THE ARTS PAPER – ARTICLES

For Meg Bloom, art is in her nature and nature is in her art

Hank Hoffman

Meg Bloom. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

In artist Meg Bloom’s work, life meets art with all the tensions and contradictions that entails. Loss and rejuvenation, beauty and the grotesque, the natural and the synthetic. This parade of dualities reflects more than aesthetic choices. It is emblematic of Bloom’s experience of the world.

Seated amid Bloom’s and Howard el-Yasin’s collaborative sculpture installation Out of Line at City Gallery in September, she tells me, “I see things in complicated ways.”

Bloom attributes her complicated vision, in part, to her long career in social work. Choosing between art and social work as a post-college career path was a difficult choice. She believes she was “born into art.” Her mother was a sculptor. But social concern is also in the blood. One of Bloom’s grandmothers was a settlement worker and piano player who founded the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia. Bloom opted for social work out of college because, she says, “I wanted to relate to the rest of the world and what was going on in the rest of the world.”

She helped launch the New Haven Battered Women’s Project and worked with victims of sexual abuse. The last 13 years before her 1998 retirement from social work were spent in a school-based clinic at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, dealing, Bloom says, with “a lot of heavy stuff with teenagers who had miserable lives but were incredibly wonderful.”

Throughout her social work career, Bloom continued to make art as an avocation, taking occasional workshops. When she retired, she gave herself the “gift of a three-year intensive experience,” enrolling in the New York Studio School. At the Studio School, Bloom delved deeply into painting and drawing as well as sculpture, her primary medium. Over the course of her Studio School studies, Bloom says her formerly figurative approach incorporated more abstraction.

Bloom’s contribution to the Out of Line installation embraces the mix of the figurative and the abstract. While el-Yasin’s Frankenstein-like tree limbs – found twigs and branches cut into segments and then patched together – protrude from the walls parallel to the floor, Bloom’s long, thin tubular forms are suspended from the ceiling. They cluster like stands of trees or groups of wraiths in conversation.

As in nature, the forms have shared characteristics: a translucent cream color, burn blisters edged with brown, vein-like lines of dark wool thread. But each form is also individuated. With some, the burn scarring is profuse, flaking like birch bark, while others have cleaner surfaces. They vary in length. Deeper in the City Gallery space, several forms are long enough to touch the floor. A few near the front are installed on the diagonal like fallen trees. Geometric line is juxtaposed with randomness. When the blower of the heating system is on, the forms are animated, some swaying while others twist in tight arcs.

The forms are made of layered silk and rayon paper with dark strands of wool, fused together with beeswax. Bloom then selectively burns the skins of her objects. The process is Bloom’s invention, the fortuitous result of experimentation and accident. Several years ago, after a number of failed attempts to make a form that was both transparent and would hold like a pod, Bloom considered using wax on fabric. Using heat, she thought she could then eliminate the wax, leaving enough residue to stiffen the fabric.

“When I put heat to the fabric, it blistered,” Bloom recalls, making a gesture indicating “poof!” The fabric, which she thought was silk, was actually polyester. “It didn’t work at all for what I wanted but I was really excited with what I got. I started burning everything in sight.

“I love working with materials where there is a mix of chance and deliberation. I love planning up to a point and then love the magic of what happens when you use fire, use wax, use heat,” says Bloom. “With clay – when I used to do raku or fuming – you had an idea of what you wanted to happen and it almost never happened exactly as you wanted it. Sometimes what you got was a mess and sometimes you got really exciting results. It’s like life. You have to go with the journey.

“I’ve always been interested in texture and layering. Not just as surface but as something that maintains and contains a history,” says Bloom. In the visible “history” of a particular work, the viewer glimpses the processes of life.

Bloom is a frequent visitor to Point Reyes in California. She notes how what she has seen in nature finds its way into her work: “I’ve been there after a fire where everything looks charred and seen some places where tiny growth is coming out of this thing that’s been totally destroyed.”

