AUGUST ARRIVES & none too soon

Are we past the dog days of summer??

we can only hope that JULY took care of that...

I stayed in my cave like everyone else but did venture out for a few events in JULY:

Paul Kelly , Jackson Heights Playwright and Director, and crew (L to R: Andy, Cary, Jane, PK, Celeste) scheduled a shoot on his FERMENTED production,

early on July 17th - we began at 10 am and finished by 1:30 before the heat kicked in.

We even had a few clouds which helped reduce glare and shadows on the performers:

Rhett (l) & Joe (r)

ALTHOUGH their steamy dialogue made it even hotter outside!

More on the video when it gets near completion and hits the silver screen! and more about Rhett too! who has been featured on a new reality show that will premiere in JANUARY... fasten your seatbelts...

JULY 29th was the opening of a very sparkly and exciting art show at NOVO Bar & Lounge - works by Carla Lobmier, Eung Ho Park and Norma Markley were on display.

People enjoyed the food, drinks and razzle dazzle art.

Jackson Heights Folks that are still in the city came out to meet artists and neighbors. The show will be up until AUGUST 25th so stop by to see the intense & colorful artworks and enjoy the A.C. & a Mojito!! while you are there.

See you on the avenue,

Celeste

INSPIRING Community of ARTISTS & BUSINESS

WELL it is almost JULY in Jackson Heights and this has been an extraordinary exhibit along the avenue, showcasing community members who love painting, photography, pastels, sculpture and expressing themselves creatively and sharing their talent.

CLAUDIA SCHELLENBERG

is interested in both photography and pastels. Her love of the outdoors encompasses both plain air and indoor work. She continues to explore the medium through courses and workshops. As a self-taught recreational photographer, she has been shooting in earnest since the winter of 2006, when she set out on her first photo expedition to the Adirondacks.Claudia is a Boardmember of the Sierra Club Photo Committee and has a special interest in nature photography.

BERTINE LAFAYETTE has studied drawing and oil painting at the Art Students League in New York City

She is now working in her current love: watercolors. She enjoys painting various subjects especially landscapes and animals. She has been studying this medium at the Jackson Heights Art Club, at the Brookfield Crafts Center, and with Jairo Toro at the Latino Arts Council. She exhibits in different venues in Connecticut and some of her work may be found in private collections.

MARCUS WOOLLEN grew up in Seattle, Los Angeles, Belgium and New Hampshire and now lives in Jackson Heights, where you're likely to find him over at the new dog park. Marcus’ career as an actor has taken him across the United States three times, and throughout western Europe. Tours include 42nd Street, Zorba, Meet Me in St. Louis, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In New York, he has performed Moliere’s The Miser, Shaw’s Candida, Strindberg’s Dream Play, and Euripides’ Medea. He has appeared on HBO, MTV, and in several independent films and has created and produced a number of original plays. He currently is at a theatrical licensing agency, building websites and social network presence. He has enjoyed taking photos ever since he borrowed his father's old Spotmatic when he was 7 and has photographed some NYC locations recently that emphasis how colorful and magical the city can be.

Due to the groundbreaking partnerships of all the artists & store owners, 37th Avenue became more than a series of shops - it connected our unique restaurants and businesses to a larger audience and offered an opportunity for neighbors to display their creations and show the world that the arts are thriving in Jackson Heights.

JUNE 30th - Babel Art Exhibit at 86-08 37th Avenue,

curated by Hector Canonge

Closing Reception starting at 6pm

come celebrate what Councilmember Daniel Dromm and his culture & development liaison Andrew Ronan have instituted: the recognition of exceptional artists and savvy business owners working together to sustain our industrious neighborhood.

OPENINGS & CLOSINGS

37th AVENUE ART GALLERY

ending on SUNDAY JUNE 27

enjoy the art while you shop and eat and stroll and glance and eat and...

TINA SELIGMAN was spotted at La Portena getting food to go and her good friend

LAURA SCHIAVINA had lunch at Armondo's on Tuesday...

and they are both thrilled to be featured in their favorite restaurants!

