This is the piece that the Salmagundi Club selected to include in their most recent open exhibition.
It was a great honor to have my work on display at this venerable institution, which happens to be a mere long block from home on Fifth Avenue. This exhibit on Cityscapes was mostly a love affair to New York, although there were also a few caresses of Venice and Paris. It was a passionate show, illustrating why we all love New York so much.
In addition to the physical exhibit, the Salmagundi Club lists my work on Artsy. Of course, if you are interested in purchasing this picture, you can also reach out to me directly.
The thing I missed the most during the pandemic was live jazz. From that fateful day in March 2020 when New York City shut down, until May 2021, when the city tentatively began to reopen, no jazz clubs could have live audiences.
Smalls on West 10th Street already had a solid tradition of streaming live jazz around the world since 2007, so they were able to keep this going during most of the pandemic. They shut down on March 16, 2020, but resumed streaming live jazz on June 1, 2020. This was a tremendous gift to homebound jazz fans around the world, but it’s not the same as the magic of being in the room.
Fast forward through a dreary year to June 2021. When I heard that Smalls was open again, my heart raced with joyful excitement. I rushed to buy tickets, and was delighted that one of my favorite jazz artists, Wayne Escoffery, was playing on June 4, a Friday night. I texted my friend Tess, and she was instantly on board the jazz train with me.
It was a thrill descending the familiar carpeted staircase with the 90-degree turn at the bottom. Even before the show began, there was ecstasy in the room. The rows of chairs had been spaced out a bit, with small tables for each pair. (Room capacity was still reduced at that point.) Everyone in the room was vaccinated.
Introduction. Applause. The first saxophone note piercing the air. No worries, just the joy of giving and receiving, playing, listening, grooving. Magic! The band was ecstatic, the audience was ecstatic, and a love affair happened down in that jazz-steeped basement room.
Playbill
WAYNE ESCOFFERY QUARTET
DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM
SMALLS
06/04/2021
Wayne Escoffery / Tenor Sax
Dave Kikoski / Piano
Ugonna Okegwo / Bass
Mark Whitfield Jr / Drums
I am so excited to have my artwork exhibited again at the Salmagundi Club. The theme of the exhibit is Cityscapes.
Stop by the exhibit from June 6 to June 24, 1 to 6 PM (5 PM on the weekend). The Club is at 47 Fifth Avenue at West 12th Street.
Bikes on MacDougal Street by Karen Rempel.
I submitted four pieces, and one was chosen for the Cityscapes exhibition. Here are the other three. I want to save the chosen entry as a surprise for you to see when you visit the gallery, so I’ll put the selected artwork up after the exhibit closes.
Hanging art by Shradha Kochhar, hand spun from Kala Cotton, a miracle crop native to India that sustains completely on seasonal rainfall.
I was strolling through the West Village on a sunny Sunday when I happened to go by Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Center on Greenwich Street. There was a sign outside the exhibit space next to the store that said “Exhibit closes today.” Of course that made me want to go in!
The exhibit was called Emerging Fibers, and showcased the Parsons School of DesignMFA Textiles 2021 Graduate Exhibit. One of the artists, Shradha Kochhar, gave me a tour of the exhibit and described the methods and meaning of the textile artworks. I was incredibly impressed with the complex, intricate, beautiful work. Many of the pieces expressed the inextricability of the personal, familial, and political.
Uyen Tran’s “Mother Shield”
This dress is made from a sustainable material called TômTex. It’s a biobased material made from mushroom or seashell waste and coffee grounds. Designer Uyen Tran aims to establish a complete system of viable, biodegradable materials with zero waste and zero pollution. I would definitely wear this dress!
Hongci Hu created this underwater world from a collection of biomimetic E-textile artworks. She says these soft-robotic-individuals are chatter of conscious thoughts, raising awareness of how beautiful nature is and what we can learn from it. Certainly her crocheted creatures delight and inspire the desire to protect our underwater landscapes. See Hongci Hu’s playlist for more about her work.
I was delighted by the creative outpouring of these fresh, hopeful souls who came to New York to develop their capacities to offer their gifts and vision to the world. Kudos to all of the graduates.
Slick Rick in green eyepatch and monster rapper medallion at Orchard Beach, the Bronx, August 2021. It’s time for Hip Hop in NYC.
I think of myself as a latecomer to rap and hip hop, but last September New York Magazine printed “The City and the Beats: 100 songs that tell the story of New York rap.” It took me a few months but I listened to all 100 songs. I was sorry when I got to the end of the list. Hip hop had become part of my soul.
