Last night I went to a pre-opening "
pencil party" for a new community/arts space on on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn a few blocks away from my home. The space will be called
Launchpad. I had a chance to chat with Mike, the founder (and owner of the building) and his priorities seem right on. Most remarkably, there is no obvious political, religious, or ideological agenda--how rare is that for a grassroots community space?! They just want to provide a place for people to hold events, classes, share resources, etc. Mike expects non-profit incorporation to be completed within the week.
Launchpad is reaching out for foundation funding, and Mike is donating his storefront, but they do need financial support from individuals as well. They're raising start-up funds via Kickstarter, and have about one more day to meet their goal.
Please consider contributing! I really hope this place gets a strong start and thrives.
The gist of the "pencil party" was to draw on the walls, in this case with markers instead of pencils. One of my contributions was an urban sketch--a view from the window right on the window frame:
(Sorry the pics are so lousy--it was dark and all I had was my phone.)
I neglected to take any photos of the space or the party, but here's one I snagged from Mike's Facebook:
While I'm excited about Launchpad and have high hopes for it, the crowd at the party did give me cause for worry--it was extraordinarily skewed in terms of age, race, and class. As they go forward, I really hope Launchpad can involve a more representative cross-section of who lives in the neighborhood. A major point of a place like this is that everyone will feel welcome, and given the demographics of the neighborhood (shifting fast and loose these days), it may take some real effort and reaching-out to achieve this.
Launchpad is located at 721 Franklin Avenue, between Sterling and Park, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City.
I love your NYC sketches and hope you are planning to share many more. One of my personal challenges is mixing watercolors for the many colors of brick in the city. I’d love to know how you deal with this (email is fine).
— Shirley July 18, 2007 #
Thanks, Shirley! Yes, there are a lot of colors of brick and stone in this city. I vacillate between trying to capture “true” representations of colors and the saner (and more traditionally watercolorist) route of utilizing a more limited palette that just feels right.
This particular drawing is either/both of those approaches, and I didn’t work very hard on painting it (only one or two layers, and crappy paper anyway).
There’s a bit of shading, but essentially only five colors: the blue sky, the reddish brick, the ochre stucco, the warm orangey brownstone, and a cooler darker brown for the decorative woodwork on the outer buildings.
— Jason Das July 18, 2007 #