Duquann Sweeney – “Dignity, Beauty and Everything Between”

January 17, 2021 - March 7, 2021

Jersey City community nonprofit leader Duquann Sweeney has the gift of seeing people’s inner beauty. As a photographer, his images reflect the rapport he builds with his subjects because he approaches everyone with a sense of love and connection.

“My photographs are the reflections of my community, they are the beautiful people I see when I walk the streets. Also, they are a part of me, like a past memory that brings joy. Whenever I see young boys play, it reminds me of my childhood. The days when my friends and I would ride our bikes, race each other, and play football all day.

“I once was asked, ‘Why are you taking pictures? there’s nothing good here,’ and the question baffled me for a second. My response was, ‘You are good and so many others.’ But the question stuck with me, Why did he feel like there wasn’t anything good here? Has he been hampered by the negative views of the community? I’m not sure but I will make it my mission to show through my photography that people in my community are good, despite the challenging conditions.

“My artwork is all the things that make everyday living beautiful. My photographs are lovers in a park, a woman seated on a corner, girls playing in a fire hydrant to beat the summer heat. The beauty of life.”

See more of his work at duquannsweeney.com.

His exhibit opens in the Hoboken Museum’s Upper Gallery on January 17, starting with an opening reception from 2 – 5 pm. The exhibition will remain on view through March 7. The exhibit may be visited in person, as long as visitors wear masks and observe social distance. The Museum’s occupancy is limited under the current state guidelines. 

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Mika Endo – “Pen and Brush Works”

November 8, 2020 - January 10, 2021

**Extended through January 10, 2021.**

With delicate watercolors and detailed pen-and-ink drawings, Mika Endo gives viewers a chance to appreciate Hoboken’s unique beauty through a newcomer’s eyes. Even the ubiquitous utility poles bristling with electric wires are rendered in loving detail. While most locals learn to edit out the wires from their mental images of Hoboken, Mika finds it “a secret pleasure to draw this crazy amount of wire.”

Mika and her family came to Hoboken in 2018 when her husband’s job was transferred to New Jersey from Osaka. “Hoboken is a very attractive city with a well-balanced combination of historic and new buildings,” she says. She and her husband were drawn to Hoboken’s European atmosphere. “My first impression is that it is fashionable and bright, with kind people, and it’s very relaxed.”

“I wanted to get a painting that reflected this beautiful townscape, but I couldn’t find one. So, I thought it would be good to draw the places I like, so I started to draw them,” she said.

The works on display in the Museum’s Upper Gallery in “Pen & Brush Works by Mika Endo,” are scenes of Hoboken painted between 2019 and 2020, with a mix of distant views, close-ups, buildings, water surfaces and flowers.

Mika says she strives to capture the beauty of Hoboken’s fusion of the old and the new. “I wanted to express how historical buildings are harmonized with people’s daily lives. For example, I drew a glass shop next to the fire station. The image of a glass shop is contemporary, but the walls on the upper floor of the shop and the historic fire department building maintain an exquisite balance and create a very calm atmosphere.”

Drawing is a relatively new artistic pursuit for Mika. She had studied oil painting in high school, and later studied stained glasswork and flower arrangement in London in 2004 -2009, learning techniques of combining colors and tones that have informed her new artwork. Most of her artistic expression has been as a master flower designer in Japan for several years. Working with flowers taught her how to create drama in a limited space and techniques to direct the viewer’s eye from the forefront to the background and how to hold an audience’s attention by varying the perspective and subject matter.

Among Mika’s inspirations are the French Impressionist Claude Monet, whose works give her a sense of peace, and taught her how to draw light and shadow. She was also inspired – and somewhat intimidated – by Japanese animation artists, including Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Yoshifumi Kondo. From their multi-award-winning films, including “Spirited Away,” she learned “to draw a simple everyday life thoughtfully through the picture, and to impress people who see it. My goal is to deliver ‘moments of excitement’ born from everyday life.”

Mika draws mainly with transparent watercolor paint and a fine-point pen. When she draws buildings, she uses a little thicker paint among transparent watercolors. Once she’s decided on her composition, she begins with a pencil sketch, which she then traces with a pen. She adds color bit by bit, keeping an eye on the tone of the overall color, adding highlights for a finish. A simple work may take about 8 hours, with more complicated scenes taking nearly 30 hours to finish.

Mika credits Hoboken artist Liz Cohen Ndoye for inspiring, encouraging and deepening her art practice. “The reason I started painting again for the first time in 30 years was when I met her. Fortunately, I’m learning drawing from her Hoboken public library art class. Her mysterious art made me want to draw. Just meeting her will cheer you up. She is very special to me.”

