Support CityWide Open Studios!

If you've ever been to CityWide Open Studios, it's the best ways to spend October in New Haven. Watch the above video to learn more about their fundraising efforts for this year's event!

This short film shows you the perspective of Open Studios from the words of artists, community activists, and many others. To put it in the phrase best said by Semi Semi-Dikoko: "It needs to be experienced."

Experience it yourself by watching the video above! And donate to CityWide Open Studios. Follow +NhvOrg (@NHVORG on Twitter) to find out more about how you can participate as a supporter of Artspace and CWOS. There are many different rewards.

From their posting:

City-Wide Open Studios brings artists living and working in Connecticut together in an exhibition that spreads out across the City of New Haven over mutiple weekends. From recent graduates of the area's fine arts programs, to distinguished artists with international reputations, to nascent collectives, social-justice oriented public art and self-taught artists, CWOS celebrates the ideas and process of a dynamic and generous creative community.

We're celebrating our 19th year with our first-ever Kickstarter because we need your support. This event is for you--the artist, the visitor, the citizen, the explorer, but we can't do it without your help.

We're best known for finding and rehabbing empty historic buildings and securing them for the pop-up installations by artists that inspire and create pride in our unusual built environment. Our overall budget is $185,000. This covers all the clean up, rehabilitation, coordination, printing, website, security, insurance, fees for guest curators, signage, and special projects.  And much more. We keep our fees to artists as low as possible--way lower than other Open Studios across the US-- and most events are free to attend. The good news is that we do have grant funds that cover a good chunk of our budget. We're $25,000 short.

Visitors and friends: Every dollar you give helps us get closer to being able to fully fund this program that is so eagerly anticipated by so many. Your support also keeps it free so that all can enjoy it.

Participating artists: please show your support by standing with us and opening up your studio and space--this year you can sign up right here at Kickstarter. Every artist who signs up gets us closer to being able to present the CWOS festival. And the sooner you sign up, the longer your work is on view on the CWOS.org website for audiences to see.

With your backing, we will also be able, for the very first time, to advertise in two national arts publications--HyperAllergic and Two Coats of Paint--so that we can attract many more people from the region to come and raise our national profile.

We also need your help to enrich the experience for all who are new to the visual arts. In response to requests from community leaders and educators, we've adopted a theme of Game On! to engage many more artists and citizens in playful, kinetic, and interactive public art.  We need your help to connect these projects to community-based groups, neighbors, and other  stakeholders of the huge, empty, Goffe Street Armory.

Check out their rewards! Some of the things they're offering are pretty neat.

CWOS AltSpace This Weekend

This weekend, CWOS AltSpace is the place to be. Watch the video of 2013's CWOS AltSpace and check out the map below the video to see where to go. This is CityWide Open Studios, New Haven's premiere art event brought to you by ArtSpace.

Read more about it [here].
The Alternative Space at The Goffe Street Armory

October 11 & 12, 2014

This video is from last year.

CWOS 2013: Alternative Space from New Haven, Connecticut on Vimeo.


View Larger Map

CityWide Open Studios Closes on Sunday

In case you have little else to do tomorrow, it's highly recommended to explore the overly vast space on Goffe and Hudson Streets in New Haven.  It's a building you probably have never been inside before; the New Haven Armory was a place where weapons were stored in the case of an invasion.  It has recently been approved for renovation, and you have a chance to see it in its current state of artistic disrepair.  Check out some of the awesome local art you can expect to see on your free tour, in the video.  There are many artists not featured in the video whom you might also like.  Stay tuned to Nhv.Org for more!  Sunday is the final day of CityWide Open Studios and it's the last chance you'll have to experience this year in the alternative space, the New Haven Armory.


CWOS 2013: Alternative Space from #NHV on Vimeo.
Resources:

• CWOS.Org  event information
• Map see below

View Larger Map

CWOS Closes This Weekend at Armory (AltSpace)

View Larger Map - Takes Place Saturday and Sunday from 12pm to 5pm.  CWOS Alternative Space.  

This weekend, check out CWOS (City-Wide Open Studios) at 290 Goffe Street, where an old armory has been converted into space to be filled with art by artists from around the area.  You can browse through a plurality of artworks from various people specializing in a variety of disciplines within an historic (and recently approved to be refurbished) building.  The entrance to the event is on Hudson St.
Read the Official CWOS Brochure for more info on the event.  Alternative Space Weekend features live performances and events, as well as food trucks by Caseus, Fryborg, Ricky D’s Rib Shack and more.  The space will be open between the hours of 12pm to 5pm.

CityWideOpenStudios This Year

Erector Square, located at 315 Peck Street in New Haven, was once home to the most popular kids' building toy in the world.  Envisioned by A.C. Gilbert just about 100 years ago, his invention, inspired in trainsit between New Haven and New York, on the train line which is now Metro North.

Today, it houses the studio spaces for many of the more prolific artists in town, as you will see in the video below.  In the words of Steve from Hulls on Chapel Street (an independently owned art store downtown), Erector Square's open studios helps New Haven by "giving something to the ages; i think that's very exciting for the whole city."


CWOS from #NHV on Vimeo.  Music by L.S. Aristotle

We went and took a random sample of a few artists and composed a video featuring a few of their works, arbitrarily; even the length of footage in each segment is different.  But the point remains the same:  New Haven artists are working hard to keep up with the level of ingenuity of A.C. Gilbert, and the creative spirit of the building seems to reverberate in the works made visible to the public during this annual event.

Organized by ArtSpace, CWOS (CityWide Open Studios) is the largest arts-oriented event in the city all year, and is the largest public event in the month of October (overshadowed only by the inauguration of Yale presidents on a rare occasion).

The Official Guide to CityWide Open Studios can be found by clicking the words you just recently encountered (the only hypertext link in this sentence).  It's in PDF format.

The schedule for this year's events are as follows:
Oct 4      Opening Party
Oct 12–13      Erector Square, 315 Peck Street
Oct 19–20      Passport Weekend, Private Studios
Oct 26–27      Alternative Space, Goffe Street Armory

Artwork seen in the video (in order of appearance):

Jaime A. Kriksciun - Stained Glass
specilaizing in unique stained glass work

Martha Lewis - Drawings, "The Elaboratory"
marthalewis.com

Bregamos Theater Unidad Latina en Accion
ULAccion.org

Regina Thomas - Collage, Mixed Media
reginathomas.com

Lani Asuncion - Video Artist
LaniAsuncion.com

In particular, you can watch parts of Lani's videos here.  Unidad latina en Accion is hosting a "Day of the Dead" Parade and Celebration on Sat. November 2 at 4pm (see calendar).

Bregamos Theater, within the Peck St. (A.C. Gilbert) facility will also be making giant puppets, instruments, and et cetera on Sundays all month in October from 1-5pm.  That's free and for all ages.  You can call them if you'd like to be a part of it.

meeting artists (*unlisted)
Inquiries about any of these artists may be reached, if no website is available, via the email address of this website:  nhv.org@gmail.com

Click for CWOS.Org

A Party In Every Vacant Lot

This was the opening.  There are less people there now.

In nearly vacant lot, here in New Haven, you will find that there is inevitably a party going on.  That's just how we do in this town.

Eventually, perhaps a skyscraper like 360 State might take the small acreage of this plot; but in the meantime, let's enjoy it with a nice game of mini golf.  You're invited to play (wed-sat).

Artspace, the illustrious studio on the corner of Orange and Crown, hosts exhibits here in town all the time.  This autumn, treat yourself to a game of minigolf with your friends, on a course made, of course, by local artists here in town.