Due to popular demand, Immersive Van Gogh at Pier 36 has been extended.
Immersive Van Gogh at Pier 36 on Vesey Street, has been extended through April 2022. Photo by Liz Devine.
Due to popular demand, Immersive Van Gogh at Pier 36 on Vesey Street, has been extended through April 2022.
It was seen by 800,000 visitors during its New York City premiere in the summer of 2021, before closing to make way for previously scheduled events at Pier 36. More than 3.5 million tickets have been sold to Immersive Van Gogh since its North American premiere in July 2020, making it one of the most popular attractions in North America.
Immersive Van Gogh invites audiences to “step inside” the iconic works of Van Gogh, evoking his highly emotional and chaotic inner consciousness through art, light, music, movement and imagination. The gallery space offers patrons more than 500,000 cubic feet of animated projections. Immersive Van Gogh was designed by Creator Massimiliano Siccardi, with original, mood-setting music, both original and curated, by Italian multimedia Composer Luca Longobardi, who provided a score that combines experimental electronic music with pure, ethereal and melodic orchestral pieces. Vittorio Guidotti is the Art Director.
Creative Director David Korins, award-winning designer of Broadway hits including Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, created a custom design to fit the architecture of the exhibition’s New York home, adding innovative design elements to the Pier 36 experience.
Estate pieces offer visual intrigue such as in this living area by DOSK Interiors.
Founder Pauline Findlay, and director Rebecca Senior, of Artioli Findlay, offer answers to 7 of their most of-asked questions on how to source art with ease. Now that most of us (that are able to) are working from home, our interiors are getting that much more of a discerning look. And for many of us, a bare wall, or two, are begging for that perfect piece of art to tie it all together. Below, Findlay and Senior tackle some of the peskier questions their clients have wrestled with and offer some great insider advice.
Pauline Findlay.
1: How do I find a reputable dealer? Are there online resources to finding dealers near me?
Artioli Findlay: Look for dealers who have long term relationships with their artists. Also, look for galleries that are transparent about their pricing. Finding a dealer who is flexible about a return policy, and/or actually has a return policy, is important. To find dealers nearby, research various art platforms, including much-visited Artsy.net, where one can filter for galleries near their zip code. In addition, various art guides showcase maps and events in local areas online.
2: What are key things to look for when sourcing art?
Artioli Findlay: Look for galleries that are experts in their field. Integrity and authenticity is key. It’s also important that a gallery is willing to be flexible in terms of pricing and have a robust inventory from which to make your selection.
An original Marilyn Minter hangs prominently in a New York apartment by Kammi Reiss Design.
3: What are three things to avoid when sourcing art?
Artioli Findlay: We suggest avoiding galleries that don’t have a focus, are not transparent with pricing, and that don’t have an ample inventory of artworks in the style, color palette, and subject matter that interest the buyer.
4: I’ve found a piece that I love but am second guessing my decision—how do I know when to say “yes?”
Artioli Findlay: If you were drawn to a piece of art and continually feel good when you think of it in you or your design vision, it’s time to go forward and have that in your life. If it happens to encompass a color or subject matter you are consistently drawn to, the decision process becomes much more simple and clear.
5: I’ve just acquired a new piece at an estate sale. I don’t know the artist or the year it was made—how should I go about getting it appraised?
Artioli Findlay: First see if there’s a signature on the front or back of artwork. Does the signature match a signature found online by that particular artist? Does the artwork style match with the other artworks found online? Sometimes there is also a gallery label on the back. I’d follow these leads until I found the dealer representing the artist and try contacting them.
A large, gestural oil painting is not only the best choice optically for this San Francisco living room by Orlando Diaz-Azcuy, but is also the most durable option for the amount of natural light the space receives.
6: What are the best ways to display art in the home… and what should be avoided?
Artioli Findlay: First concentrate on choosing the room’s target art focal points. Select artwork which is a good fit for the physical space as well as the visual space. For example, a small scale piece of art on an enormous wall, would give the artwork a postage stamp-quality look.
7: How should artwork be properly taken care of?