Mika’s hometown is a small coastal town in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. A decade ago, the tsunami created by a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake completely destroyed 90% of the buildings in the town. Throughout Japan, the earthquake killed more than 22,000 people and displaced many more. “It was really sad to lose our hometown, our loved ones, and lots of memories,” she recalls.

“Now, I regret that I should have painted the scenery of my hometown and kept it at hand,” she adds. “That’s why I always wish when I draw views of Hoboken that the beauty of this city will continue forever. I also pray that everyone who loves Hoboken will be healthy and happy, and that the world will be at peace.”

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Ray Guzman – “Hoboken Tempest”

October 3 - November 1, 2020

In 1979, young Ray Guzman was living an artist’s life in Jersey City Heights, in a top-floor apartment on Ogden Avenue at Congress, with sweeping views of Hoboken and the big city beyond it. Having finished an art degree with honors at New York’s School of Visual Arts and fellowships with master printmakers in New York, Ray was creating art constantly, with enough part-time jobs and graphic design gigs to keep himself and his wife Renata afloat. 

Little did he suspect that a trip one night down the Palisades into Hoboken to hear his friend Julio Fernandez perform would change his life’s direction. On the way to the gig, Ray met a young Frank Raia, who happened to own the club where Julio was playing, and he convinced Ray and Renata to move to Hoboken for the thriving arts and music scene. By the next month, the young couple had moved to Hoboken and soon found a studio for his fledgling commercial art business that became his career.

Ray had loved living in the Heights as a boy, having moved there from the South Bronx in 1966. Hudson County seemed “like the country,” Ray said. There was so much more space, and fantastic light, and the big city was just a bus and a Path train ride away. His uncle Frank worked in the glamorous world of Madison Avenue advertising, and encouraged Ray to pursue a degree at SVA and a career in commercial art. 

But it was Hoboken that cast a spell over Ray and held him here for the next 40 years. Part of it was the characters he met while working at the El Quijote restaurant on 14th Street, which mostly served the shipyard workers of the Mile Square City. Part of it was the location, tucked under the protective arm of the ancient Palisades cliffs and connected by the Hudson River to the allure of New York City. 

In 1979, Ray embarked on a new life centered in Hoboken. It was the year he first conceived of “Hoboken Tempest,” a 10-foot-wide painting of a panoramic view of his world, inspired by El Greco’s emotionally charged panoramic of his hometown, Toledo, Spain. He created it using everything he learned at SVA about Old Master and modern techniques, starting with a white linen canvas and a charcoal underdrawing, applying layers of paint and glazes to achieve a glowing effect as though the painting were lit from within. He finished it off with oil sticks, which gives it both a gritty texture and a more direct connection to the artist’s vision that drawing can achieve, Ray says. 

Completed years later, “Hoboken Tempest” contains his whole world, Ray says, “the people I know, lights in the buildings, icons.” With three points of perspective, and three light sources, “It was a fun challenge,” he adds, explaining, “Weather can play games with your eyes, like an opening in the clouds. The painter can choose where the light comes in.

“Look closely and you see sunlight on Castle Point and Stevens campus, but closer in, the Palisades casts a shadow and lights have come on earlier. It’s not a big city, but it’s already evening where the Palisades cast a shadow. Whereas even on a cloudy day in the Heights, you feel the light.”  

It’s a painting that must be seen in person, under good lighting, to fully grasp. The Hoboken Museum will display the monumental piece, along with a couple of Hudson County portraits Ray painted around the same time, starting Saturday, October 3, through November 1. 

For Ray, Hoboken is a microcosm, dark and light, urban and village-like, compact yet teeming with stories. Ray’s painting conveys the magnetic quality that drew him in and held him spellbound in Hoboken for four decades, though the city has changed from a gritty industrial town with smokestacks, bars and dockworkers to an affluent community of boutiques, restaurants and office workers. 

By 1989, the painting was among the works Ray showed to Allan Stone, a renowned New York City gallerist who represented Wayne Thiebaud, among others. He liked Ray’s work, but told him to keep working for another year and come back again. It could have been a big break for an aspiring artist, but Ray had to make a difficult choice: with a two year old and a growing sign-making business to nurture, he decided to focus on his family and customers. Thirty years later, he couldn’t be prouder of both: His son is a teacher and dean of students at All Saints School and Ray’s “Hoboken Signs” dot the cityscape, expressing the individual characters of some of its longest-lasting restaurant and shops. Click here to see a few. 