The Wu Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) and Slick Rick’s licks were a couple of my faves on the list that I dial up again and again. Slick Rick’s Children’s Story (1989) and La Di Da Di* (1985) just caught my fancy and I loved this London-born nasal-toned pirate with the biggest bling necklace on the planet.
Here were my other 10 top faves from the list of 100. Click this KQS NYC Beats playlist if you need a lift to your spirits and dance like it’s 1989.
M.O.P. – Ante Up (Robbin Hoodz Theory) – 2000 Broolyn armed
Run-DMC – It’s Tricky – 1987 love it! Obviously a big influence as evidenced by many** who came after.
Salt-N-Pepa – Push It – 1987 this was a cross-over hit that I saw on Much Music in Canada. The dancing, the balls, the rapaciousness. Like I wish you would! And I have to add Shoop – even hotter, and filmed at Coney Island.
Beastie Boys – No Sleep Till Brooklyn – 1986 big surprise for me – I thought they were white wannabies, but they can rap, finishing each other’s lines with a metal backbeat. This one is obviously an homage to Motörhead’s No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith, and Slayer’s Kerry King is guesting on guitar.
Big surprise, most are from the 80s, when I was a metal head. But I guess it’s the era we come up in that creates the music that stirs our soul.
** I still have the 45 of Funky Cold Medina (1989, Tone Loc), which I used to bring to the biker bar in New Westminster, Rockin’ Tonight, and force the DJ to play 5 nights a week!
I felt sadness and a profound sense of loss that a precious piece of New York is slipping away when I learned that the iconic rink at Rockefeller Center is scheduled for demolition in January 2021. It is classic New York sensory overload to skate here, with the magnificent Christmas tree shining rainbow colors above, and golden Prometheus forever falling to the ice at rinkside. Colored lights flash and bathe the ice in pink and blue, and sometimes the music from the Saks Christmas display across Fifth Avenue is so loud it drowns out the music at the rink, which seems to range between Christmas classics and funk.
When I read the news, I immediately went online and bought a ticket to skate at 6 PM every Saturday from November 21 to January 16. The first Saturday, the splendid 75-foot tall Christmas tree (which weighs 11 tons!) was in place, but not strung with lights. I went downstairs to the skating area right at 6 PM, pasted a yellow sticker from the ticket taker on my right leg, and rushed towards the rink. I was enchanted to see two angelic ice dancers in white costumes with fairy lights walking down the hallway to the dressing room ahead of me. I found a locker, put on my skates, and rushed onto the ice. The ice dancers were already out there, filming a video. They spun and twirled and swooped in the center of the rink for the entire time I was on the ice, which seemed to last only 20 minutes.
It was my first time on skates in a couple years, so it took the full 20 minutes just to warm up and feel less wobbly in the ankles, but still I soared past all the other skaters on the rink. I kept telling anyone who would listen, “I’m Canadian!” to explain my superior performance, possession of my own skates, and knowledge of ice grooming. The ice was a choppy mess, in fact. But I loved the feeling of gliding and tentatively trying out a few of my skating chops—switch to backwards skating for a few seconds, try a twirl in a quiet corner. And secretly wished I could skate like the ice dancers.
Because of Covid, the ice was socially distanced, meaning less crowded than usual, but it was still at the maximum allowed, filled with couples holding hands and trying to keep each other vertical, kids falling and skating in the wrong direction, and packs of people taking each other’s picture and blocking the flow.
Unfortunately, my mind kept finding fault with every little thing for the entire 20 minutes until I was told people wearing the yellow sticker had to get off the ice. Then the problem was that my miserable time had been cut short!
I went over to the skate rental return counter with my litany of complaints. I didn’t have any skates to return, having brought my own (because I’m a Canadian). But I complained about the quality of the ice and the short session, which was supposed to be an hour from beginning to end. After lodging my comments with the skate rental attendant, I waited for a manager, and then repeated the litany. The manager asked to see my yellow sticker, and my ticket, and went to investigate. It was the first day of rink operations, and the manager–let’s call him Tim, since that’s his real name–determined that an error had been made in the color of sticker I was issued. I should have received a blue sticker, not a yellow one. He said I could go back on the ice, but by now I had changed out of my skates. He said they were still working out the system but that next week would be better.
Then we turned to the matter of the ice. “The ice was a mess!” I said. “We cut it every few hours,” Tim said, clearly not realizing that this was completely inadequate. “I’m a Canadian!” I said. “I’m used to better ice.” He appeared to be quite sympathetic to my plight. I obviously knew what I was talking about, since I was a Canadian, and besides, I’d purchased eight tickets in advance.
