a company called Token, which is a lighting and furniture company, design company, lost everything in the, in the fire there in the Building 9. So that was directly impacted from when the roof caved in and they had to pour all the water through the, to the ceiling into the building. So they were heavily impacted. All of their equipment, I mean, they haven't been able to get back into the building yet. So they're in that sort of group of people. And you know, they had a lot of heavy machinery that was probably affected by the salt water that they had to pour through the building. So, you know, I just wanted to sort of like, I feel terrible for all the artists that lost things. Some people lost more heavier tools and machinery, which is maybe a higher cost, including work. And I'm not trying to like, like, speak like, you know, like artists who can remake work or anything like that. But anyways, like, I just wanted to share that they have a GoFundMe and you can find their information through Instagram. Token NYC. T O K E N N Y C Is that right? Yes, that's right.
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B
There's so many letters.
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E
You got it right.
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C
Go ahead, Megan. I'm just above Token. I'm also a number nine. And so the night of the fire, I actually called Will, who is the founder of Token, he's the furniture designer, and let him know about the fire. So it was a. Yes, it was a very emotional call to make to wake him up in the middle of the night to let him know what was going on. But yes, Olive, number nine is not okay. And also with Token, sadly, they also went through the hurricane 10 years Sandy. So this is the second time that they've had to go through this. So, yes, we need to support Token. I mean, everyone in the building, but there's quite a few on the first floor who went through the floods of Sandy who are rebuilding for a second time.
- [17:42]
E
And let's give the list that has the list that has all of the Red Hook, excuse me, all of the GoFundMes attached to it. It's redhookbiz.org that's redhookbiz b I z.org that's the correct link for folks to donate. We'll have more. We'll talk more about the sculpture garden. We'll talk more about Red Hook Open Studios after a quick break. This is all of it.
- [18:20]
A
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking with Deborah Ucaritz, Megan Suttles and Andrea Stanislavs. They're all organizers of Red Hook Open Studios, which this Saturday and Sunday we're going to talk about the lineup. We're gonna start with you, Andrea. You organized Red hook Open Studio's 10th year anniversary sculpture garden. What's in the garden?
- [18:45]
D
Oh, it's gonna be, it's gonna be amazing. And I just want to also give a huge thank you to Deborah and Megan for helping. I think that the creation of the sculpture garden came out of a conversation that the three of us had a few years ago. I have a studio in Red Hook and I wanted for Red Hook Open Studios to create a kind of video projection exhibition throughout Red Hook. That takes a little bit more planning. And through conversation, we decided on a sculpture park and we went for it. And looking at the Erie Basin park, it just seemed prime for a sculpture garden. Like it was calling, like bring sculptures to my place here. So it's along the waterfront. There's dynamic sight lines. And also through ikea, IKEA has been a sponsor. It's also referred to as Ikea park. And IKEA has been just amazingly Supportive through donations and letting us create our vision. And so we have 12 artists in the exhibition and, and that's including Pavel Radetsky with Love Ego Love, which is a large steel sculpture that he will be installing. Ian Sworney's the Pearl, that's a granite sculpture. Kapuchar, another granite steel sculpture. Sarah Crofts will be creating an installation called Soft Sculpture that you can interact with. It's a kind of tent that you can go in. And thank you Ikea for donating so solar Lights. We have Raphael Shirley's performance happening Saturday at 7pm under Crane 2. And her performance is entitled Crane 4 2. And it's going to also be a sound, light choreography dance performance with guitarist David Linton. And I was there for a little bit of a practice. So I'm very excited. If anyone likes like Glenn Baraka, do come down.
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A
Oh cool.
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D
Tom Kotek is going to do a site specific installation called Crossway at the Tree Grove right outside of the Ferry Terminal exit. Tom Frewen, who some of us might know his beautiful stained glass, well, Plexi water towers populate Brooklyn and he is. I'm very excited for his new sculpture which is called Stilt House and that will be in the the park area that's behind the ikea. Anastasios Paneros is creating Metamorphosis. And I just want to say that it's amazing that this work is going to be in the exhibition because he brought it out of the fire today. Actually there's been a little bit of pins and needles about this work. So very, very grateful that Anastasias can have his work in the exhibition. Dave Cortez has Yoke of Liberty. So if any is a fan of Planet of the Apes and the scene where the Statue of Liberty is going into the beach there, it's a little bit of a reference to that. And that's one to look out for at the park. Lavin Lou is gonna do a performance and Lavin is also the incredible graphic designer for our maps and our digital moving image invitations.
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A
Yeah, I want to ask Deborah. There's 40 artists that people can visit.
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E
Not just the sculpture garden.
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A
Who else can they see?
