Beauty Under the Street


This morning I got my second vaccine shot and to celebrate I took myself on an Artist's Date.  Not to a museum, but to the Subway. You may remember that I've written about several of our loveliest subway stations and everyone has told me that I MUST see the Delancey Essex Station. So I made a pilgrimage. At first I saw nothing- you have to go two levels down, to the F and M Platform. There's a lot of stair climbing so I got a workout as well.

 Here's the first thing I saw.  

                                                                               


                                              Glass mosaics  by MING FAY

Ming Fay is a Shanghai-born and New York City-based sculptor and professor. His work focuses on the concept of the garden as a symbol of utopia and the relationship between man and nature.


He extensively researched the neighborhood's history, and created watercolor sketches that were transformed into glass mosaic murals by craftsmen.


 On the Manhattan-bound platform Shad Crossing celebrates the return of the once abundant fish to New York and water as a metaphor for "crossing."





On the Brooklyn-bound side is Delancey Orchard, inspired by the prominent DeLancey family's eighteenth century farm, which stretched from the East River to the Hudson River. The farm's cherry orchard grew where Orchard Street now stands.





These pictures don't capture the scale and awesomeness of these walls.  I suggest you go there right away!

I decided to walk home through a neighborhood I don't often visit and ran across this frog, Large Coqui,   by Tom Otterness. the sign says his name comes from the sound he makes.

 



 I have mixed feelings about Mr. Otterness but I like this little guy very much.  In fact, I think we've met before-in one of my own collages.


Then I saw this guy;

You've gotta love a neighborhood where they make art out of tree stumps.

 Then I ran into an old friend;


It was a great Thursday. When I was almost home and the rain was getting heavier I saw that the tulips in Abingdon Square Park are working their way up!


I hope you will tune in this Sunday at 5 for the Zoom launch opening of a show I'm participating in--
 Here's all the information you need to join us.


Fragile Earth: Artists Respond to Climate Change



The New York Artists Circle is delighted to announce the launch 
of their latest curated exhibition:

Fragile Earth: Artists Respond to Climate Change
Curated by Fran Beallor and Barbara Sherman
 
March 1 - May 1, 2021
 
Opening reception - March, 21st, 5-6:30
CLICK HERE TO JOIN ZOOM EVENT
Meeting ID: 858 5762 3504
Passcode: NYAC

Save the date:
Earth Day event - April 22, 2021
 
The earth is the source of all life and one of our most revered inspirations and yet, is under dire threat for survival. The works in Fragile Earth represent an artistic call to action from a group of 48 creators who remind of the reverence and awe unique to the planet. This collection presents a new iteration of an exhibition scheduled to hang at Art at First Gallery in New York City in 2020, but canceled due to COVID-19. The New York Artists Circle is proud to be able to offer an online platform for this important work.

Co-Curators, Beallor and Sherman are thrilled to present Fragile Earth: Artists respond to Climate Change. Inspired to action, Barbara Sherman, director of Art at First Gallery, teamed up with NYAC co-leader, Fran Beallor, to curate this important show. NYAC artists responded from a myriad of vantage points. Some seek to educate, some call us to action, while others seek to memorialize endangered species or wilderness settings. All see the crisis against the backdrop of their individual aesthetics and believe that voices and art have a significant impact.  
 
The shows title is a nod to The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change, from October 2020, which features some of the best writing on the climate crisis for non-science audiences from the last three decades. Like our artists, these writers sound the alarm: if nothing is done, there will be nothing left. In Fragile Earth, using paint, sculpture, mixed media, print making, collage, and photography, the combined voices of these 48 artists creates an iridescent richness of sentiments of both hope and horror, beauty blended with the sadness of loss, and a bloom of optimism.  
 

Participating Artists:
Ellen Alt, Audrey Anastasi, Cecilia Abs Andre, Marianne Barcellona, Bascove, Karin Batten, Fran Beallor, Lois Bender, Alli Berman, Karin Bruckner, Pamela Casper, Irene Christensen, Diane Churchill, Jaynie Crimmins, Elisa Decker, Laura Duggan, Elaine Forrest, Diana Freedman-Shea, Barbara A. Friedman, Pauline Galiana, Pearl Rosen Golden, Eleanor Goldstein, Norma Greenwood, Eileen Hoffman, Lori Horowitz, Sandra Indig, Suejin Jo, Yvonne Lamar-Rogers, Jenna Lash, Gwyneth Leech, Alise Loebelsohn, Patricia Miller, Carolyn Oberst, Ellen Pliskin, Jacqueline Sferra Rada, Kristin Reed, Amy Regalia, Charles Seplowin, Ann Shapiro, Regina Silvers, Barbara Slitkin, Barbara Sherman, Bonnie Steinsnyder, Sandra Taggart, Teressa Valla, Yona Verwer, Lucinda Wilner, Alice Zinnes 



                      

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @nyartistscircle 
 

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Comments

  1. So excited to see my local subway station in your post! I've loved these mosaics ever since they first appeared. I don't see them very often any more but for years I took the train to and from work and they were the only good thing about those trips!

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