Artioli Findlay: Any work on paper should be properly framed in a manner that prevents air and moisture from damaging the artwork. A print should not be placed in direct sunlight. For paintings, a stable temperature environment is best to avoid any sort of deterioration. In regards to oil on canvas, these works are often more forgiving in terms of sunlight.
NYC artist Susan J Barron tells the story of two veterans who walked into her show, “Depicting The Invisible,” with their service dogs. They approached a portrait featuring a handsome bearded man crouched with a dog. The phrase “We found each other” haloes his head, and he is surrounded by quotes that tell his story: a friend dying in his arms overseas; relentless, vivid nightmares; two suicide attempts; and a dog trained to comfort him and wake him up, saving him from his nightmares. The veterans were visibly affected, and told Barron, “this is a portrait of us.”
Depicting The Invisible
Barron created “Depicting The Invisible” after learning that 22 US veterans commit suicide every day. “I was so shocked and appalled by the statistic,” she says, “I really felt that, if people could understand what’s going on, then they would be inspired to step up and make a difference.” Barron interviewed dozens of veterans, creating portraits to tell their stories. As the SoHo artist travels with her show, she has encountered “uncountable” veterans drawn to the images and the stories. Her goal, she says, is to give voice to the experiences her subjects have shared with her. “Every time the show travels to a new city,” she says, “it magnifies their voices.”
Conversations
When she isn’t traveling, Barron is working on a different, lighter, project. “Conversations” is a series of digital art pieces on canvas, which she creates by reassembling and mixing famous art pieces to create new meaning. Her piece “Luncheon on the Gras
s,” for example, features Edouard’s original nude woman, but sitting across from–in conversation with–an Alberto Vargas pin-up girl. “Two women painted by men over a century apart,” Barron explains, “it’s just so delightful to me.”
SoHo
The “Conversations” canvases stand nine feet tall, and span styles and eras, and are all designed from Barron’s laptop, often at her home base of SoHo House in NYC. “During the day, there’s a whole collection of people working on their laptops,” she says, “some of them are writing plays or screenplays, or they’re writing the great American novel…and some of them are creating art.” Her perfect workday, she says, includes a stop at the Whitney Museum of American Art or a walk through the local galleries.
A Test
Just before the debut of “Depicting the Invisible,” Barron faced her biggest challenge. The mother of one of her subjects called her and told her that he had taken his life, or “fallen victim to the 22,” as Barron calls it. She was heartbroken. She had spent hours talking to him and growing closer to him. Could she have known? Was it disrespectful to go through with the show? But, she says, other veterans reached out to her with sobering words of encouragement. She had to continue, they said, because Damon’s tragedy happens 22 times every day. She went through with the show, and visitors can still see Damon’s portrait, wreathed in quotes where he wrestles with his PTSD and the specter of suicide.
Inspiration
After DTI and Conversations, Barron is considering a portrait series on survivors of September 11th. She is inspired by the opportunity to tell the stories of those we might otherwise never hear. As she says, recounting the words of a former professor, “There are only so many pieces (of art) that you can make in your life, so make them count.”
Susan J Barron just finished showing Conversations at SCOPE in Miami.
Artist Domingo Zapata was honored at the Brooklyn Borough President’s Latino Heritage Celebration where he received the Most Influential Artist of The Year Award. The theme of the event is Young Artists/Old School and Domingo gave the keynote speech. Zapata has also created the illustrations for The Lonely Princess by Marie Ferraro from Lightswitch Learning, which comes out in time for the holidays in November. The book is about the power of friendship, generosity, and respect for the differences between people.
“Life is a Dream”
Domingo’s 15-story mural that wraps around the One Times Square. Features his mantra, “Life is a Dream” amidst flowers, flamingos and polo ponies. The artist said, “For me, it is an honor to be part of the story by creating Life Is a Dream, the largest mural in New York. I want to convey this message to people from all over the world who visit Times Square and who can enjoy and get to know my art.” The mural will be on view through January 1st.
‘Life is A Dream’ in Times Square
Success, Contrast & the Future of Patronage
Zapata’s early impressions as an artist, coupled with several high-profile clients, first cultivated a reputation as an artist du jour. But after 15 years and creating a portfolio of art worth over $40 million, the Spaniard’s ever-increasing success – and the artistic vision underlying it – continues to paint a decidedly different picture.