“I feel like the metaphors contained in the process and work are important for me,” says Bloom. Indicating the forms around us, she explains, “If you look at this work – in most of my work – you think in terms of references to nature. But you also think in terms of things being burnt, altered. You don’t know whether they are deteriorating or turning into something new, or regenerating.”

For her 2007 City Gallery show Mono No Aware – the title was a Japanese phrase referring, according to Bloom’s artist statement, to “the awareness of the transience of things” – she constructed reliefs on bases of cardboard. Bloom says her goal with the Mono No Aware show was to place the viewer within the process of change but make it subtle. The cardboard was stripped, waxed, and burned and then layered with elements such as twigs, seed pods, and fabric. The linear order of the corrugated lines provided strong counterpoint to the seeming randomness of the other materials. The reliefs evoked landscapes. A suggestion of decay enveloped “Transience #12,” in which burnt and torn paper and fabric expose a skeleton of twigs. Conversely, with seed pods bursting through fabric, life emerged from death in “Transience #14.”

She finds it refreshing to be able to move back and forth between creating larger sculptural endeavors like the Out of Line installation and working on smaller pieces such as paintings, collages, pastel drawings, and relief works like those in Mono No Aware. Many of the smaller works also offer Bloom the chance to indulge her love of color. She considered incorporating stronger colors into her Out of Line forms but made the decision “to keep things simple so the changes would be more subtle.”

Since finishing at the Studio School, Bloom’s journey has included diverse art practices. She has worked on her own, collaborated with other artists, and taken on big community projects. Notably, Bloom – working with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas – coordinated a 900-person project in Westville several years ago in which residents painted tiles for a wall at Mitchell Library. Bloom says she is “committed to using art in that way, both to get people involved in the (process) of making art and also using it as a vehicle for organizing.”

“I feel it’s really important for artists to have a dialogue with their audience,” says Bloom. “I feel the same about collaborating. It takes you places you wouldn’t necessarily go by yourself.

“It feels like it’s always a struggle for me. If I’m not doing social work, what am I doing art for?” muses Bloom. “The answer is, I can’t not do it. And I also believe there needs to be art in the world. I want to create work that challenges people to think and see and challenges me to think and see.”



Project Storefronts – a creative ‘catalyst’

David A. Brensilver

	Alexis Zanghi at Detritus. Photo by Judy Sirota Rosenthal.

At press time, the City of New Haven’s Project Storefronts initiative had been in full swing for less than a month. In that time, the goal of the program had already been realized to a healthy degree.

In September, Barbara Lamb, director of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, talked about the project’s inception, which was inspired, in part, by other cities’ efforts to fill empty storefronts by handing the keys to artists.

The more she thought about it, Lamb asked herself: “What if we put artists in there” – “there” being vacant space in New Haven’s Ninth Square – who “have the potential to start a business?”

And thus, Project Storefronts became about more than calling on artists to breathe life in empty retail spaces. The program took shape as an opportunity for creative entrepreneurs to test their business models without the daunting burden of heavy fiscal commitment. New Haven’s Economic Development Corporation provided $30,000 in funding, and the Department of Cultural Affairs signed a 90-day cost-free lease with Related Properties, which owns the complex at 71 Orange St. While that lease was scheduled to expire in October, Margaret Bodell, the city’s public art coordinator and Project Storefronts manager, said in September, “We’re hoping for a renewal.”

“The goal,” Lamb said, “is to help some artists who may have the interest and the potential to achieve financial stability.” It is also an attempt to “revitalize some of our commercial districts. … It was always about where there might be a cluster of storefronts where we could make an impact.”

Anne Haynes, executive director of the independent nonprofit Economic Development Corporation, talked about Project Storefronts in the context of the EDC’s mission to be an agent of business retention and attraction.

“Because it makes visible that sort of creative entrepreneur,” Haynes said, “I think (Project Storefronts) inspires people.” Her intuition in September was that the project could very well be “an enabler or a catalyst.”

While the jury was still out at that point, Haynes said that was only because the project “seems so successful so quickly.”