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B
They can see a whole variety of art and artisan creation. Everything from she Weld, which is run by Marcia Sue Trattner who does welding. There are furniture makers, atra, which does amazing furniture things. There are ceramics at Piscina, there's painting all over. I mean there's everything, every kind of artisanal creation. There's a Flickinger Glass Works which Does beautiful glass pieces. There is the Golden Anvil, which are these huge metal sculptures that were done by this elderly Italian guy who's probably been in Red Hook for centuries. There's visual. There's furniture design, there's painting. There's work and cut paper. There's everything, everything. And it's all really good quality. And I could go on and on because they're like 40 over 40 studios besides the folks at 481.
- [23:34]
E
And I wanted to bring in Megan into the conversation. There's going to be a place where artists who perhaps their studios are no longer. They can still see their work.
- [23:44]
C
Yes. So there's a space called the Swan Gallery. Swan Club. And shout out to Sean, who runs the Swan Club. He is building a yoga studio that's not going to be ready until November. So he said, I have this beautiful space and you guys should take advantage. And the Red Hook Business alliance has set this up. So thank you, Red Hook Business alliance. And Shawn. So many of the artists, a lot of us lost everything. But there are some pieces that people had in their homes or had sold to friends that were able to go into the space. And I actually helped curate it yesterday, which was really inspiring and fun, and it just was a day of normalcy after everything that we've gone through. But the Swan club is at 185 Van Dyke. And if you all are familiar with Steve's Key Lime Pie, we're just upstairs.
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E
Of course we are.
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D
Yes.
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C
It's just upstairs from stairs. Steve's Key Lime Pie, next to the Valentino Pier. But I also want to say whenever. Right after whenever we could first get into 481, a lot of us haven't been able to get into our studios yet. But the first space we were able to get into was bwac, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. And I went in because we had had a. We'd placed quite a few of our Red Hook open studio artists without studios in the neighborhood, in the space. So I came in to help get the work out. So I was one of the first ones in the building. And it was a crazy, crazy experience. Like we had to wear. To go in, you have to wear hazmat suits and goggles and respirators and gloves. And we saved so much work from BWAC that day. But another huge shout out to Lauren Fly, who is an art conservator that we're working with. All this work is going over to a storage unit that's in Red Hook, and Lauren is helping save the work and she's talking to artists about how to get the mold out of the work. This is the work that hasn't burnt, but this is the work that has sat in this horrible moldy conditions and has also, you know, just been soaked with water. It took two days to put the fire out. So a lot of the work has a lot. A lot of water damage. And thanks to Lauren, we're hoping to save more of the work.
- [25:51]
E
Fingers crossed.
- [25:52]
C
Yeah. So anyway, also quite a few of us who are in the Swan Club show have lost everything, including myself. So we're in a slideshow where you can see the work through slides.
- [26:04]
E
We've got a call in. This is Ruth calling in from the Upper west side. Hi, Ruth. Thanks for calling, all of it.
- [26:11]
H
Great to be here. So I'm a visual artist. I maintain a studio in my apartment on the Upper west side. And this situation just went straight to my heart. And I made a donation of financial donation. And I also saw that they were going to have an auction of donated paintings. And so I trudged my way. And there's no subway in Red Hook. It was quite extraordinary. It's about a half an hour bus ride from the closest subway. So it was quite an adventure.
- [26:52]
B
You can take the ferry.
- [26:57]
H
I'll look that up. So I plan to come this weekend to have a look at this group of other artists. There's 75 artists who was organized through the Red Hook Mutual Aid, and it apparently is going to be at the Andrew logan project at 352 Van Brunt street and dockeys at 354 Van Brunt street so it's a silent auction run by Red Hook Mutual Aid, and it says Better World, which is part of the URL to access the silent auction. And you'll see one of my pieces out there.
- [27:46]
E
Ruth, thank you so much for calling in. Is there anything I didn't ask you about either the Red Hook open studios about the fire that you think is important, that you want people to understand?
- [27:57]
C
I would like to say our biggest fear with this fire is us having to be dispersed outside of Red Hook because the community is huge. I mean, we already knew how much love we had, but with the fire, I mean, it's just. I keep saying the word overwhelming, but it's so overwhelming. And, yeah, we just. We want to figure out a way to stay. And maybe. I don't know if it's going to be in the building yet, but we just. The community has just. It's just such an incredible community. And so.
- [28:25]
A
And if people wanted more information a map about so they can plan their day Saturday or Sunday. Where should they go?
- [28:33]
B
They can go online to RedhookOpen Studios.com There'll be a digital map and they'll be printed maps available at Food Bazaar, which is one of our sponsors. And all over Red Hook, I have.
- [28:48]
A
Been speaking with Deborah Ugaritz, Megan Suttles, and Andrea Stanislav. They were all involved in organizing Red Hook Open Studios. It's Saturday and Sunday. You can find more info and ways to help artists@redhookopenstudios.com thank you for coming to the studio.
- [29:05]
C
Thank you so much for having Melissa.
- [29:07]
D
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