A “Tree of Life” from Rhode Island to Forest Hills: Art Exhibit To Raise Funds For Pittsburgh Massacre Victims’ Families

"The Tree of Life Exhibit” is coming to Forest Hills, NY on May 1st & will run for 3 months (or longer) at Red Pipe Cafe at 71-60 Austin Street. An opening reception will be held on May 1st from 6 to 9 PM. A unique collaboration of 9 Rhode Island-based artists will display nearly 40 works of art to convey peace and harmony and allocate a portion of the proceeds to help the families of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; site of a mass shooting during Shabbat services on October 27, 2018, which led to 11 deaths and 7 injuries. The synagogue shared space with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, & all three congregations lost members in the attack. In Judaism, such a humanitarian cause is referred to as a “mitzvah,” which translates as a good deed.

   Local historian Michael Perlman said, “On a trip to Newport, RI last fall, I am proud to have met artist and gallery owner David Chatowsky, coordinator of The Tree of Life Exhibit, and I later arranged to bring Rhode Island-based artists to Forest Hills for a highly beneficial cause. The arts are universal and can serve as a platform for committing good deeds, particularly in memory of the victims of the Tree of Life synagogue.” Joining artist David Chatowsky will be artists Anthony Chatowsky, Mary Chatowsky Jameson, Mary Johnson, Matt Kieron, John Klippel, Elizabeth O’Connor, Scott Moran, and Sarah Seaman, who are his family and friends. All works of art are for sale and will be presented to the buyer on the day of purchase. The gallery will then feature a similar work of art ASAP.

   Chatowsky explained, “My mission is to bring people together through art to create a better future. When I heard about the Pittsburgh massacre, I felt compelled to help. It is my belief that we are all part of a human family, and when a part of this human family is hurting, I feel it is everyone’s responsibility to help. It is very important to use the gifts we have been given to bring peace and harmony into this world. I truly hope the Forest Hills community can lend their support, as the success of this exhibit and fundraiser depends on them.”

   The oil paintings that Chatowsky will showcase are images of his memories of the fields and forests that he would explore in his youth. He said, “I started this series of paintings four years ago to bring the peace and harmony I felt as a child back into my life.” For example, one painting is the “Tree of Life” and features a large oak tree by a pond with golden fields as the backdrop. 

   “It is my hope that the exhibit’s guests and patrons will feel the intrinsic connection which the artists have to nature, and this feeling will help them cultivate a personal relationship with the natural world,” said David Chatowsky, who feels that the collaboration between Rhode Island artists and the New York cafe and gallery “signifies the willingness of people working together to create a better future.” 

   Red Pipe Cafe attendees will take note of several types of media, where some art techniques are produced by David Chatowsky’s family. His sister, Mary Chatowsky Jameson, focuses on marine botanical prints, where her works are created by pressing seaweed into watercolor paper, similar to pressed flowers. His father Anthony Chatowsky creates art by printing fish on Japanese rice paper, which is a technique known as Gyotaku.

   For Laurie Zittrain Eisenberg, a Tree of Life congregation board member, the collaboration is symbolic of “the overwhelming support for the freedom of religion and right to worship free from fear” and “the use of art to communicate support for the victims and the common humanity of all good people.”

    She stated, “After witnessing first-hand the horrific nature of human evil, we are heartened by the ongoing evidence of how many wonderful, thoughtful people there are in the world. Tree of Life members are deeply touched by the generous decision to share a portion of the proceeds with the Tree of Life congregation. We are moved by the desire to support us and take great comfort and strength from it.”

  Red Pipe Cafe, owned by Rene David Alkalay & Ofer Kertes, has served Forest Hills since 2014. The charming and earthy ambiance offers a full line of organic & vegan dishes and drinks, in addition to an art gallery, game night, poetry night, and an open mic among community events. Alkalay said, “I am happy to provide a platform for the arts and to support artists at our venue, Red Pipe Cafe, as well as our holistic health center, Genesis Tree of Life in Forest Hills. At Genesis Society, we strive to continue the mission to support the arts by accommodating artists such as David Chatowsky, and look forward to The Tree of Life Exhibit.”