He gave me the general manager Kristen’s business card, and said to email her on Monday. Which I did. I didn’t mention the fact that I was a Canadian, but my expertise in ice matters must have been convincing; by end of day she had changed my remaining tickets to the 7 PM session, immediately after the ice cleaning, which for some reason they call cutting here. That’s quite a stretch, considering the puddles of water everywhere on the rink. Their ice is not exactly cuttable!
The next Saturday, I knew the drill. I was first in line to go downstairs to the rink. Since I was the only one who brought my own skates (quite probably the only Canadian) I changed into my skates in a flash and was the first on the rink!!! For five minutes I had the rink to myself! I couldn’t believe it. The lights were on the tree, casting a magical glow. There were hordes socially distanced above on 49th Street, waiting for their timed visit to look at the tree. And here I was, circling round and round, the rink and the tree all to myself. I wept at my good fortune and craftiness. Finally I could relax. I had controlled the universe. And when others started to trickle and totter onto the ice, I smiled with fond benevolence. I was the ruler of the rink!
Check out my new video, “Crappy Skaters”!
P.S. They use an inferior ice cleaning machine called “Olympia,” perhaps in deference to Prometheus’s family. Every Canadian knows that Zambonis are the ice machines of the gods.
A seldom viewed deer-populated forest outside the dressing room
This month, I have been honored again to have my artwork accepted in an open exhibition at the Salmagundi Club. Last year, the photograph “Summer Piano in Washington Square Park” was part of a Village-themed exhibition co-sponsored by Village Preservation. I took the photo on my second trip to New York, in 2015, while I was having a mad crush on the city. The moment when I took the photo was also the birth of my Another New York Love Affair video art project on YouTube. The series is up to 53 videos now!
Karen Rempel, Tailor, 10″ x 10″ Framed
I took the photo currently on exhibit, “Tailor,” in May 2020, the day after the first major protests in New York in response to George Floyd’s murder. I was photographing the aftermath of the protests—burned police vehicles, graffiti, and broken windows—when I came across this whimsical display in the window of a Wash and Fold on University Place. My heart was pierced watching small business owners patch up their shattered storefronts. This miniature sculpture arrangement expressed a simpler, fairy-tale time, when mice came out at night to help the cobbler finish his work.
As I mentioned in my last post, I took a gallery walk on Madison Avenue in October. The Castelli Gallery had three Joseph Cornell paintings on display. A man working at the gallery showed me the backs of the artworks. Cornell had put art and found objects on the back of each frame. I was delighted at this secret treasure, which eludes all but the most curious viewers. This inspired me to do the same for my modest photo.
I haven’t done collage before, but I began collecting bits and pieces. The date for bringing my photo to the Salmagundi Club fell in the middle of my staycation weekend at the National Arts Club, so I brought the pieces with me, as well as all the supplies I thought I might need. The morning of November 7 dawned bright, and my room overlooked many windows of other creative New Yorkers who live across from Gramercy Park. I imagined each building was packed with artists and sculptors, and I was steeped in creative inspiration. After making coffee and checking on the New York Times election map (no decision yet), I brought out the makings and spread everything on the kitchen table.
The first piece was a beautiful watercolor painting of a pink and yellow-toned forest, from a chocolate wrapper my friend Lew gave me on my birthday. I had some “outtake” prints of my photo, from testing different types of paper, so I cut out a few bits from the photo—the sewing machine, the tape measures, and the woman doll’s head (with my own distorted reflection dimly seen). I had a postcard from my friend Sally’s recent birthday dinner at the Gramercy Tavern, and a wonderful zebra in a gold party hat cut from the birthday card my cousin Julie sent me from Germany.
I often think of the New York artists from the ’60s (Warhol, Rauchenberg, Stella, Lichtenstein, et al) when I slip on the shoes of artist, wondering how they felt as they prepared their art for exhibit, attending to the details of framing, wiring, and packing. I imagine my methodology is more feminine. I wrapped my 14 pieces for Shadow Play in pillow cases. Now here I was using birthday cards with a decidely pink tinge in my Cornell-inspired collage.
As I placed the pieces, trying different compositions, I needed a few more bits to fill it out. I turned to the copy of The Week laying on the table, and cut out the delightful squirrel dining at a mini picnic table. Suddenly I heard cheering, car horns honking, and bells ringing. I checked the NYT graphic on my phone, and Biden had surpassed 270 electoral college votes! Mad joy and euphoria spilled out around me, through me, and in texts with my cousin Julie in Germany and my sister Kim in Canada. New York was alive with celebration, and so were cities around the country. Half the world exhaled a profound sigh of relief. (The rub is in the other half, but let’s not dwell on that today.)