For years, Domingo Zapata has been, in a word, busy.
It’s not just the paintings, which for the last decade have required perpetual work to keep any amount of inventory. It’s not the increasing number of sculpture and mural commissions that he fulfills or the expanding social media input. Nor is it his many exhibitions or the myriad number of collectors and clients, including Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Diana Picasso, the Missoni Family, and investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Instead, it’s what Zapata has been doing with his own time. Whether it be collaborations with global figures such as Alejandro Sanz, designing clothes for his fashion shows, donating artwork to innumerable charity events, writing a novel, painting with Pope Francis, or serving as a guest speaker at the United Nations to advocate for art education, Zapata has done it all.
Pope Picture
The resulting image is in stark contrast to the one that Zapata’s earliest critics predicted – that of an “artist to the stars.” But Zapata’s outlook and ascent have been remarkably consistent for the past fifteen years – the duration of his career as an artist – and the predilections of the past have been unraveled year by year, painting by painting, achievement by achievement.
As the artist himself notes, his works “contrast between the past and present, and try to make the work say something about the future.” It’s fitting, then, that Zapata himself is one such contrast, in art as in life; and with a past not steeped in fine art, but rather, in humble beginnings on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
Zapata’s Early Years
Had Zapata ambled up to a younger version of himself on Mallorca in the early 1980s, he would have likely found himself back in the garage his father worked in. And even then, it would not have been surprising to see him with paintbrush in hand. “I always loved to paint,” Zapata notes. “It’s something I was obsessed with since I was a kid. We had a car shop, and my dad fixed and painted cars, and my mom was a painter. We lived on top of the shop, so every day I lived with the paint and the fumes. The environment I grew up in was one with a creative family.”
But when it came to painting full-time, Zapata – who graduated from American University with a degree in political science – was at first more pragmatic, especially after his move to New York City in 1999, where the art scene was particularly intimidating. “Moving to New York, I never thought I had a chance. I came from this humble background, and I didn’t even know where to start. I took the first job that was available, to survive, and in those days, the jobs were in finance.”
For the next ten years, he worked in corporate, painting in his home when he could. That is, until one day in 2005, when a friend, contractor Michael Borrico, took an interest in a picture of a polo horse that Zapata had painted and placed in his office.
Blue Polo Horse
“This friend of mine came by our office and he said, ‘Oh, I love that painting, I’d love to show it to a friend of mine,’ Zapata recollects. “It was a painting of a polo horse. And I said to him ‘I did it.’ And he’s like, ‘I can’t believe you did that!’ And I said, ‘Look, I have a studio in my house; it’s a hobby. I do this.’”
Convinced he had found talent, Borrico organized a dinner and exhibition at his house, where Zapata’s work gained its first critical recognition. Various gallery representatives bought paintings, and the friend that Borrico had mentioned so casually in the office turned out to be none other than billionaire George Soros, who made a purchase of a polo painting titled “Blue Horse.”
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. “They all motivated me to dedicate myself to art,” Zapata said. “I quit my job and started painting. I was working in the corporate world for more than ten years, leaving a job where you were making some money. But I thought, if I don’t do it now, in my early thirties, when am I going to do it? So I went and I said, ‘fuck it, I’m going to go ahead and do it.’ And thank God it worked!”
Asked if this strange road to the beginning of his artistic career had an impact on his eventual style, Zapata answered in the affirmative. “That’s where my unconventional way of doing things came from. When I wanted to go to college, everybody said no, when I was in college, everybody said no, when I wanted to get a job, everybody said no, and when I wanted to be an artist everybody said no. So I said, you know what, I’m just going to do things my way, and nobody’s going to say no to me.”
Superman by Domingo Zapata
2011 : Artist to Watch
He never looked back. Zapata began painting incessantly, creating works for events, commissions, and “pop-up shows:” sponsored, transitory exhibitions. In 2011, he was named Whitewall Magazine’s “Artist to Watch,” slowly cultivating a clientele ranging from typical collectors to celebrity purchasers. Small events eventually transitioned into larger gatherings, and over the years the guests at such shows ballooned into the thousands.