Lately, Ray has been trying to make more room in his life for creative painting, and a few years ago he wrote a manifesto to guide his art practice:  

“You have to stop every day at 4 pm and get into the studio. No self-editing, no critique, no censorship, trust that you have the skills, let go of demons holding you back. Every day a new painting. No ‘art school thinking,’ which is a way of describing work through other people’s style and theory. Think for yourself. You’re not being truthful to yourself if you’re always comparing it to other people’s work. Break free of it.” 

Ray is in the midst of another prolific creative period, painting nearly every day, in a variety of media, from watercolor and oils, to acrylic on metal, each medium chosen to suit his subject matter. You can see his work at RayGuzmanStudios.com or on the annual Hoboken Artists Studio Tour.

Learn more about his work, his process and ask questions during his artists talk on Friday, Oct. 2 at 5 pm, or the opening reception for his show on Saturday, Oct. 3 from 2 – 5 pm.

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Bill Curran – “If Not Now, When?…”

August 30 - September 27, 2020

When the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily closed the Hoboken Historical Museum, Bill Curran’s job as Museum Associate went virtual. He suddenly found himself at home with more time to paint, yet, ironically, deprived of the inspiration he usually finds along his daily walks through Hoboken: flower pots on stoops and window sills, sailboats on the Hudson, and city parks.

At first, without all the errands and appointments that normally organize and fill his days, he wasn’t sure what to do, and he wasn’t painting for a while. Another artist friend suggested, “Just paint what you feel, when you feel it.”

So Bill moved a large easel closer to his window that overlooks the raised flower beds behind Hoboken City Hall. Then he laid out his paints and brushes on the table, so that whenever he feels inspired, he can simply pick up his tools and make art. A flower that had fallen on the table was all it took to rekindle his muse. He said to himself, “I am an artist and I better get to work.”

In the first few weeks of working from home, after he finished his Museum tasks — and sometimes early in the morning as well — he would give in to the urge to capture the beauty he sees everywhere: a bright yellow forsythia bush outside his window, the fiery orange glow of a window across the back yard, the pale moon glowing against a lavender pink sky, a neighbor’s cat or a bunch of cut flowers. 

During the pandemic, Bill has been more productive than ever, turning out more than 75 new paintings since March. Fortunately, right before the pandemic hit, he had just acquired a large supply of canvases, ranging in size from 4” x 6” to 11” x 14”. The smaller canvases allow him to work quickly, while in the throes of whatever inspires him. Bill likes to complete paintings in one session when he can. 

Bill tends to paint spontaneously, just dabbing a canvas with paint, instead of sketching out a scene in advance. He described his process in a recent YouTube conversation with Museum Director Bob Foster: “It’s good not to plan. Just show up with your paints.” When he begins, he says, “I take a thick, juicy brush, and I kind of do an outline, and start filling in the foundation.” Then he adds detail as he goes along, sometimes recalculating the composition if something isn’t right, like a dark flower pot against a dark background. “Something in the blue of the flowers spoke to me,” so he reworked the pot with blue hues.

Once he began venturing out again after the stay-at-home orders were eased, Bill saw a new vibrancy in the colors of late spring, from the tiny morning glory blossoms springing up spontaneously alongside the old Neumann Leathers factory to the carefully arranged planters on nearby stoops and window sills. 

Bill becomes animated when he starts talking about colors, and his paintings reflect that passion. His style is impressionistic, filled with saturated colors and natural light, nearly verging on the abstract in the way colors and shapes fill the canvas. Like the painters he admires most, Fairfield Porter and Wolf Kahn, Bill tends to paint everyday scenes, saying, “I see beauty in the mundane, but by expressing it through painting, I’m saying that what’s here on earth matters.” 

Once a scene catches his fancy, he will return with his paints and a canvas or board, set up a chair across from it with a towel on his lap and just start painting, with the canvas propped up on his knees. “Sometimes, it’s good to just pack up your paints, get out the door and see what speaks to you.”

Though he’s been making art his whole life, Bill can find it difficult to talk about his work. A short film made a few years ago by his friend David Gross and posted on Bill’s website, conveys his ambiguity: “Am I a real artist?…Hello-o-o, I’ve been doing this for 56 years. I’m some kind of artist…” he says. As a teacher of painting classes at the Museum and elsewhere, Bill’s advice to all would-be artists is simple: “Paint what you love. Do it now. Just enjoy the process.” 

