BWAC's Hot! Art Show

Self-Portrait by Gary Heller

There’s an art show at Brooklyn’s Red Hook Pier that runs from July 26 to August 17, and it’s amazingly . . . well . . . hot! Sponsored by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, the exhibition embraces so many genres, from photography, watercolor, acrylics, sculpture, mobiles, ceramic, clay, mixed media and more.

Two fellow members of ACN, Artists Conference Network, had work showing:

Rhea Kirstein is a watercolorist whose purples, blues and greens are at once dreamy and exotic.

Karen Eve Friendland (KarenFriedland.com) works in oils and acrylics. Her bold colors and strokes of movement are energizing and often fun.

Speaking of fun, I had a fun moment when I walked in and saw a face that I knew. And she knew mine. We both tried to remember from where. It turns out that we worked in the same building on Hudson Street and were “members of the smoking community” that clustered near the building during breaks. Nina Brewton is a Polynesian and Middle Eastern dancer (unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of her), and she introduced me to her friend, photographer Gary Heller.



I was immediately drawn to Gary’s black-and-white self-portrait (top of post). I don’t pretend to be an art critic; I can only say that I felt something like a physical pull to the kind of moody, pensive mood that the photograph arouses.

From Gary’s web site (GaryHellerPhotography.com): “A fellow photographer and friend has used the term ‘pleasantly strange’. That description sums it up best for him [Gary] as he strives for strange, yet pleasing compositions.” Thanks, Gary, for being so generous with your tips on shooting the moon and your directions home.

One of the show’s featured artists is Judith Eloise Hooper (Judith.Hooper.BrooklynArtist.com), whose media are ceramics, collage and works on paper. The power of printed word combined with clay. The clay pieces depict American Sign Language; however, as the artist explained, it is not a word-for-word translation.


Judith’s other exhibited works are ceramic landscapes.
She was being interview and and videotaped, so there was the extra treat of hearing the artist talk about her work and herself. Most of us have ideas about how we want our work to be viewed, heard or read. Judith Hooper’s desire? She wants everyone, as her mission statement says, “to be able to look at landscapes, whether farmland or cracks in the sidewalk, not as the earth's crust but as a delicate skin embracing the earth. My landscapes are a reminder of our world as something living and breathing and as something that produces life and the natural beauty in that life, whether it's planned and planted or simply forces its way to the surface.”

Thanks Rhea, Karen, Gary and Judith, for the eye feast!