As Zapata’s clientele grew, so did his opportunities. He began holding exhibits throughout the world, including appearances in Paris, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Venice, Rome, Singapore, and Monte Carlo. From these gatherings, he generated continued interest in his work and began receiving regular commissions. Celebrity clients whom he had met along the way also continued to buy, including Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio. Such efforts bore fruit: in 2005, his paintings sold for $5,000; in 2011, $30,000; in 2015, $40,000 to $50,000. Now, in 2019, Zapata’s smaller work sells for $60,000 to $70,000, with his larger gallery pieces and sculptures regularly selling for well over $100,000 a piece. And perhaps more impressively, he has no inventory of artwork, as his works and commissions have sold out completely for the last ten years.
Artistry: Style and Substance
Given the excitement surrounding Zapata’s artistry, one would expect the works themselves to be similarly exciting; and by no means do they disappoint. Falling roughly within the confines of neo-expressionism and pop art, Zapata’s works utilize bold use of color and exploration of themes such as sexuality, power, and opulence. But more than anything, his work is defined by contrast. Within a single showing, one might see the Mona Lisa bedecked somehow magnificently with graffiti, mixed media, and a platoon of primary colors; a pop art panda sporting backgrounds with neon geometry or sinister scenes emulating crucifixion; a garden with beautifully ornate flowers and growth breaking free of rigid outlines; bullfighter jackets, or chaquetillas, generously marked with color and text; or something as commonplace as an airplane vividly portrayed from the front, a cruel line and three blurred propellers screaming against the hues and text they appear to be suspended in.
“I like to work in different themes,” Zapata muses, “for things that I am passionate about. And then I like to use different techniques on those themes, according to the theme. However, the strokes are always the same…so when you see my work, you will see and recognize it’s mine, it’s Domingo Zapata, because of my colors, the strokes, and messages, and the type of combination and conversation of colors.”
Zapata’s attention to such contrast is the cornerstone of many of his themes, both in how he views art and how he views reality. It can be seen in virtually every series he creates, whether it be the juxtaposition of Polaroid and acrylic in his ‘Ten’ series, for which Sofia Vergara and others have sat, or the larger-than life figures in his superhero paintings as they sit among graffiti. This, he states, is no different than how we might see it in real life. “The world we live in is about contrast,” he says emphatically. “In New York City, you can live in a twenty-million-dollar penthouse, you go downstairs, and there’s somebody sleeping in your door. These contrasts have an influence on me, because I am a contrast. I was born in a very humble family that was making an average of $800 per month for their entire lives, and I can make a painting worth more than $100,000.”
It is for such reasons, Zapata notes, that he cares so much about emulating contrast in his own style, although his background and later immigration to the United States have also heavily affected his creative process. “As a Spaniard loving art, I was brought up understanding – or,” he corrects himself, “learning, better than understanding – about Velasquez and Goya and Picasso and Dali…and then I moved to New York and had a huge influence from the pop culture of the 80s that was just kind of turning into the beginning of the 90s. So I had the end of that movement with Warhol and Basquiat. It created this passion for contrast, where I would try to take the master’s work and make it contemporary using contemporary techniques.”
When asked about how he wants his artistic style to impact others, Zapata was quick to answer:
“Everything’s possible, that dreams are possible, that if you go and work very hard you can achieve whatever you want in this life, no matter who you are or where you come from. That’s what I portray in my work. And it’s always positive and it’s always trying to make you feel good. I always say I don’t know anything, really, about business or about politics, you know, but I do know how to make this world more beautiful. Other people can make it better; I’m just going to make it beautiful if I can.
“I try to use my work to influence those people in a positive way, to make them feel good. And if they have it in their house and they wake up in the morning and they’re going through any struggles, or whatever – if they look at my painting and it makes them feel better to go to work, and to make the world better – then I’m doing my job. And that’s what I do, that’s my motif, that’s my style.”
