where is my tomato

Also two weeks ago, the Atlantic Avenue Artwalk was a great way to get outdoors in Brooklyn, indoors in galleries and studios, and just having a grand old time finding new artists.

Our first stop was The Moxie Spot, a restaurant hosting art by Caprice Freeman (we actually took the route backwards, it appears). She used spray paint for her work. I especially liked the metallic paint. It added so much more drama when contrasted with the darker colors.

This is a view of the Moxie Spot.

There was a canvas for people to help paint, propped up outside. I think these kids have got a natural flair, don’t you?

This is Aldo Pizzi, also one of my favorites of the day. His work uses lots and lots of layers of thin paint. It’s very expressive and beautiful … I also have to admire all the time it takes to layer things on like that. It’s only been one painting assignment in my illustration class, and my instructor, Joo Chung at SVA, already told me I need to be more patient. But anyway, Aldo said that he’ll usually draw something underneath just to get going, and he can never tell where it will go when he starts out. If you looked closely, you could see the red marks that he started with.

Adri standing by Aldo’s charcoal piece.

This was a beautiful public mural being painted by seven different artists.

And then we wandered into the Axelle Fine Arts Print Studio. Here, Liz admires the great wall of ink.

This lady got caught in my line of fire … but being in a print shop for the first time, I was in awe of the equipment.

Downstairs, it was the Cannonball Press, where they had beautiful large-scale prints, and this puzzling contraption. It was a game where everybody loses, and a man (I can’t remember if it was that man in the photo, or just … another man not in the photo) would have people pull the lever, push a button, and then take a large sheet of ‘money.’ When these ran out, he handed out wooden coins to one and all, including us.

Another favorite was Benjamin Boland, who studied architecture at Ohio State University. This piece in the window caught Liz, Adri and my eyes, seeing how we adore Milton Glaser, as well as typography created through real objects. Ben told us that he’d gathered these plastic utensils over six months, and he used it to make a pretty powerful statement about the city that we love.

You can see the influence of his architecture background in his other work, shown behind him here.

I forget which gallery this tinman one was in, but I enjoyed it.

Some artists whose work I enjoyed but didn’t get a chance to photograph include Sean Grandits (who unfortunately does not have a website), who made beautiful paintings layering color over very faint figures, and Eunnam Hong.

Eunnam did portraits using watercolor and ink, which were set up in a very interesting configuration. Here’s one of the portraits we saw, found on her website.

I also didn’t get a chance to photograph things in Oliver Jeffers and Mac Premo‘s studio, having been quite adequately tired out from the long day. But I did get a shot of this paintbrush stuck to the ceiling. I wish I’d asked about it. In any case, we were able to watch the animation of Oliver’s book ‘Lost and Found,’ which was just the most beautiful and heart-warming thing ever. At one point, Oliver was going about the studio singing along to the soundtrack (he must have seen it plenty). There will always be something about penguins that capture people’s hearts.

We didn’t get to everything, and weren’t able to return for the second day … but considering that, I think we covered a good amount of ground, and I’d recommend anyone who missed it to save time for next year’s Artwalk.