Before he joined the Museum staff, Bill was a graphic designer and illustrator for Lord & Taylor. He has enjoyed several exhibitions of his work in the Museum’s Upper Gallery space, Little City Books, Field Colony and in the Hoboken Artists Studio Tour. See more of his work at www.billcurran.net.

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Lily Zane – “The Thread That Binds”

July 26 - August 23, 2020

From an early age, Lily Zane knew that art and “making” would be part of her life’s story. Making is how she makes her living, in the textile industry. She says that the art element would come later in life, in part to mend the parts of her life that needed to be stitched back together.

She attended the Massachusetts College of Art, where she credits Professor Marilyn Pappas with helping her find her “fibers tribe,” and teaching her how thread, weaving, dying and sewing fabric all merged into a compilation that still fuels her to this day.

“As a child,” Zane recalls, “there was nothing better than bundling up and taking a nap.” This love of bundling up for a nap led her to answer a two-line advertisement in the late 1980s for a job with Polo Ralph Lauren Home Collection, where she was hired by Nancy Vignola as a Bedding Designer.

“I became part of a machine that still produces the most luxurious blankets, pillows and sheeting on the planet,” she says. “I’d landed in nap heaven. And there began the ‘making’ phase of my life. I have been honored to work with so many talented ‘makers,’ fellow designers, mill owners, reps and factory production managers too numerous to list who shaped the knowledge that fed my 30+ year passion of making. To this day I’m perfectly content in feathering my nest with all the home textiles I had a part in making.”

She calls herself a mynah bird at heart, after the bird known for gathering bits and pieces that catch its eye and storing them in its nest. “This making lifestyle of mine filled my luggage with Indian silks, countless lengths of embroidery, a sari and the magical moment of being spun into wearing one.”

She reminisces about a lifetime passion for textiles: “Yards of intricately hand woven silk and golden thread jacquard fabric; I sewed into a tablecloth and napkins that adorns our Thanksgiving table. Bed sheets being woven in a mill in Pakistan and the memory of the humidity in the factory still takes my breath away. Woolens from Tennessee and Scotland, buttons from London’s Notting Hill flea market. Lace worthy of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Threads of every fiber and color gathered from Paris and numerous trips abroad were squirreled into my suitcases.”

As this making phase of her life began to wane, she says she began to examine all of the textiles she’d collected and been given over the years. She was struck with the complexity of owning, wearing, sleeping and actually being a part of this vast tradition that textiles represent globally and to her personally. This reflection fueled her needlework art.

“In 2017, while I was taking inventory of my textile holdings,” she said, “Liz Ndoye encouraged me to join hob’art gallery. Now I began looking toward making art utilizing my textile legacy while acknowledging the intimate place it holds in our everyday lives.” 

She exhibited her first works at Li Edelkoort’s NYTM/New York Textiles Month with a series of sewn fabric collages. She and Caroline Kessler co-created a video called “We are sewing as Fast as we Can.” She found herself shifting her focus from being a maker behind the products she made to finding her voice and stitching together a new perspective of her life with art that she had to stand for and in front of. Her Hoboken Museum Upper Gallery exhibit, “The Thread That Binds,” opens Sunday with a virtual opening reception on YouTube, at 4 pm.

Click here to tune in on Sunday at 4 pm

Lily has lived in Hoboken for over 35 years: “Dom’s Bakery, La Isla and Leo’s are my go-tos, and not only does Hoboken have my heart, my husband Steve of 26 years won my heart in Church Square Park. The community is unique here and we have made many lifelong friendships, memories and we plan to age in place here.” 

Click here to view her Instagram account.

 The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Jack and Peter Mecca – “Hoboken – Late 1970s”

April 5 - May 31, 2020

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Alex Morales – “Hoboken: A Retrospective”

February 16 - March 29, 2020

It’s not often the Hoboken Historical Museum exhibits work by a local artist with an international reputation, but Uruguayan artist Alex Morales returns to the Museum’s Upper Gallery in February 2020 for his second exhibit in a year when his work is attracting international recognition. In October 2019, he represented Uruguay in the 12th Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Italy, and in October 2020, his work will be included in an art expo at the Carrousel du Louvre. He earned two honors from the international art magazine, DESTIG, in its 2019 awards: First place as Artist of the Year, Latin America & Caribbean, and third place in Mixed Media.

Morales has been creating art in a wide range of media from an early age, studying and refining his skills at the Museum of Fine Arts in the state of San Jose de Mayo in his home country. He earned a living in Uruguay and Buenos Aires as a successful illustrator, graphic artist, set designer and muralist before moving to the United States about nine years ago. He settled in the New York/New Jersey area and in 2016, he opened the Alex Morales Gallery on First Street in Hoboken.