Letters to Panda, Acrylic on Canvas by Domingo Zapata
Patronage, the Gallery Model, & Social Media
Zapata’s unorthodox style also extends to social media. While many artists remain firmly in the gallery model, Zapata has decided to create inroads into social media sites such as Instagram, where he currently has close to 40,000 followers – and through which he has occasionally sold paintings to collectors. “I don’t have anything against galleries or the gallery model,” he said, laughing. “It’s a misinterpretation; if you Google it, you could find a Zapata at maybe sixty shows.”
But the artist is adamant that the future lies in the past; or in the case of the art world, patronage. Pointing at the large overhead that many galleries and their artists have to deal with – whether it be from rent, staff size, shipping costs, and the like – Zapata notes that social media is providing a conduit between artists and collectors that simply didn’t exist a decade ago. “In today’s world, with social media being such a big influence, bigger than regular media, everybody looks at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,” he says. “Now, you have all these sites which bring the collector and painter together, so they can start their own relationship. And that’s where we’re going. I don’t think these platforms are a condition-based model; they’re a service model, where they’re introducing you to the variety; they put you right in front of the source. That’s how it was done a hundred years ago, and that’s how it’s going to be for the next hundred years.”
This, he agues, is a return to patronage; social media and website users can browse through the work of a number of artists, find an artist that suits them, and meet them in person. Instead of going through a gallery, where paintings are normally viewed, the role is being taken by social media sites and more polished, art-specific services. And this, in turn, helps to bring exposure to artists who otherwise might have trouble wending their way trough the gallery model. “I think it’s amazing,” he says. “It gives an opportunity to those thousands of artists to have a chance, even if they are totally unknown. Talent prevails.”
To that end, Zapata expects that artists large and small will eventually shift to a form of digitally enhanced patronage, and he has every intention of being on the cutting edge. Pointing to artists like Picasso and Michelangelo, who both benefited immensely from traditional patronage, he also discusses how art, a much older institution than art galleries, thrived under that system. “The art world is forty thousand years of history, since the cavemen dipped their hands in blood and printed them on the cave to state ‘I exist, I am here.’ That’s the beginning of art, the beginning of the international language that everyone can understand.” While a far cry from that age, social media, he says, is once again making the language of art accessible, both for collectors and artists alike.
Sky Polo by Domingo Zapato
Philanthropy
Zapata’s desire for accessibility in art is the focal point, as it turns out, when it comes to philanthropy. In the name of practical application, he supports innumerable charitable organizations, including routinely creating or auctioning off his own works for charitable foundations for hurricane relief, funding art programs for children with impoverished backgrounds, participating in New York Fashion week for charity, and raising awareness for art education.
Even in New York, where the art scene is alive and well, Zapata notes that 80% of public schools do not have an art program anymore, despite higher rates in previous years. “I believe that if we forget art in education, then we will be raising children without sensitivity, and those will not be children; they will be soldiers,” he says.
To counter this issue, Zapata has been heavily involved with Pope Francis, whom he has visited, painted with, and more recently, been appointed an ambassador to the Scholas Occurentes program. As an ambassador, Zapata will meet with the pope twice a year and discusses how to further benefit the program, which unites low-income schools together to improve resource generation and increase the quality of education for its students. As an ambassador, Zapata was also able to attend a panel at the United Nations and speak about the importance of art and education at the recent Latin American summit.
Zapata’s motivations, however numerous, come down to a simple goal, however. “To me, right now, I just want to be able to express to as many people as possible everything that speaks to my heart; to be able to use my position, and that place of influence, to do murals and sculptures which are public, for people to enjoy; and to use it to raise funds for charities and causes that I believe are important; and also grow as an artist. I’m already in the system, where I can pretty much say I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life; God forbid that something fucked up happens; but I am one of those who have that opportunity, which have been given so much. It’s my time to also give back, and at the same time, grow as an artist, and keep expressing myself. I don’t know how or what is next, but I know that I will fight like the first day to keep delivering feelings and a positive energy to anyone that is aiming to take them from me.”