The cover of The Week had a signpost, with one pointing towards the current fake president, and the other pointing towards Biden. I cut out the sun shining through the clouds from the cover, and this was the last piece of the puzzle. I made a few final embellishments in silver ink, and one more mystery addition on the upper left corner of the frame. Ta da!
I love these moments of slipping into two dimensions and living an artist’s life. Then it’s back to the third dimension, lunch at Kubeh celebrating with friends, New York City alive again, for one brief day. Which is more real?
If you’re in New York, come to the Salmagundi Club and see the exhibit, November 10 to November 20.
Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street. Open Tuesday-Friday 1-6 PM, Weekends 1-5 PM.
Some people think the cultural life in New York is over, because of the bans on live performances and movies. This is far from true. Galleries are open, from Whitney to the Met, and on a sunny, crisp October Saturday I had the extreme pleasure of going on the Madison Avenue Gallery Walk with my friend and neighbor Carol.
Our final stop was the Leila Heller Gallery. The works on display by the multi-talented Mia Fonssagrives were fun (robots!) and pleasant, especially a luminous translucent blue sculpture. But the treasure of the day was completely unexpected. I commented on a striking sculpture of elongated, twisted metal that was on the counter—part of their permanent collection—and the gallery manager, Alena Marajh, asked if I’d like to see another work by the sculptor. She led me into the back garden, where I was stricken by a majestic, alien being that seems to have descended from outer space.
Who would have suspected this beautiful alien visitor was living in a garden behind this tucked away gallery on East 76th Street? I am haunted by this beckoning into an unseen, magical world.
Like millions of others around the world, I was deeply saddened when I learned that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18. I admire many things about her, from her fitness regimen to her incalculable contribution to equality for all people in the United States. My physiotherapist has her fitness book in the waiting area, and I had a little tin of RBG “judgemints” on my desk for a couple of years. I can’t find it now.
The morning after Ruth died, I found a strange sight in my livingroom. I keep my Judge badge from the 2019 Mermaid Parade with a collection of other little mementos on the window sill. Suddenly, the card was upside-down. I took it as a personal message from Ruth to me, but I don’t know what it means yet. Perhaps simply an honoring of her passing.
In the Tarot deck, the justice card reversed means: Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity. This could be a portent of what’s to come, with the immediate, hypocritcal nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. I definitely felt a call to action, and wrote an article for my local paper giving people information on how to vote.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg shrine at the foot of Alma Mater statue, in front of Columbia University Library
On a cool evening, Sunday, September 20, I went up to Columbia University to see her shrine, which mourners had created in an impromptu fashion in front of the Alma Mater statue at the Library of Columbia University.
Alma Mater “nourishing mother” bronze sculpture by Daniel Chester French, installed in September 1903.
I lit a candle in her memory, and spent a few minutes wishing her peace on her spirit journey, and feeling gratitude for all she has done in her lifetime. There were students sprinkled here and there on the steps, and I envied them the chance to be starting out in life, with the tremedous opportunities that studying at Columbia will bring them. The campus is wide, open, and beautiful, with lovely architecture, and I felt inspired to study there myself! A woman walking her dog came up to the shrine, and told me it had grown a lot since the night before.
To the left (out of frame) were more yellow legal pads with messages on them. May the young folks who left these gifts be a flotilla of guiding lights in the world.
The flags on campus were flying at half-mast in RBG’s honor, and as you probably heard on the news, Justice Ginsburg received two honors that no other woman has: “She became the first woman to lie in repose at the Supreme Court Building on September 23 and, the following day, became the first justice to lie in repose for a second day. On September 25, she lay in state at the Capitol, becoming the first woman and first Jewish person to do so.” (Wikipedia)
On my way home I encountered a festive scene: people dining in bubbles at Cafe Du Soleil on Broadway! Humanity is endlessly inventive in finding ways to thrive and flourish and enjoy life.
There are two fascinating films about RBG, which I watched on Hulu:
RBG – documentary about her life and contributions.
They are both excellent films, inspiring and celebratory of a great life and humble woman who kept following the path of her own inner vision. I loved seeing her mischievous spirit at play and learning how she got the nickname the Notorious RBG, after the fellow Brooklynite rapper the Notorious B.I.G.
