“Chance Meeting” by Linda Hesh, Art in Odd Places 2010 artist, wins award from the "Americans for the Arts Public Art Network "

One of the projects featured at last year's Art in Odd Places 2010  was a winner of the  Public Art Network (PAN) awards. Since its inception in 2000, the Public Art Network (PAN) Year in Review program "continually recognizes outstanding public art projects through an open call submission and juror selection process." For its 2011 "Year in Review", the organization selected Linda Hesh as one of the recipients of the award for her work called "Chance Meeting" that appeared in our 2010 festival exploring the theme of 'chance'. Linda's interactive public intervention was selected in the category of Community Engagement and Social Activism by this year's jurors, Gail Goldman, Kendal Henry and Richard Turner, and announced at the Americans for the Arts Convention recently in San Diego. A record number of 430 submissions were received and 47 final projects were selected.

According to the description by the curators: "In recent decades, members of the community have been increasing encouraged to participate in the creation of the artwork itself. They sometimes become the artwork. The recent evolution of this trend has seen a number of pieces that go beyond celebration of community values to critique of environment or societal problems. A number of this year's entries have been artworks used as vehicles for inspiring community activism. In doing so, they have challenged conventional notions of art, intentionally confusing the distinctions between permanent and temporary, audience and performer, formal qualities and function."

The AiOP team is very proud and honored to have Linda  representing Art in Odd Places. 

Linda Hesh (Photo provided by the artist)

Linda was kind enough to share what she wrote to PAN:

“Chance Meeting Doorknob Hangers” is a temporary public art installation created for the Art In Odd Places exhibit that took place October 1-10 in New York, NY. White paper doorknob hangers, the type that advertisers use, were hung along all of 14^th Street from 10^th Ave. to Avenue C. They were printed in bold black type with eight different statements that capture a chance encounter: Is it really you?- It's been a long time - I was just thinking of you - How have you been? - What's new with you? - It's great to see you - Give me a call - Let's meet again soon. 

Photo provided by Linda Hesh

Imagine purposely walking down the city street, destination in mind, distractions on the brain. Suddenly a message appears on a door, seemingly speaking to you. This project is innovative in the unexpected location of a doorknob. Public art is usually in a park, raised up on a dais, not in a pedestrian doorway. 

It's also on a more personal scale than most public art, promoting a private moment between artist and viewer. Each hanger is small, but when the whole street is installed, the work exists across the width of Manhattan. It takes 500 hangers to cover both sides of the length of 14^th. For Art in Odd Places, a total of approximately 2000 were installed.

I know this work was successful because I saw pedestrian's reactions. And the day after an installation, all but 2 or 3 of the 500 would be left, finding new homes with happy viewers. They created a moment of desire and then a satisfying realization that one could simply take the piece home.  This project is temporary in the amount of time it spends outdoors, but lasting in the private experience it gives.    

Congratulations again, Linda!  We hope to hear more great things from you. 

Read more about Linda Hesh and her experience during the 2010 AiOP Festival. You can also visit her website (http://www.lindahesh.com/) to get to know her better. 

Find more about the rest of the Public Art Network "Year in Review" honorees here.

Andrew Tosiello's matchbook tickets can go up and down. Buy them during the Art in Odd Places Festival and win big

Can you believe the Art in Odd Places Festival is just a few days away? We hope to see you during the Opening Event @ Theater Lab this Friday. If you haven't RSVPd, now is your chance to do it:

http://tinyurl.com/aiop-opening

To keep the excitement going, we are featuring another artist appearing on 14th street  come October. On a previous entry, we mentioned about "bartering" through the works of Heather Hart. This time,  2010 AiOP artists Andrew Tosiello, is encouraging everyone to GAMBLE. With his project called "The Numbers Racket", Andrew will be selling match books tickets at various businesses on 14th Street. What is fascinating about this project is the method of determining the winning number: a formula from the stock prices report. Stock Prices?? Where do you even begin to wrap your head around the idea? You now ask what does the winner get? Well, I encourage you to check the Art in Odd Places website, take a chance and play the game. Andrew's work is definitely not your grade school raffle drawing.

Andrew Tosiello

Aiop:  Tell us about you
AT:  I live in work in San Francisco, CA. My work employs the images, history and tactics of the Italian-American Mafia to consider the work of art. I also work in the trucking industry.
  