Laura M. Schiavina has lived in Jackson Heights since 1951. Included in the Who’s Who of American Art, her award winning work has been collected and exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Islip Art Museum, NY; Sumner Museum, Washington D.C.; DuPont Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Citicorp Gallery, LIC; Eleftherias Park Art Center, Athens, Greece; National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, NY; New York City College of Technology, CUNY; and Ringel Gallery at Purdue University, IN. One of the first female members of the Salmagundi Club, Laura was chosen by Cynthia Maris Dantzic for her book “100 New York Painters,” published in 2006. She is member of N.A.W.A, National League of American Pen Women, National Art League, Jackson Heights Art Club, Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, and Audubon Artists. Laura came to New York in 1944 from Springfield, MA to become a fashion illustrator, completing evening courses at the Traphagen School of Fashion, while working in business. Deciding to continue in business, she studied fine art weekends, evenings and vacations from the late 1950's through 1980 with artists including Will Barnet, Carl Molno, Joseph Caine and Paul Puzinas.

Tina Seligman is a mixed media artist, curator, art educator, and writer, who has lived in Jackson Heights for 50 years. Her artwork is represented by Cheryl McGinnis Gallery in New York City, and has been exhibited and acquired by private, public and corporate collectors in Saratoga Springs, NY, Manhattan, Wellfleet, MA, and Queens. Tina has worked as a teaching artist-in-residence at Flushing Town Hall since 2000, facilitating multi-sensory workshops for adults and young people through CASA, Parents as Arts Partners and NYSCA grants. From 2001 through 2006, she contributed a regular column to Magazine.ART and to Art of the Times during 2005. Her poetry and illustrations have been published by several art and literary periodicals including Prehensile Pencil Publications (formerly The Feral Press), Art Times, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center website, Pudding Magazine, Prayers to Protest and Cicada Haiku Quarterly. After earning a B.A. in Art from Queens College, she has continued her education with several forms of music and dance classes, which often inspire her work. You can visit www.tinaseligman.com

A few blocks east at NOVO tables were filled with art and food and PEACH MARTINI lovers (we mentioned those before!) everyone was celebrating the OPENING of a new exhibit of works by Afzal Hossain and Greg Stowell. The combination of the dreamlike, colorful and anamorphic paintings with the edgy city realism of the black & white photographs really makes for a very dynamic show. Stop by for one of those MARTINIs you keep reading about...

Sparkle and Pizzazz

REMINDER NOVO TONIGHT 6-9 pm - cold drinks warm heart!

Two artists along 37th avenue

just brighten up a window!

Carla Lobmier & Norma Markley

and their exceptional art works are side by side at Ultima Florals and Jahn's on 81st Street

Carla evokes an influence of literature in her work; all pieces are titled and often contain words or are sometimes amended with short passages from literature. Poets are permitted the pursuit of the lyrical, the metaphor, the emotional connection. The very structure of a poem and what can be communicated in such a small form is surprising, yet graceful. Can images do the same?

The notion of surprise as part of visual pleasure stuck. In contrast, a resting of the mind - to invite contemplation - seems part of my visual equation. Reading + poetry + metaphor + Illinois landscape + shadowy interiors + living looking and asking questions = pictures critical of art without visual pleasure.

“It is the clash or intersection of sex and Americana that she paints with cut paper, draws with thread, embroiders on towels, or writes with the glow of neon tubing. Norma coaxes these incongruent elements until they sit well together, creating works that have been described as ‘thoughtful symbols of throwaway culture.’ ” Norma lives in Jackson Heights and works in her Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio. She graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art and was awarded an MFA in painting from Columbia University

what do art & peach martinis have in common?

Both are appearing at NOVO this week -

ask for the incredible "June in JH Restaurant Deal" with the peach martini ...

and come meet neighborhood artists:

Greg Stowell & Afzal Hossain

Opening Thursday June 24 from 6-9pm

NOVO - 37th ave between 78 & 79

Photography grabbed hold of Greg Stowell when he was a teenager, opening his eyes to the marvels to be found in the mundane, ordinary, everyday life. Much of the work he commenced to do exploited the potential offered by the aesthetic virtues of black & white images (and yes, he still uses film), allowing viewers to be readily transported to another place in our color world.

Neighborhood defining venues such as small businesses, coffee shops, and the like have been warmly enthusiastic hosts to his indirectly referential style of documentary photography. Through his work, they have enjoyed tantalizing allusions to their own immediate experience that readily draw them to places in their minds they have not regularly been.

Early years of life in the working class, bedroom community of Olathe, Kansas found Mr. Stowell was compelled to migrate to New York City, where today he is a resident of the borough of Jackson Heights, New York.