    David Chatowsky opened his first gallery in Portsmouth, RI in 2016, followed by a second in Newport last year. His third gallery is scheduled to open on Block Island in May. His diverse accomplishments also include permanent mural installations at the Florida Museum of Natural History, owning art galleries in Florida and New York, and having humanitarian art exhibits in Los Angeles and Boston.

To view photos of David Chatowsky’s paintings & the upcoming exhibit, visit: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmbMy9NF 

Art Opening and Holiday Party at OvoSodo Restaurant

OvoSodo Restaurant in Forest Hills (owners, Roberto Lamorte and Marco del Peschio), is sponsoring local artists by offering art shows and receptions with refreshments free of charge to the public. The Grand Opening Art Show and Holiday Party will take place on Thursday, December 18 from 3-5pm. It will feature the beautiful and fascinating works of magic-realist photographer Katherine Liepe-Levinson.

Admission and refreshments free of charge.
Join them for great food, great art, and Holiday Cheer.

Time: 3-5pm.
Place: OvoSodo Restaurant
110-60 Queens Boulevard, Forest Hills NY 11375

KATHERINE LIEPE-LEVINSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Katherine Liepe-Levinson is an award-winning Photographer. Her works have been featured on the cover and in articles of books, magazines, and newspapers. Her client list has included museums, corporations, small businesses, and performing artists. Katherine’s Fine Art Photography continues to be exhibited in Long Island galleries, both invitational and juried shows, where she has won several awards for her work.

In addition to photography, Katherine has performed as a professional dancer, actor, and writer on and off Broadway. She has been a resident of Forest Hills for more than thirty years.

The exhibit at Ovo Gallery, OvoSodo Restaurant includes eleven large size works of Kathy's. Here, she describes what will be on display:

SHOW SUMMARY

The works for this show come from a new series I have been working on for the past two years called, The Pond Series. All works were shot at the Quogue Wildlife Refuge on Long Island,  New York.  The subtle fresh water pond, with its changing water tables and interdependent flora and fauna, is a testament to the preciousness of our natural resources, which we too often take for granted or neglect. The unusual vibrant colors and patterns in my Pond Series photographs are natural results produced through: watching and working with the available light; the camera angles, the shifting wind patterns both on the water and in the trees; the reflections on the water surface coupled with life in the water; the use of cropping or zooming in for close ups; and very fast shutter speeds.
The images are captured with high-end digital cameras.  All images are single exposures with NO Photoshop additions, filters, or manipulations. I use the basic adjustments that darkroom photographers use, but through Lightroom, which is a digital processor. I processed and printed each image myself using Epson wide format printers, archival pigment ink, and Epson Velvet Fine Art paper.  Unlike working with the more traditional glossy or semi-glossy photographic papers, matte fine art papers also allow the ink to spread minutely, which adds to the painterly look of The Pond Series.

Queens Museum Reopening: Inauguration Ceremonies from Around the Borough and the Globe

Saturday, November 9, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm, 2013

In this first of three consecutive days celebrating the reopening of the Queens Museum,Target Wide Open Weekend (November 9-11) kicks off with the opportunity for diverse communities to tell us how they would open a building and bless our new space. How do you inaugurate a space in India, Bulgaria, Mexico, or Taiwan? In addition join us for the Opening Reception and numerous performances related to Queens International 2013, and the other inaugural season exhibitions featuring solo exhibits of artists Pedro Reyes, Peter Schumann, and Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao as well as a group show of Cuban contemporary works. You’ll also have access to the first open studios of our new Artist Studio Program, and new installations of our permanent exhibitions. See Detailed Schedule of the day below:

Rendering of the new Queens Museum facade

11 – 2 pm
QI artist Lynley Bernstein‘s “Fishing for the Elusive Snakehead” a 2.5-hour guided fishing trip in search of the infamous Snakehead fish identified by the city authority to inhabit waterways in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Once caught, it must be submitted to the city. Gear and Bait provided, meets offsite, and ends at the Museum. For more information and to RSVP, please email: exhibitions@queensmuseum.org.