Aiop: How did you hear about Art in Odd Places?
AT:  Curator Petrushka Bazin and I both attended the California College of the Arts and she had participated in an earlier version of my numbers racket project.

Aiop:  What made you decide to submit a proposal for the Festival?
AT:  The location and theme of the festival seemed tailor-made for this project.

Aiop: How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October?
AT:  I'm basically all set for the project. Now I just need to get to New York.

Aiop: What's your favorite spot on 14th street?
AT:  I can't really recall any places on 14th Street from previous visits, but I'm sure I'll find a favorite during the festival.

Aiop: Do you have a hidden talent you would like to share?
AT:  No.

Aiop: Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival?
AT:  Players Win and Winners Play.

Just as he said, Winners are players!  Check the website and the Art in Odd Places twitter feed (@ArtinOddPlaces) to find his performance dates and  location.

Maya Seuss is your Lady Luck

Are you feeling a little lucky lately? Things will  just better once you meet our next Art in Odd Places artist. Recently mentioned in the  New York Post as one of the artist to look out for during the festival. Maya Seuss promised to bestow luck to 14th Street  pedestrian. She claims not to be related to Dr. Seuss, but definitely shares a penchant for storytelling.  This is definitely one artist you don't want to miss this coming October.

As luck would have it, Lady Luck herself caught up with us to answer a few of our questions 

Aiop: Tell us about Maya Seuss


Photo courtesy of Maya Seuss


MS: I’m a performance artist, and I consider myself that even when I make drawings. My drawings have personality, and use the human body and theatrical narrative as a central point. I work a lot with songs, of which the lyrics are a large part. Similarly, language in the form of a title adds a lot to the content of my drawings. Humor is important to my work; I think it’s important that we humans don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Though I’ve only lived in New York for four years, I’ve always said that New York City is a huge part of my personal Mythology; and it is! My family on my father’s side is now onto five generations of New Yorkers, but my genealogical limb interwove with some Canadiana and I was born on a small island off the west coast of Canada. My father is a professional storyteller and I was his first audience; in this way my personal history, both fictional and non, became spiced with New York flavor. I like to think my personality is a balanced blend of New York energetic hustler and west coast Canadian mellow mystic.


Aiop:  How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October?
MS: I’m working on a series of pieces (video, drawings and performances) that explore the occult: magical forces of the un-seeable. Lady Luck fits into this series as a playful way to invite the possibility of magic into the public sphere. In preparation for Lady Luck I am consulting “experts” –people who work with unseen forces- to determine the most effective way to impart “luck” onto willing recipients. I am also developing our costumes and sourcing Lucky Ladies. It’s coming together, and on October 2nd our team of Ladies will be equipped with the necessary skills and uniforms to effectively offer Luck on 14th Street.

Photo courtesy of Maya Seuss

Aiop: What's your favorite spot on 14th street?
MS: I think my favorite thing on 14th Street may be the big neon sign for Psychic Readings by Donna between 7th and 8th Avenues. I haven’t been inside psychic Donna’s den, but that neon sign definitely leaves one wondering what mysteries lie inside.


Aiop:  Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival?
MS: A message to people who will be perusing, dashing, meandering and trotting: every one knows that New York has magic in the air. During the month of October (at least) remember to grab some of it.


Aiop:  What's your lucky number?
MS: My lucky number is 222. It’s for egocentric reasons, I was born on February 22nd. And I celebrated my 22nd birthday on the 22nd day of the 2nd month on the year 2000. I come from parents who are mystical believers, and my dad thought that having a daughter born on 222 was just the bee’s knees. Also, my younger sister was born on 111: November 1st.

Aiop:  Write a fortune that would appear in a fortune cookie. (To be tweeted to all of our followers during the festival) 
MS: “You will pass yourself in another dimension today, make sure not to meet your own eyes or bad luck with befall you.”

Aiop: What's the strangest encounter that you've had as pedestrian living in New York? 
MS: My strangest encounter in New York, though I’ve had many wild and wonderful ones, was actually with a mouse. I was walking along 23rd street and out of the corner of my eye I notices something blow in front of my feet. I stopped and looked down. There sitting at my toes, looking straight up at me was a tiny brown mouse. We stared into each other’s eyes for perhaps a minute before it scuttled away. Though I’m sure my sense of time was off, it was definitely a significant amount to engage in a staring contest with a mouse.