Afzal Hossain is a longtime resident of Jackson Heights and received his Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and worked as a designer at Robert A.M. Stern Architects.

He later founded BANG Architecture and Design, focusing on small architecture, art, furniture and graphic design projects.

Afzal and his wife Julie Nymann created a space for people to meet and express their art at Espresso 77, an artisanal coffee bar in Jackson Heights which hosts the Gallery 77 program, a series of exhibitions of work by local artists and provides a venue for acoustic performances.

Afzal works explores memory and emotion searching for a universal truth. Early work evoked the nostalgia for family and life in Bangaldesh. Recent works define his new life in New York, the fascination with the way the human condition is affected by natural and cultural forces. Afzal’s paintings offer reflections on being an immigrant, infused with personal history and inspired by new surroundings and possibilities.

KUDOS to Ali and Richard who joined me on SUNDAY (remember Sunday? hot and sticky Sunday?!) for the Walking Tour of 37th Avenue Art Gallery where we viewed the 20 works along the avenue of local artists

click GOOGLE MAP HERE for list of stores and artists

and check them out until JUNE 27

and we will feature the remainder of the artists here at Community Communicato too

Thank you! for a great show to all the businesses and artists in this unique and unusual gallery

See you on the Avenue!

MISSING ARTIST of the DAY FOUND!

LOST ARTIST:

Since the launch of the 37th Avenue Gallery - June 11 -AL TOMBA was listed at La Boina Restaurant at 77-05 37th Avenue (which has great deals for June in Jackson Heights restaurant week) and AL finally made his debut on June 21! -Long Story Short- there will be more of Al to come- in a new show in July! with other local artists.

Details to follow...

Al Tomba was a dedicated art teacher for many years in NYC High Schools - and taught with a passion for art that is evident in his renderings and paintings.. His artistic expression is influenced by his Italian ancestry and the work reflect an inner reflection rather than literal vision. stop by La Boina and see Al before SundayJune 27.

FOUND ARTIST:

WILLIAM SEIFERT is another 37th Avenue Artist who had a successful career as a graphic artist in advertising and design firms. He always love to create works on his own and has shown at a host of galleries throughout New York including The Tompkins Square Gallery and National Arts Club. William attended Pratt Institute - his painting in the show: "Let There Be Music" clearly reveals a designers eye for form, color and placement. Each instrument illustrated stands alone yet is also prominent as part of the group.

SEE THE JH Post Office PIANO painted by artist Alexa Gummifer Matula

& brought to you by the JHBG - visit all the photos and send one in!

Play Me I'm Yours website:

click here to visit Jackson Heights PIANO PHOTOS

+ + MAKE MUSIC NY Performance ARTISTS - JUNE 21st + +

Sunny Knable Band @Espresso 77 -

ONCE AGAIN @ P.O. -

Patty, JHBG Pres. Ed, John,Tom

see you on the avenue-

I LOVE A PIANO!! plus film, art & food of course

ARTIST of the Day: Matt Pych

Matt is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in New York City. He was born the youngest of four children and was raised in northern Connecticut where he was surrounded by strip malls, parking lots, and tobacco fields. He was fortunate in his youth to have the opportunity to take classes from a local sculptor, Barbara Scavotto-Earley, where he was exposed to a diverse range of

artists and approaches to creating art.

During this period, Matt Pych received several awards including the top prize for his portfolio from the Connecticut Scholastic Art Awards as well as early admittance to his first choice in art schools, Pratt Institute.

As promised, Jackson Heights did receive the "PLAY ME I'M YOURS" piano - located in front of the post office on 37th Ave between 78th and 79th Street.

The official premiere of this community musical project will be MONDAY JUNE 21 at 4pm- with musical performances planned through July 6.

At the busy JH Post Office on sunny Saturday were

dedicated community members and Councilmember Daniel Dromm urging democrats to sign the petitions for the democratic slate for this year's upcoming elections and to let neighbors know about

www.juneinjacksonheights.com RESTAURANT WEEK DEALS! june 20-june 26

Don & Katha Cato were there too with the

QUEENS WORLD FILM FESTIVAL launch with Danny Dromm...

Caryn Gerega was nice and cool under the trees at PS69 across the street with her beautiful watercolors...The Jackson Heights Art Club just released their Children's Art Camp

schedule-info 718-426-9821