BRIMMING ON THE EDGE

Brimming on the Edge is a group exhibition that marries the disciplines of art, design

and technology together. Produced by The West Harlem Art Fund in partnership

with the Andrew Freedman Home, Brimming on the Edge coincides with

NYCXDESIGN, and the Frieze Art Fair located nearby on Randall’s Island. There

is a budding movement revolutionizing the Western world. The public is demanding

more customized experiences that reflect their personal lifestyle and appreciations.

It is easy to purchase a picture frame or a wine rack from a large retailer that is in-

expensive and probably made in China. Now, the public wants unique work

that is made in the United States that they can display at home or keep as

an heirloom. We wish to show the public these new possibilities in a number

of combinations. Brimming on the Edge is curated by Savona Bailey-McClain,

Executive Director, The West Harlem Art Fund, L. A. Banner and Linda Griggs,

Independent Curators.

BRIMMING ON THE EDGE

L W ANTONIUS Antonius’s photographs are mystical, often settled in the boundary betweenphotography and painting. Through the fusion of these two media, painting and photography, he creates sophisticated and unconventional works that draw the viewer into a sort of mystical spell. “Mysticism in the photographs will remain an intriguing mystery,” says the artist about his works. To stage the mystery, he relies on natural light. Scenes are lit with too little----scant light----rather than too much light. This often enhances the content of his surreal images. Over the last few years, Antonius has begun to work in a conceptual way in installation, rather than studio-based photography.

ALTA BERRI is a painter, born and raised in New York City. Her work is reflective and pensive, exploring themes of identity and urban contrasts. Her classical training and energetic sense of color areapplied to large and small format paintings of people in the city, responding to the edgy predicaments ofurban currents and situations.

LYNDA BYRNE is an environmental artist who has focused on series that involve studying the vanishingof species and the impact of human activity on the natural world. Her work is made from recyclable mate-rials, to reveal the universality and the delicacy of our environmental balance in this world. Her work has been shown internationally, and she has been awarded several distinguished residencies and prizes for her installations and sculpture.

THOMAS CALLAHAN Thomas Callahan is the founder and designer at Horse Cycles, a Brooklyn-based urban bicycle designer, whose work has been featured in a number of publications on lifestyle and design. The care that he takes with each of these bicycles reflects a dedication to traditional steel-working methods and techniques, and meticulous process. His custom-designed bicycles are made to order, suited to each individual rider, and sometimes include metal sculptures made in collaboration with artisan designer Perry Gargano, who was born in NYC and raised in Venezuela before studying at the School of Visual Arts, and in Pietra Santa, Italy.

MARCO ANTONIO CASTRO combines his focus on art, design and technology to create work that explores sustainable practices and lifestyles. His work on the award-winning project BusRoots, explores the sensory intersection of nature, food and urban landscapes, suggesting ways to redesign our relationships to natural systems. His previous projects built bridges to immigrant communities, focusing on bringing new digital ways of seeing the world we live in. He currently teaches workshops at the Queens Museum of Art focused on mobile application of technology for the museum and its visitors.

REX KALEHOFF is a maker of unique sculptural, utilitarian, and decorative works of art. With extensiveinternational experience as an artist, educator, and modern-day explorer, Kalehoff’s work is inspired by first-hand observations and driven by both deep conceptual input and highly refined technical applications.

ROBIN KANG is originally from Texas. Robin is a multimedia artist, curator, and culture maker. Her sculptural Installations, video work, and textiles have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and recently at the Essl Museum in Vienna, Austria. Mimicking industrial production through repetition and pattern creation, Kang immerses herself in the process and ideology of specialized labor. Using transparent structures and video projections that highlight absence and the residue of industry, she creates immersive installations that question the process of making and the materiality of experience. Her site-specific installations often respond to the architecture and social history of a space. Using techniques of ancient construction with contemporary synthetic and industrial materials, she generates an interlacing of memories involving sociopolitical systems and the mechanization of craft and culture.

SUPRINA KENNEY seamlessly integrates consummate craft and a strikingly original statement in a thought-provoking whole. Her sculptures marry an of innocent perception to a poetic fierceness; looking at them is like experiencing the formal rigor of Giacometti, the philosophical ferocity of Francis Bacon, and the boundless inventiveness of Max Ernst all rolled into one. The works are not only interesting to look at, but also pose interesting questions about the relationship of human beings to the material world.

JONGIL MA is a Korean-American sculptor and master craftsman, who manipulates wood and color into organic and dynamic forms, as diverse as monumental sculpture, and intimately refined furniture for the home. He has shown his work internationally, in Poland, Korea, and New York City. His current studio workshop is in Brooklyn, where he continues to create large and dynamic sculpture for indoor and outdoor installations, and the furniture that reflects his interests in natural materials and sustainable design.