Don't forget to visit her website, http://www.mayaseuss.com/ to know more about her work. You can also find out when and where she will bestow luck during the festival by visiting the Art in Odd Places website

Volunteer opportunity for Art in Odd Places!!!!

We are looking for the great people to help us out during the festival. Is that you?

If interested, send an email to artinoddplaces@gmail.com with heading "Volunteer for Aiop 2010"

Read details below

A frARTernity of artists: BroLab Collective - Art in Odd Places 2010

The Art in Odd Places team is in full swing gearing up for the upcoming festival. We are thrilled to have such great artists this year to present their work on Manhattan's 14th street. Excited to know who are artists included this year? Well, check in with the AiOP blog since we will be featuring all of them.

To kick things off, we have a group composed of Rahul Alexander , Robert Amesbury , Jonathan Brand , Adam Brent, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Ken Madore, Ryan Roa, collectively known as "BroLab". Each of them hail from a different background joined together by camaraderie and their passion for art. They are definitely an interesting group, emphasizing the need to grow both as a group and individual artists. One might say the name "BroLab" invokes a sense of "frattiness". But here in Art in Odd Places, we celebrate their commitment to become a brotherhood of artists in a much a higher degree with a word that fully encompasses who they are: A "frARTernity". And that, ladies and gentlemen, is something you don't see everyday in college.

Let's proceed on getting to know them better, shall we

(From Left to Right) Ryan Roa, Jonathan Brand, Ken Madore, Adam Brent, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Rahul Alexander

Aiop: What is Brolab?

BC: BroLab started from our semester in the AIM Program. We liked each other and the work we were doing and we thought why not continue meeting after the program is over. Essentially, BroLab is a bunch of like-minded artists who like to share ideas,have studio visits, drink, and make art. In one way it is an outlet- a way to diversify our individual work and work collaboratively. It is also great fun and we want to continue to grow our collective.

Ryan Roa One on One, 2008

Jonathan Brand Battle Axe, 2007

Travis LeRoy Southworth
The Growing Metaphysical Void at the Center of My Bedroom Ceiling 2010

Aiop: So what's with the name?

BC: long story short is that we were having a bit of fun with "colab". We had a speaker or two in AIM that leaned heavily on references to "Colab" noting the DYI art market we are heading towards that is similar to the 80's. I think it was after a studio visit with some of the guys, we were at the Sycamore Bar in Ditmas Park, that we said lets start a collective and lets call it "BroLab" given that we are all guys. The capital L came later to add a little panache.

Adam Brent I’m OK with it 2010

Aiop: How did you hear about Art in Odd Places?

BC: We heard about it through a fellow artist Christy Speakman who participated in it last year.

Aiop: What made you decide to submit a proposal for the Festival?
BC: We were searching for a venue to pitch an inaugural project when we ran into AiOP’s call for proposals for works along 14th Street. The 2.3 mile span, centralized location, and AiOP framework seemed like an ideal opportunity to explore some of our potential ideas and put them into action.

Aiop: How is the preparation coming along for your piece this October?
BC: We are rolling along and have for the most part finished our yokes and taken some practice runs. We have been joking around that we should probably get in shape given that our performance includes one 24 hr bucket relay from river to river. We have come to discover that water is heavy. We still have to get volunteers and solve some water access issues.

Aiop: What's your favorite spot on 14th street
BC: To the far east and to the far west, where it is always wet.

Aiop: Do you have a hidden talent you would like to share?
Sure, we can form 6-man pyramid.

Aiop: Any message to the people who will be in 14th street during the festival? BC: Come check out our performance, for more info visit http://inthenameofbrolab.org/ or follow us at http://twitter.com/brolab.

Thank you, BroLab. The possibility of the 6 man pyramid is another reason why you have to be on the lookout for this group this October.

A video of Art in Odd Places 2010: Sideshow

Once upon a time, the circus freaks decided to infiltrate New York City's 14th Street to kick off Art in Odd Places' festival. It happened on June 22, 2010 at TheaterLab. A video managed to surface documenting the craziness. Video credit goes to Alex Gaylon.

Watch and be mesmerized