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.

Upcoming Local Films: Gold Star by Victoria Negri

"A girl. Her dad. The 65 years separating them." Those are the few words utilized by filmmaker Victoria Negri to describe her film project, Gold Star, which is already funded on Kickstarter with fifteen more days to go. The film itself is about the relationship between a young woman and her much-older father. It's clearly a very personal story, based deeply on factual real-life experience, which makes for the best kind of art: that which celebrates the lives of real people and highlights the complexity of the human condition, in all of its unique forms.

To be filmed in September in Connecticut, the project could use more funding. I recommend watching the trailer because it's where I got all the information for this write-up. And if you're in the lucrative position to financially contribute to a good cause, and you have an affinity for the arts, this is an investment equivocal to that which should yield great rewards. 

Fund GoldStarFilm on Kickstarter

"Youth Day" Seeks Fundraising Efforts

"The Youth Day Project is a youth-led organization solely designed to celebrate the talents of young people in New Haven. Currently as an organization, YDP offers programs in technology education, business, art, music, fashion, dance, poetry, song, and more. Their entire Board of Directors is built up of youth between ages 16 through 20 after being founded by 16 year olds since late 2009."

For several years, they've been hosting events at various locations in New Haven, such as the Public Library.  These events are for young people to perform and showcase their talents to an audience of their peers.  The act of performance instills confidence in the participants, of which most of the audience is also composed.  Families often attend youth day, as well.  This year, they're trying to raise $4000 to host the event.

"What we want to add to Youth Day Connecticut:

"In the past we have had other organizations host particular activities such as arts and crafts workshops for the kids ages 5-12, provided a space for local you artists to perform, and keynote speakers to inspire youth to achieve their full potential. This year we want to provide organizations with the resources to create a youth exhibition of dance in all forms from latin dance, to break dance, ballroom dance, and more."

Official Youth Day Website
Youth Day Kickstarter

Local Brewshop Seeks Goal

Local Brewshop on Center Street in downtown New Haven Luck and Levity is attempting to raise enough funding to purchase the equipment to build a Fermentation Center.  It's described as a social enterprise.  The project seems off to a healthy start on the fundraising platform known as Kickstarter.

"When you back this project, you'll help create a community-focused enterprise unlike anything New Haven or Connecticut has ever seen.  The fermentation center will include a commercial kitchen space that you and your friends and neighbors can use to work on DIY food products.  The kitchen space will also host classrooms and workshops by Luck and Levity staff, local culinary gurus, and community partners, such as CitySeed." (owner, Scott Vignola).

Scott also speaks of his experience in the Peace Corps.

The amount for the fundraiser to succeed is $20,000, and there are a number of incentives listed on the official fundraising page.  The shop is open Tuesday to Friday from 11am-8pm, Saturday: 11am-8pm, and Sunday 12-5pm.  See what all the commotion is about.

New Creative Space in #Nhv

New Creative Space in #Nhv.

Check out this project in New Haven. The Darkroom is located in the basement of what used to be the Devils Gear Bike Shop, when it existed in Fair Haven on Chapel Street. These folks have good intentions of turning it into a creative performance space. Things the space needs: 1) Handicap Accessibility 2) Additional Bathroom Space 3) Stage Construction 4) Acoustic Treatments View Their Facebook Page About the Organizer, John Flynn: I'm an artist/musician born and raised in New Haven County. I've been privileged to have toured this country sharing my music and working with incredible people. I founded CT's Fauxchella Indie Music & Art Festival and we are soon ready to begin preparations for our 3rd year, I have been honored to work on 2012 and the upcoming 2013 Bridgeport Art's Fest. I am setting up my first Beer Fest feature Country Wide breweries! I am excited to also be building a music studio and running Darkroom Funding ends May 11th.