Thursday, May 8, 2014 Page B1
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SoBro show rewrites the language of city planning By Ashley Helms ahelms@riverdalepress.com
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series of sculptures, prints and other works at Casita Maria in the south Bronx gives a new meaning to the phrase Alphabet City. Elizabeth Hamby’s current show depicts buildings and other city structures as letters to create a new lexicon about New York. Her show, itself called Alphabet City, covers the walls, ceiling and other parts of the gallery. “It’s a way to experience all of the relationships between the prints, shapes on the wall and outside the windows,” Ms. Hamby said. In two of her pieces, the artists uses an aerial view of public housing buildings to show they are shaped like the letter h. The result is a whimsical new take on a familiar part of the cityscape. Ms. Hamby also painted alphabet shapes in bright pink, yellow and green on the walls of the exhibition. She said she wanted to play on the urban planning practice of color-coding maps and plans to identify different kinds of buildings. “I wanted to create a really fun environment in the space,” Ms. Hamby added. “The people who are going to see the work the most are kids, and I wanted it to be a fun, exciting space to be in.” The artist’s inspiration came from her senior thesis advisor at Parsons The New School for Design, who suggested Ms. Hamby study urban planning. “I spent time hand rendering maps and graphics of cities and I got to know the shapes of buildings in an intimate way,” Ms. Hamby said. “The city is like a whole alphabet that you have to learn.” In addition to her visual art, Ms. Hamby leads Boogie Down Rides in the Bronx, in which she takes people on bike trips throughout the borough and asks them to imagine they are part of a performance.
ELIZABETH HAMBY’S ‘Detail of Alphabet City Block 2.’
JAMES ROJAS’ ‘Alphabet City [BLOCKS],’ consisting of wood, plastic and found materials.
Photos by Marisol Díaz
Christine Licata, Casita Maria’s director of performing and visual arts, shared her interpretation of Ms. Hamby’s show during a recent visit. “You think of architecture as [something] either you’re in or out of. But it’s always something you would never see as a language that you work with every day and see every day,” she said. Casita Maria has provided social services, community outreach and creative forums for the past 80 years. It began by working with mostly migrant Hispanic families in East Harlem, and moved to the south Bronx in 1961. Ms. Hamby’s show at Casita Maria, located at 928 Simpson St., runs until Wednesday, July 9. Admission is free. Ms. Hamby will host a special lab on Thursday, June 5 at 4 p.m. and an artist talk on Wednesday, July 9 at 6 p.m.
K’bridge painter calls on roots in photography By Marcelle McIntosh newsroom@riverdalepress.com
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Documented by Marisol Díaz
GLORIA KARLSON’S ‘Kaleidoscope of Time.’
loria Karlson’s art is about exploration in time and space. The longtime Kingsbridge resident often applies colorful paints to black and white photos to create a reality all her own, but based, she explains, on her subjects’ reactions to the environment around them. Her technique intentionally blurs the lines where colors intersect — giving her works an air of mystery — yet the subjects in the underlying photos are positioned to be noticed and identified. “My work deals with these subterranean rumblings of my mind, of my psyche,” Ms. Karlson said during a recent interview at her home and studio, where the rumblings of an occasional No. 1 train were the only sounds that penetrated the quiet space. The living room walls are neatly
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lined with the artist’s own colorful paintings and black-and-white photographs as well as works by her friends. One of them, Kaleidoscope of Time, is a painting in which both old and new are present simultaneously. It depicts a young girl clothed in the same earthtoned colors as the landscape she occupies and a statue of an old man who appears to be staring at her like a voyeur. The piece evokes a contrast between generations. Ms. Karlson’s life has been a bit of an exploration of time and space, too. She moved around a lot during her childhood, and she went to Fordham University to study psychology, not art. But, after graduating with high honors, she didn’t become a therapist or a social worker. Instead, she landed a job as an agent for photographers. Meeting with ad agency creative directors and gallery owners, toting around and promoting portfolios, gave Ms. Karlson the inspiration to pick up a camera of her own. What began as
a hobby soon became a career and a way of life. “I carried a camera all the time, practically to bed.” Ms. Karlson recalled. “Literally I would get up, have breakfast and go walking around the city.” For 25 years, she shared her knowledge of art and photography with students at Parsons The New School for Design in Chelsea, where she encouraged them to view the attractions of the city as she did, as their living classroom. In her own photography, Ms. Karlson has long striven to capture candid shots that show people in their natural habitats, whether urban or rural. Thus, timing is a critical element of her work. In a split second, a perfect shot or angle could be lost. More than ago — on the cover of the New School’s 1978 photography department brochure — one of Ms. Karlson’s photographs depicted a clown and a little boy sitting on the base of a sculpture making faces at (Continued on page B2)