SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE: Bushwick Open Studios

Three Angels by the Park, Coffee House, Bushwick, June 2012

I'm not sure if I'd ever been to Bushwick, certainly not within recent memory, so this was a sort of adventure. My destination was Bushwick Open Studios (BOS2012) and The Coin Locker gallery, to see a show of some artists I'd met on FB. And I did, meet the artists, in particular Vincent Hawkins, a Brit., whose work I really admire, and Julie Torres, American, who organized the exhibition, All Together Now, of artists from here and abroad who came in to take part in the show—you can see the work exhibited at this link: http://www.artslant.com/ny/events/show/218774-alltogethernow. Below is an acrylic on board, by Hawkins, and below that, a work on paper, by Yifat Gat, who I 'discovered' in the show. Good stuff. 

I also wandered, and of course, took the few coffee pics I came across. The Three Angels, above, is a very, make that 'very' unpretentious and friendly coffee house, but the space is an odd mix of near empty rooms—at least this day—and a jumble of mis-matched furnishings. But that's Bushwick, from what little I saw, a jumble of run-down Latino housing and shops, alongside equally run-down artist's studios, alongside trendy restaurants and markets—the inevitable beginnings of the next best destination for gentrification. 

Vincent Hawkins

Yifat Gat

And here's a piece I came across in a studio I wandered into, on the way back to the 'L,' that I quite liked.

Brent Owens, Routed Work, painted wood.