For Lisa Spetrini, one of the principals of Upcycle Arts, Project Storefronts has provided physical space in which collaboration among related interests could be fostered. Upcycle Arts, which focuses on the use of recycled materials, has evolved into a gallery and workshop space. It is also home to the local crafters group Elm City Handmade and an Etsy “street team” – a group of local craft artists who have online storefronts at etsy.com.

Projects Storefronts has been home to Crosby Street Presents, a pop-up gallery whose permanent presence is in cyberspace.

Rob Sanchez, one of the entrepreneurs behind Crosby Street Presents, said, “We run pop-up shows as ways to bring art to communities” that haven’t necessarily been exposed to contemporary art galleries. In doing so, Sanchez said he and his partners are “bringing communities to life.”

Crosby Street Presents also offers collectors an opportunity to purchase contemporary artwork at less of a cost than they might otherwise have to pay.

“When we have free or low-cost rent we’re able to lower the prices on the art and still pay the artists,” Sanchez said, thus giving those who are “just exploring the world of contemporary art” a chance to begin their private collections.

Bodell said the EDC’s funding provided each Project Storefronts business a $500 stipend for building out its Ninth Square space and that each storefront is responsible for covering its utility bills.

Detritus owner Alexis Zanghi hopes her “curated” bookstore can stay open in New Haven over the long term. She started Detritus with an eye on offering a more tangible form of support to contributors to her literary publication, The Dirty Pond. She also opened her storefront having become “extremely frustrated as a consumer” that there was not a place in New Haven where people could find the books she carries – independently published, limited-run books.

“The old model of bookstores is dying,” Zanghi said, pointing out, “There’s a difference between consumers of prose and consumers of books.”

She said, “Literature is sort of in the same place as where music was” when the advent of digital downloads changed the way many consumers purchase music.

At Detritus, Zanghi orders in small numbers. When a publication is sold out, she orders something different. She’s treating media as art objects.

“I’m not just supporting my creative community,” she said, “I’m filling a niche and a need” on behalf of local consumers.

Since she opened Detritus at the beginning of September, Zanghi said, “I’ve been breaking even on sales,” a positive sign given that her storefront is “not the place to go if you are looking for a particular title.”

Detritus is a place where people can make literary discoveries. Zanghi describes her clientele as “creative consumers” or “consumers of creativity,” college-educated people between 21 and 45 years of age who “want to be surprised.” Project Storefronts has given her the “opportunity to test-drive this idea in a relatively low-risk setting.”

At The Grove, Ken Janke has offered locals a collaborative workspace. The space takes its name from New Haven’s nickname, the “Elm City,” specifically from the idea of a root system’s interconnectedness. Janke’s goal is to help people “be connected in the collective ecology of a workspace.” At The Grove, clients pay a fee – designed a bit like a cell-phone plan – that offers access to a Wi-Fi network, black and white printing, coffee and tea services, meeting spaces, and collaborative breakout rooms.

“We’re trying to build a community of people working here,” Janke said. He also wants to broker collaboration between other nonprofit organizations in New Haven.

Potential members go through an application process that helps Janke and his business partner Slate Ballard see who a person is and assess whether his or her presence would fit the culture of The Grove and whether The Grove has something to offer them. Unlike a coffee shop, The Grove provides professional assistance and feels like an office.

Janke said a business plan for The Grove had been in the works for more than three years, and that he and Ballard had hoped to open before the current economic crisis hit. Through Project Storefronts, Janke said, “We’ve hit the ground running.”

While he hopes the city’s lease with Related Properties is extended, Janke said he has every intention of keeping The Grove open. He and Ballard feel that it’s a viable and sustainable business and one that’s needed in New Haven. The co-working movement has been spreading across the country, he said, and the availability of co-working space in New Haven is long past due.

Bodell said, “The storefronts have been really innovative.”

It is her hope that “this would become a program that runs all time time,” and that “this could work in all the (city’s) neighborhoods.”

At press time, Bodell said, “We do not know how the cookie will crumble,” referring to the current lease agreement the city has with Related Properties.

Lamb said, “I could actually see this as a long, ongoing project … as long as we have funding.”