12:30-4:30pm

Video screenings of works by QI Taiwanese artists: CHANG Chien-Chi, CHEN Chieh-jen, HSU Chia-Wei, Jun YANG and YU Cheng-Ta

2 – 4 pm
Poets in the Galleries: Tan Lin
The Poets in the Galleries series utilizes the Museum’s exhibition space as an invigorating site for exploration, interactive readings and discussions. For four Saturdays in November and December 2013, a different poet will conduct a lively presentation in response to the Museum’s current biennial of Queens-based artists, Queens International 2013.

Today features poet Tan Lin. Tan Lin is the author of Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, BlipSoak01, Ambience is a Novel with a Logo, Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource), 7 Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004 and The Joy of Cooking (2010). His work has appeared in numerous journals including Conjunctions, Artforum, Cabinet, New York Times Book Review, Art in America, and Purple. His video, theatrical and LCD work have been shown at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, Yale Art Museum, Sophienholm Museum (Copenhagen), Ontological Hysterical Theatre, and as part of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Soundcheck Series. Lin is the recipient of a Getty Distinguished Scholar Grant for 2004-2005 and a Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writing Grant to complete a book-length study of the writings of Andy Warhol. He has taught at the University of Virginia and Cal Arts, and currently teaches creative writing at New Jersey City University.

Schedule and participating artists:
November 9: Tan Lin
November 16: Stephen Motika
December 7: Charles Bernstein with Susan Bee
December 14: Patricia Spears Jones

3-5 pm

Multicultural Welcoming & Blessing Ceremonies including: Aztec Blessing by Calpulli Cetilitzi; Andean Ceremony by Estudiantina NY; Taiwanese artist Chin Chih Yang will perform as a master calligrapher, Using a brush specifically designed for the occasion to create innovative calligraphy to render logotypes and lucky words for guests. QI artist Vlada Tomova’s New York Bulgarian Women’s Choir presentig a new pieceA!Capella!Blessing!

3 – 6 pm
Opening in the Museum’s Community Partnership Gallery: An Inclusive World, a group exhibition organized by COPE NYC, a program that examines how art transforms the lives of those with a wide array of needs and abilities.

3 – 6 pm
Queens Museum Studio Program – Open Studios

4 – 5 pm
QI artist Joseph Heathcott offers Brooklyn-Queens Borderlands, a virtual guided walking tour along the Queens-Brooklyn border in the Panorama of the City of New York. While there you are welcome to enjoy the large scale photos of our buildings in various stages of construction, New York City Building Time Lapse, 2009 – 2013: Photographs by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao

5:30-6 pm

Performance Llego FeFa by Magdalena Maria Campos-Pons and Neil Leonardcelebrating the reopening of the Museum and the opening of Citizens of the World: Cubans in Queens in the new The Shelley and Donald Rubin Gallery.

6- 630 pm

Fuijui Wang

QI artist Fujui Wang presents Hyper Transmission, a site-specific sound performance in the Atrium capturing locally sampled electromagnetic waves rendered in a specially devised directional speaker

630 – 8 pm
QI artist Matthew Volz’s Meanwhile Back in Queens, a live concert in collaboration with the Juan Wauters with Carmelle Safdie

8- 9pm

Joro-Boro

QI artist Joro-Boro presents Smuggled Party, a participatory DJ performance mashing up collected tunes from museum visitors’ MP3 players while also in collaboration with fellowBulgarian Collective performer Vlada Tomova‘s New York Bulgarian Women’s A Capella Choir.

_______________________________________________________________

Wide Open Weekend at the Queens Museum is generously supported by Target.

Queens International 2013 is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York, Contemporary Art Foundation, La Guardia Corporation, and Target.

Additional funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Reception sponsor Khajuraho Lite Beer.

Forest Hills in the News

Just a couple of mentions of our 'hood that I have found, in case you missed them:

• The Daily News has an article on a new exhibit featuring Depression-era art and specifically cites the Forest Hills Post Office's terra cotta relief called the "Spirit of Communication," visible from outside  the entrance to the building. I have walked by that relief many times and never appreciated its historical significance: Depression-era art stock's on the rise
• And Business Week has a short mention of the indictment of Forest Hills resident Mark Holzwanger on wire fraud charges. He is alleged to have defrauded clients out of more than $3 million in payroll tax payments that were never turned over to the IRS: Ex-exec of NY payroll services firm indicted in NJ