Looking Forward
But fifteen years is, Zapata hopes, just scratching the surface; and though forever occupied by exhibits, painting, and his own activities, he never wants to be complacent. Indicating a distaste for being labeled, he takes inspiration from artists like Pablo Picasso, whose style changed dramatically throughout his life. “I don’t want to be stuck with description,” Zapata says decidedly. “I just want to be able to do. You have artists like Picasso who have proven themselves extraordinary through different styles and different themes throughout their entire life and career. So if you look at Picasso when he was twenty, it has nothing to do with him when he was fifty, or when he was seventy. And I think that is an example to follow. I cannot be doing the same thing…I want to work in different themes and different styles my entire career, so that I’m influenced by every moment I’m alive.”
Part of accomplishing that, Zapata says, is continuing to do what he does best. “I’m not an artist to the stars, I’m a painter,” he says simply. “I have the opportunity to paint people who are extraordinary; obviously, with some, I am going to develop synergy or friendships with them. One of the most beautiful things about this work is that I get to know people, and I’m happy to have that opportunity.”
Spring Red Flowers Acrylic on Canvas by Domingo Zapata
And that opportunity, it seems, has enabled him to use his artistry to positively impact all that he meets – whether it’s a client personally visiting his studio, an aspiring artist who sees his work on social media, or a beneficiary of his philanthropy. Such interaction, he says, is what keeps him truly inspired.
“I believe in this world,” Zapata finally says, taking in the last breath of the interview. “My clients are celebrities, and billionaires, and collectors; but they are also children in need, and charities, and everybody who walks through Brooklyn and sees my mural. This is my collector base. This is my job.”
Light, in its many facets, is to artist Bentley Meeker what music is to Philip Glass. “Light is the most powerful tool we have to create any feeling,” says Meeker. Growing up between the United States, the Bahamas, and Canada, Meeker was exposed to forms of light around the world. When he moved to Manhattan at the age of 14, his passion was ignited. While living in the city he was constantly exposed to illumination; it was all around him, so he dove in. Meeker’s first book, ‘Light X Design,’ is an inspiring study in what light can be. Images of Meeker’s work fill the pages. “It’s an art book presented like a photo album, but an album for light and the infinite possibilities that lie within it,” said Meeker.
Light Sculptures
During the last decade, Meeker has had multiple museum and gallery shows of his light sculptures, including a one-man show at the Whitney Museum of Art. He was also the first artist to have a piece in the Whitney’s new downtown location. The lighting artist has exhibitions at The National Arts Club and the Southampton Arts Center. The Core Club, a private members enclave with a focus on culture and art, commissioned Meeker to create a light sculpture for their lobby.
The Temple of Whollyness, from Burning Man 2013.
Burning Man
Meeker also helps create innovative art projects at Burning Man, an iconic weeklong communal experience in the Nevada desert. Meeker has lit the Temple at Burning Man three times,he took over 300 fixtures, a mile of cable and a crew of fifteen to illuminate the festivals main temple. Seventy thousand participants from around the world were drawn to the site by Meeker’s lights over those Labor Day weekends before the Temple was burned down to signal the festival’s conclusion.
‘Temple of Promise’ from Burning Man 2015
Weed World
Meeker returned to his Canadian roots with the pot-themed show #Weedworld. Meeker created an exhilarating immersive experience in a room filled by a blizzard of marijuana leaves created with light. This installation was a part of the #Grassland exhibit that opened at the Penticton Public Art Museum in British Columbia. pentictonartgallery.comThe show featured artists who explored the culture, history and economic impact of marijuana on society. The exhibit was partially funded by the government and engaged viewers in a political conversation about legalizing marijuana in Canada. This year the artist returned with a solo show of his light sculptures, one of which was featured in the New York Times.
H in Harlem
In addition to his projects for private clients, Meeker’s public works have included “The “H” in Harlem,” a large-scale public art installation suspended under the 125th St and 12th Ave viaduct in Harlem. When Meeker isn’t creating art or lambent ambience for weddings and corporate events or taking part in festival rituals, he enjoys some downtime, playing guitar with his son Jensen.
“The “H” in Harlem”
The Vision
Bentley Meeker, lighting designer extraordinaire, converts physical spaces into inspiring environments, ensuring that weddings, galas, and special occasions feel and look as momentous as the events themselves. An early gig as a Palladium stagehand —during the golden era of Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell who also owned Studio 54 — sparked Meeker’s fascination with Vari-Lite, the world’s first moving light, and “ignited the passion that became my career,” recalled Meeker.