Room for ‘pure performance’

Nick Lloyd

When asked to describe Firehouse 12 to someone who knows nothing about the building or what goes on here, it’s difficult to know how to begin. I might start by saying that the business is housed in an old firehouse originally built in 1905, located in the Ninth Square of New Haven. But this only provides a location and a rough and potentially misleading picture of a historical building: red fire engines and a pole inside (everyone wants to know where the pole is -- there was no pole when we started the renovation here). By using the expression “avant-garde” as I try to explain what happens in the building at Firehouse 12, I might elicit a glazed-over, fearful look. If I shift tack, and begin to go on about tube microphones and tape flux, my inquisitor could end up thoroughly puzzled. I may or may not get into the fact that, in addition to owning and working in the building, I live upstairs with my wife and our 11-month-old daughter.

Forced simply to articulate what this place is (and in a concise frame of mind), I would say, “It’s a bar, a recording studio, and a performance space.”

Thinking recently about the phrase, “It’s a performance space,” I’ve wanted to invert it, to spin it around a bit. Certainly, the word “performance” is suitable as an adjective describing the noun “space,” but I have also wanted to think about how a given space informs our understanding of a performance.

In my first attempts at programming music at Firehouse 12 in 2005, my booking approach was substantially more catholic than it is now -- in the first few months, we had intensely avant-garde jazz, chamber-y classical music, a mixed-media performance by the indie band (and at that time, Yale-based) Dirty Projectors, and an unfortunately mediocre solo piano performance. In a way, casting about with these different styles of music helped reveal the character of the room, and, at least to me, made it painfully clear that performers here need to “play the room” as much as possible. It also became clear that a directive to “play the room” is not something you can reliably enforce. As any booker or promoter will tell you, once a performance begins, short of a drastic intervention, the train has left the station: you are at the mercy of the performer’s talent and goodwill to make sure no one gets hurt.

A space itself makes certain demands and asks for certain kinds of performances. With a space as aurally and physically intimate as the room at Firehouse 12, there’s nowhere for either the performer or the audience to hide. During a performance, the audience is right on top of the performers, with the front row of seats maybe 24 inches away from the front-line of the players. With no background noise, any talking between musicians is clearly audible between songs (and eliminates any pretense of a fourth wall). Any projected insecurity by a performer is felt in every seat in the house. You can feel the audience around you withdrawing from, or opening up to, a performer, just as you can hear the sounds of someone breathing or folding a piece of paper next to you. Additionally, the space is unusually non-reverberant -- built out primarily as a recording studio, it has reflective characteristics tweaked for the recording of an acoustic drum kit played loudly, instrumental soloists, or small groups of acoustic instruments.

I had to ask myself two questions as I confronted the reality of a space in which every sound would be heard and every performance enlists the audience as collaborators in a sonic event. First: What type of musician is open to so much scrutiny? And second: What type of audience is open to being immersed in the texture of sound in the room, comfortable and even glad to be seated that close to the musicians (and potentially their amplifiers) through an entire show? I try to think about those questions every time I book something at Firehouse 12 -- and I’ve found that performers who work under the rubric loosely defined as jazz, or improvised, or creative music, and the audiences that want to see them, are among the most open and tolerant to the risk and promise of the room.

While the intimacy of the space presents its greatest challenges, it also provides its strongest benefits. At a few performances, where the musicians were playing especially challenging music, I have watched with grateful admiration as just the right social interaction between performer and audience, maybe some well-timed on-stage banter between pieces, or a little self-deprecating humor, has the magical effect of opening a door into the music for the audience. An audience member in this setting can participate in a performance more fully than if they were set back from a stage riser, or thinking about what they’re going to buy next to make their $15 drink minimum. With the right performer, you feel that you’re in good hands, that this person or this group is guiding you through an adventure. And though it doesn’t happen every night, at the best shows, once or twice a season, you might feel a visceral synergy between the performers, the audience, and the space -- catching a glimpse of the divine, timeless space occupied by pure performance.

Nick Lloyd is the owner of Firehouse 12. This is his opinion. Visit Firehouse 12 at firehouse12.com.

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