Ridgewood’s HQ for creatives

Ridgewood is a haven for all artists

Outpost Artists Resources offers creatives the most valuable thing: space

by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor

Tucked away in an unassuming building in Ridgewood, the foundation of which was built in the late 1800s and once served as a dance hall and later a sweatshop where sweaters were sewn together, is a haven for artists of all kinds that has operated for over a decade.

Outpost Artists Resources, originally founded in 1991 in Manhattan, supports creatives through residencies and events and provides technical assistance with video, audio and physical computingbased art projects, including editing technology, sound engineering and custom programming.

The nonprofit hosts gallery exhibitions, artist talks, screenings and events that pair visual art, video, experimental music and performances.

On Thursdays, concerts are recorded in the space, which provides desirable acoustics due to the 20-foot ceilings that were installed before apartments were built on top in the 20th century.

The concert series, Fire Over Heaven, produces nine monthly shows a year and features performers from experimental, avant-garde jazz, classical, rock, performance art, folk and world music communities. It is curated by Queens-based musician Che Chen, who is also part of the musical duo 75 Dollar Bill, the second half of which is Rick Brown.

“I try to program bills that are eclectic and bring in people that are working at the fringes of all these different scenes,” Chen said.

“I try to make it a space where the outliers from all those scenes — folk, rock, classical, jazz — can be in one place and maybe there can be some cross-pollination. And I’ve also tried to get people from the Queens music community that aren’t maybe so tied into this world.”

For example, he said, the Hindustani classical singer Dada Tapan Kanti Badya.

“It’s a very artist-run and artistsupporting project,” said Chen.

Outpost staff produces highquality recordings of the concerts, made available for free to the artists and broadcast on WFMU’s Ridgewood Radio stream, which airs on Wednesdays.

Concerts are on hiatus for the summer but are expected to pick back up in September. Previous ones are available online.

There is a sliding-scale admission for attendees so that artists can be paid.

The radio show also offers restored archival tapes from private and institutional collections captured at venues large and small across the five boroughs and produced by David Weinstein in the basement of the building.

Especially during the pandemic when live shows could not be recorded, he would gather material and do specials on different international music like Ukrainian avant-garde and music from the Arabian peninsula, he said. They would also gather recordings from places like the Knockdown Center, Flushing Town Hall and the former Queenslab as well as venues like Trans-Pecos and H0LO.

Outpost founder and painter Ruth Kahn’s artwork hangs on the walls in the home base room because when concerts are not being recorded there, she uses it as her art studio.

“Ruth Kahn is a long time champion of experimental music and new bands and young musical talents,” said Weinstein.

Chen remembers the days when Kahn would cook meals for the artists before shows because there was not much to eat in the area. She would whip up vegetarian meals and pots of soup for the artists to bond over before the show.

Outpost has been a “feeding ground” for upand-coming groups, Weinstein said, including the Beastie Boys and Sonic Youth from its early Manhattan days.

“It’s a place for people to try experimenting with not so much pressure and for enough money to make it worth their cab fare,” he said.

Outpost came to Ridgewood in 2009 and the music scene seemed to follow suit.

“I bought the place because it was half a block from the L train and I could afford it,” said Kahn.

“I didn’t really think about the neighborhood ... it had this good space because it had been a sweatshop. There was a giant room with a 20-foot ceiling and plugs on the floor and tons of sewing machines when I bought it.”

Those plugs were soon given a new purpose and put to good use.

Che says the perks of the neighborhood were not lost on others in the art community, either.

“Ridgewood has become one of the neighborhoods where a lot of musicians, younger musicians, are living now,” he said. “Parts of Queens and the outer boroughs are becoming more populated by younger musicians and creative people.”

Weinstein says the availability of space has made it a thriving creative community.

“Years ago, nobody was interested in anything creative that happened outside of Manhattan,” he said. “Now, the generations that followed me, these people will go anywhere to see a cool show. I mean, they’ll take the train to the Rockaways. They’ll go to Jersey City, they’ll go to Flushing Town Hall to see something ... that means Queens isn’t so marginalized anymore. It’s not like a weird, scary place that people don’t understand.”

He said that has caused a

“change in the gravitational pull of the audience to the arts” and made Queens a center for new activity. Kahn has always understood the need that artists have for studio space, which has only gotten to be more expensive in the city. Outpost previously offered artist residencies but it has given that and the gallery up and is just focusing on the concerts, radio show and Experimental occasional video screening. Kahn, 71, is in the process of retiring and handing the 501(c)(3) off to another arts group. “If I were going to do it all over again, I would look for a building that had studios,” she said. “There’s much more of a need for work studios. There’s a lot of places for musicians to play, and there are tons of galleries. So the real need, in my opinion, is studio space — cheap studio space, which because of my age, luckily, I managed to have throughout most of my career.” Over the years, grant money has dwindled, such as that from the Queens Council on the Arts, which has made it more difficult to carry out operations. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” she said. “It’s a pretty long life for a small nonprofit in New York City.” “It was just another weird miracle every year,” she continued. “You could never predict where the money would come from ... the grants are maybe one-fifth of what they were 25 years ago. They just got smaller and smaller and smaller over time.”

Outpost Artists Resources, based out of Ridgewood, is located in a space that was formerly a dance hall, making it the perfect place to hold concerts. PHOTOS COURTESY OUTPOST ARTISTS RESOURCES Over the years, Outpost Artists Resources has hosted gallery exhibitions, artist talks, screenings and events that pair visual art, video, experimental music and performances. Due to a lack of funding, however, it has downsized. Screenings and concerts will continue in the space.