Bentley Meeker Lighting and Staging
In 1990, Meeker founded his company, Bentley Meeker Lighting and Staging Inc. when he’s not creating art Meeker likes to design weddings “because it’s about making the best day of someone’s life better.” Over the years, he’s lit nuptials for Chelsea Clinton, Melissa Rivers, Billy Joel, Eddie Murphy, Robert De Niro and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. The versatile visionary illuminated Christian Dior’s catwalk at New York Fashion Week. Meeker also flickered the lights on some of New York’s most storied intuitions, including charity galas and movie premieres at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New York Public Library, In the Hamptons he’s lit the Parrish Art Museum.Events Meeker has done this year include the MoMA Armory Party, Hudson Yards Grand Opening, Clinton Foundation Gala, Men In Black Premiere, Love Ball and Alexander Wang’s fashion show. He has also done events with Lincoln Center and the Guggenheim museum. bentleymeeker.com
Meeker is represented by the Garvey|Simon gallery and his new light sculptures are on view at his studio at 465 10th Ave. Contact (212) 722-3349 for an appointment.
The wedding of Melissa Rivers at New York’s Plaza Hotel.
Patti Grabel and I disagree on how we like our matzoh balls. I don’t know what that tells you, but it tells me almost everything I need to know about a person. Patti was happy to share the rest of her story with me over two types of her homemade challah bread pudding, that yes she actually ate. Patti explained how she has gone from stay-at-home mom to unscripted television creator to artist, all inspired by her love of telling stories and cooking.
Patti in the Bloomingdale’s Test Kitchen
Growing up, Patti spent some weekends with her beloved grandmother. Patti says her grandmother “inherently understood that breaking bread with others binds communities, it’s the ultimate act of kindness.” After a homemade dinner on Friday night, Patti and her brother would ride the elevator in their grandmother’s Brooklyn apartment building and check in on neighbors. Their grandmother got to show off her grandchildren and check in with friends while collecting their leftover challah, which she would turn into something amazing.
After soaking the torn bread overnight with cream, butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla she would start Saturday morning by baking up pan after pan of bread pudding. Patti remembers waking up to the “smell of sunshine.” Her grandmother would return to her neighbors to deliver their leftover challah, now something even more delicious. Through this, Patti “understood that smells and aromas and tastes had this way of just sending messages without words that you’re loved…we knew we were loved the second we walked in her house on Friday night because we could smell the chicken soup.”
When Patti’s grandmother was passing, Patti asked her for the recipe for the bread pudding, but her grandmother told her, “There is no recipe! It’s like life, you’re going to figure it out.” After her grandmother passed, Patti tried relentlessly to recreate the bread pudding. Even if it tasted slightly different each time, the smell was always there and she felt her grandmother’s love and presence in her own kitchen.
Patti’s challah bread pudding
There was one moment when she was stirring the ingredients together that led Patti to a profound realization; “when I was stirring the ingredients together I was reminded that I was stirring in love, that I was infusing love into the dish and that when my kids would taste it they would taste the essence of me.” From a young age, Patti learned to love cooking and entertaining as a way to connect with her friends and family and show them how much she cared.
There was one moment when I was just kind of stirring the pudding and I remembered my grandmother stirring the pudding and I was thinking, wow, this is when you’re adding the love so your hand extends the spoon, extends your hand, which extends your arm, which extends our heart, which extends our soul so it all has to work in unison.
What does any of this have to do with Patti becoming an artist? For years, Patti was writing a story about a woman and wooden spoons – utilitarian utensils with tremendous meaning to her. As the spoon aged and became cracked and imperfect through use without losing its purpose, the woman was able to see herself and her own aging in the same graceful light.
One day the woman in the story goes to cook her signature bread pudding and realizes no one is home to eat it as her children were grown and out of the house. She pauses and realizes that she is finally cooking for herself and she has to figure out who she is if she isn’t doing everything for her kids. She ends up taking all the beloved wooden spoons from her kitchen to her garage and swirling them in cans of paint she finds, stirring almost as if she were cooking. She creates a makeshift clothing line in her backyard and hangs the spoons there and, as they drip, they mimic her tears. “She sees herself in those dripping spoons. There are tears, there’s fear, there’s trepidation, there’s elation, there’s joy, and, eventually, there’s liberation,” Patti recounts. When she finishes and returns to the kitchen the pudding has burnt; but such is life. The woman turns those painted wooden spoons into art and makes a career out of it.