TOMO MORI was born in the countryside of Osaka, Japan. She studied drawing and painting inTokyo and in 1991, she entered the Atlanta College of Art to study contemporary art in the United States. Since 2010, she has been working almost exclusively in a meticulous technique of canvas-on-canvas col-lage. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Atlanta, and at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. She received a congressional award for her winning banner design for the “Bid on Culture” contest for 2011 and 2012. In 2011, she was selected as a semi-finalist to present a proposal for MTA Art in Transit. Tomo currently lives in West Harlem, as she continues to explore the world from Bamako to Hanoi. She believes experiencing new culture adds more colors to her palette and her life.

ANCA PEDVISOCAR is an internationally exhibited artist with work in public and private collections in USA, Canada, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Romania and Israel. She earned her MFA from the Art University in Bucharest, Where she studied mural painting. Anca’s murals are in Bucharest and private residences in New York City. Her home furnishing textile designs have been featured in Architectural Digest.

ROBERTO SANDOVAL was born in West Texas and grew up in Los Angeles before coming to New York City on a ballet scholarship to American School of Ballet. Later he studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and he is now staff photographer at the Hispanic Society of America. His wife, Sylvia, also a dancer, taught dance in the New York City public schools, working for Teachers and Writers Collaborative. Some of the children she taught in a class in the Bronx are the subjects of these photographs. Sandoval’s photographs range from the natural landscape of the American West and Southwest, to the streets and parks of New York City. His engagement with people in movement is enhanced by his choice of medium–black and white silver gelatin prints.

CHRIS SMITH grew up in New York, and lived in the Bronx for over 12 years. He makes the urban environment his home and his subject. His work is process based, combining and returning many different media into form. He participated in the Bronx Museum’s AIM program, and his work was included in “Bronx Calling,” the inaugural exhibition for the Bronx Museum of the Arts Biennial. Smith has shown in numerous New York venues including VOLTA, DUMBO Arts Festival, and the 3LD Technology Center. He was recently featured in ART/TREK, a New York City television series featuring artists representing each of the five boroughs.

DIANNE SMITH is an abstract painter, sculptor, and installation artist, whose work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York and throughout the United States. She is an educator in the field of Aesthetic Education at Lincoln Center Institute (LCI), at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She has taught in public schools throughout the Tri-State area, and as a teaching artist she has also offered courses to undergraduate and graduate students at Lehman College, Brooklyn College, Columbia University Teachers College, City College, and St. John’s University. Dianne is a Bronx native, and attended LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, the Otis Parsons School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology, before completing her MFA at Transart Institute in Berlin. She lives and works in Harlem.

NANCY STEINSON is a Gowanus area sculptor. Nancy lists influences by Constantin Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Her works in welded steel and bronze express subtle movement with their balance of organic and manufactured forms that sweep and fold with a very deliberate choreography. On the whole, her works embody a soulful blend of rich texture, solid form, and controlled movement

WEST HARLEM ART FUND TEAMCURATORIAL TEAM

SAVONA BAILEY-MCCLAIN currently lives and works in New York City. She is an independent curator, producer and preservation advocate. The range of McClain’s practice has included sculpture, drawings, performance, sound, and mixed media. McClain is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. a fifteen year old public art organization and curatorial collective serving neighborhoods around the City. Her public art installations have been seen in the New York Times, Art Daily, Artnet Magazine, Los Angeles Times, DNAinfo, among others. McClain strives for a soulful, meaningful connection with the public and the arts. It simply has to be approachable as far as she is concerned. McClain has installed at Times Square, DUMBO, Soho, NoLita, Williamsburg, Governors Island, Queens, Greater Harlem (East, Central and West), Chelsea,and now the Bronx. McClain earned her liberal arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

L. A. BANNER worked in the contemporary art world in California before completing her Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. After serving as Samuel H. Kress Curatorial Fellow at the Hispanic Society of America, she was a resident fellow at the National Gallery of Canada. Banner has publishes about old masters and contemporary art, and also works as an independent curator. Representative exhibitions include “The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya,” at the Frick Collection; “Light Matter” examining light, energy and physics, and “Vital Signs: The Enigma of Identity,” probing questions of identity with photography, video and installations.

LINDA GRIGGS has exhibited work at the Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Vox Populi/American Fine Arts, 80 Washington Square East Galleries, the Wustum Museum, Carolyn J. Roy Gallery, the Leubsdorf Gallery - Hunter College, Cuchifritos, the NY Public Library, Office of the Manhattan Borough President, Albany International Airport Gallery, the Matzo files, Bullet Space, Gahlberg Gallery - College of Du Page and at galleriesacross the country. Her 1994 Solo Exhibition at Carolyn J. Roy Gallery was reviewed favorably in CoverMagazine by Jeanne C. Wilkinson and listed in the New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships at the MacDowell and Millay Colonies for the Arts, the AAI Rotating Studio Program and grants from Change, Inc., and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Griggs earned her MFA from Hunter College, and her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.