Free Play
As Patti told me about her screenplay, it was very clear to me that she had written the story about herself, but it took her a little longer to admit that to herself. After raising her kids, Patti had a career in unscripted television, prompted by continuing education classes in screenwriting at New York University. The shows she created all centered on strong women, including Suddenly Single, which aired as a pilot on TLC. Her dream was to have a show on the air before she reached 50, and her pilot aired on her 49th birthday. “My kids were in the screening room and happy tears were streaming down. They were so proud of me and for that reason alone all nine years before that, all the hard work and persistence really paid off,” Patti told me. Although it didn’t get picked up, Patti made connections in the industry that allowed her to pitch her ideas to power players in the business.
Finally, Patti realized she needed to live the story she wrote. After receiving constructive but harsh feedback from a respected producer, Patti decided that she had written a character that had gaps because she herself was afraid to live and experience the things that the story was missing. Pretty immediately, Patti did just as her character had done and put spoon to paint. She grew up the daughter of day camp owners and was always crafting, so painting and decorating the spoons came naturally to her. Using her script as her playbook, she created the life she had written but hadn’t dared to live. A gallery owner advised her to photograph the scenes she made with the spoons and blow them up on plexiglass. The results are vibrant, colorful vignettes that tell stories without words.
Hang On
Since she started her art career, Patti’s work has appeared in several commercial galleries, in charity auctions for the Museum of Arts and Design, and in installations at Bloomingdale’s flagship store in New York City. She was connected to their visual arts department and started by reimagining a pair of jeans for the launch of the store’s new denim section. She put 150 metal spoons on the jeans and filled them with vines and faux berries. After the success of her first project, Bloomingdale’s gave her an opportunity she would never have dreamed of, including an on site studio for her to work in. Her task was to apply her artistic practice on three oversized versions of iconic perfume bottle silhouettes. She used fabric and wallpaper with some of her art printed on them along with buckles, words, leaves, chains, and, of course, spoons.
Patti at the MAD Ball
Patti in front of her perfume bottles at Bloomingdale’s
One of the bottles had messages written by Patti on plaques. She wrote things like, “where there are well worn wooden spoons there is love,” “spoons give and receive in a single, humble motion,” and “we feed our children, our children feed themselves, our children feed their children, our children feed us.” Next to the exhibition, Patti left a book of empty pages with the messages about spoons on the top of each page and asked visitors to write what spoons mean to them. She visited Bloomingdale’s each and every day to see what people wrote to her and ended up filling four, thick volumes.
On March 2nd, Patti cooked her bread pudding in the Bloomingdale’s test kitchen in an event sponsored by Le Creuset. She created recipe cards with her artwork and served samples throughout the afternoon surrounded by some of her prints. “It will rain on March 2nd,” Patti predicted, “because my grandmother will be crying tears of joy. She’ll have to stop playing bridge and canasta with all her friends to watch me.” Patti called the event, “Life is a Circle of Spoons.”
Hundreds of spoons later, Patti is only looking forward.
While life can seem like a scary roller coaster ride and we can’t control everything, there are some things we can determine for ourselves. What will you fill your real and metaphorical spoon with? What do you see for yourself as you write a new chapter or head in a new direction? My art celebrates liberation, passion, risk taking, reinvention, spirituality, and the creative spirit.
Patti encourages people to go for what they want, even if they’re afraid or think the field is full. “I love spoons and I love the stories they tell and I guess that’s why it’s sort of working, because I chose an object that was in my hand and I was using it for a good purpose, to cook and feed myself and others. Now I’m using it to help hungry New Yorkers by donating a portion of the proceeds from sales of my prints to City Harvest”
Timeless Beauty
So what’s next? “I guess I’m going back to my original days in television – it’s unscripted!”
Follow Patti on Instagram for more of her story and work.