BX ART & DESIGN TEAM

JEANINE ALFIERI is a graduate of the California College of Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textile. Aftercollege, Jeanine came directly to New York City to create and sell her textile designs. During this time she began a successful and highly developed career in silkscreen printing and art for fashion. Yet, Alfieri continued to make art while creating and developing her own style - using the three mediums she loves most; Fabric, sculpture and painting. Using the female, from a life cast, she combines these materials uniquely and without restriction. Jeanine now lives and works at her studio in Mott Haven New York.

UK SAILMAKERS was founded in 1946 by Charles “Buster” Ulmer who started out insailmaking in 1916 as an apprentice at the Ratsey and Lapthorn sail loft on City Island. In 1946, he left Ratsy’s to open his own business. Charles “Butch” Ulmer, Buster’s son, took over thebusiness in 1970 when he got out of the Navy. Butch grew the business by creating a group ofindependently owned franchises throughout the USA and around the world. The company changed its name from Ulmer Sails to Ulmer/Kolius sails for a short time in the mid 1980s and then shortened the name to UK Sailmakers in 1989. UK has been on the leading edge of sail development ever since the late ’40s whenUlmer Sails dominated the Star class and other one-designs like 5.5 Meters, Snipes, Lightnings and Comets. The group’s involvement with the America’s Cup goes back to 1964 and continues to the last two China Team efforts. In the early ’70s, UK became known as the only place to buy spinnakers, since we were the first loft to perfect the radial-head construction technique. Not being able to produce spinnakers fast enough, UK branched out with independently-owned franchises. The computer programs we developed for sail design and construction ensured that sailors across the country could buy the same fast sails from any UK loft. The knowledge base of such a large group helps UK’s customers. Members of theUK Sailmakers group share sail designs, construction details, racing experiences, boat information and more. Whenever a customer has a question, each loft can access the knowledge andexperience of a vast number of well-informed sailmakers. We truly do offer “Global Experience and Local Knowledge.” Since each in the group is locally owned by sailors and sailmakers they have a strong interest in helping local sailors. UK Sailmakers is one of the oldest groups of lofts in the world. After being in business for more than 60 years, the UK Sailmakers group has over 50 lofts and service centers around the world. Buster Ulmer’s son “Butch” Ulmer still runs the New York loft and the worldwide parent company.

Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council (MBSCC) has been the owner and operator of the Andrew Freedman building since 1984. This majestic structure has been home to an important social services and resources center for residents of the community, and it is now expanding to offer an exciting destination for art, culture, learning and creativity. MBSCC has been a prominent agent for sustainable change and growth in the Bronx, and we are a driving force for neighborhood transformation. In the lower lobby of the Andrew Freedman building, the Family Preservation Center, born from an initiative of former Governor Mario Cuomo, provides safety net community services and referrals, from Head Start to after-school programs, to adult education, jobs training and senior care. MBSCC remains committed to residents of the Bronx by providing these critical services. The building’s namesake, Andrew Freedman (1860-1915) was a Tammany Hall fixture and early financier of the IRT, New York City’s first subway line. He left a bequest in his will for an early retirement home for the formerly well-to-do who had fallen on hard times. The current edifice was built in 1922-24 by notable architects, Joseph H. Freedlander and Harry Allan Jacobs, and it was dedicated on May 25, 1924. The home was enlarged in 1928 by architect David Levy, who designed the wing additions. The Andrew Freedman Home functioned as an elegant respite for the elderly from 1924-1983. The palatial structure continued as an adult residential facility when MBSCC completed the purchase in 1984. At its peak, 130 seniors lived there. The building has been in continuous use since its construction in the early 1920s, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission granted the building landmark status in 1993. An expansive new vision for the building, as stated by Jeanette Puryear, President and CEO of theMBSCC, envisions community partnerships with artistic collaboration: “We are committed to creating a fresh vision for the Andrew Freedman as a destination for artistic and cultural exchange, a hub of learning and creativity that engages our community by bringing exciting, interactive programs to the people of the Bronx.”

BRIMMING ON THE EDGEMay 2nd – May 16th 2013 Andrew Freedman Home, Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York

West Harlem Art Fund wishes to thank our sponsors and contributors to the success of this collaborative exhibition with MBSCC:UK Sailmakers, City Island, Earl Cavanah Design, and Anonymous donors.