While he is a versatile artist who works in a diverse range of media and styles, for his latest local exhibit, “Hoboken: A Retrospective,” Morales has depicted his adopted hometown in acrylic, watercolor, and Chinese ink with lemon. The latter are realistic works, with elements of abstraction and meticulously detailed work with a fountain pen. About 15 works will be on view, most painted over the past few months, with a couple that date back a year or two.

“What inspired me to work on these images was the beauty of the architecture, the color and diverse scenery of the city,” he says. He admires “its rich history, landscapes, cobbled streets and classical architecture, and the Hudson River with the fabulous view of Manhattan.” 

Above all, Morales says, he enjoys being in Hoboken, with “the customs and cultures, which are so different, that make Hoboken a warm and small cosmopolitan city full of life.”

Morales earned a reputation in Uruguay as a sought-after decorator for dance clubs and pubs. His reputation continued to grow internationally and today he continues to earn commissions creating art for commercial spaces, such as the large-scale mosaic mural, “Life,” that he created for the Orama Restaurant in Edgewater, NJ a couple of years ago. The massive, 1,150-square-foot mural and other artistic elements adorning the restaurant took the artist the better part of 2013 and half of 2014 to realize. 

Throughout his career, he has continued to produce fine art, exhibiting his work in solo and group shows in galleries and public spaces. Learn more at the artist’s website: http://www.ajmorales.com

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Meredeth Turshen – “New Views of Old Hoboken”

January 5 - February 9

The Museum’s Upper Gallery space opens 2020 with an exhibition of works by artist, teacher and writer Meredeth Turshen. All are invited to a free opening reception on Jan. 5 from 2 – 5 pm. The exhibition will remain on view through Feb. 9.

Turshen has lived in Hoboken and taught at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, for more than 25 years. A member of the National Association of Women Artists, she has exhibited regularly in the New York metropolitan region, with Viridian Gallery in Chelsea, and with hob’art, an arts cooperative based in Hoboken. 

Describing her work, Turshen writes: “This exhibition presents a modernist’s interpretation of historical Hoboken. I was inspired by the 2008 postcard show, parts of which can be seen again in the main gallery of the Hoboken Historical Museum. From the catalog of the exhibit, I excerpted images of Hoboken landmarks and incorporated them in paper collages that are simultaneously representational and non-figurative. 

“Harbor scenes, the docks and piers, vistas of the Manhattan skyline, and the infrastructure that has made Hoboken such an excellent transportation hub are some of the sights that caught my imagination. The work is small (under 12 inches), in keeping with the original size of postcards. The collages reveal Hoboken’s past through the lens of a modern artist, giving once familiar scenes a new twist.”

Visitors will see the work arranged in groups of images by themes, she explains. “To the left are scenes of Hoboken’s famed transport nexus – the PATH, NJ Transit and ferry services that link New York to New Jersey. Next are the piers and docks, the focus of intense shipping activity. To the right of the column the scenes shift to the bars and restaurants that served a growing population of workers, visitors and residents. The exhibit ends with reflections of the skyline and city streets.”

As for her artistic inspiration, Turshen says, “Through my artwork, I reflect on natural landscapes and built environments, representing these ideas in figurative and abstract compositions. My art studies began at age ten at the Art Students League in New York with Saturday classes for children and continued, after majoring in studio art at Oberlin College, in workshops at Pratt, the Printmaking Council of NJ, the Rutgers Center for Innovative Printmaking, the CT Center for Graphic Arts, and elsewhere. For the past ten years I have been spending a month at Vermont Studio Center, a stimulating residency where artists meet and inspire one another. Some have asked how I combined a career in art with teaching and writing about social policy. Both are passions; one seems as necessary to my existence as the other.”

Listen to the artist explain her work in this brief video produced by Sarah Jackson.

Turshen extends special thanks to William H. Miller for his “On the Waterfront” (2005), to “Greetings from Hoboken” (compiled by Bob Foster and David Webster, edited by Melissa Abernathy, 2008), and to the Museum’s oral history chapbook, “The Hook: Recollections of Donald ‘Red’ Barrett” (2015), for their inspiring images.

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Kelli Glancey – “Lackawanna”

November 10 - December 29

Artist Kelli Glancey moved to Hoboken in 1985 to study at Parsons School of Design in NYC, where today she is a part-time assistant professor. She says that residing in Hoboken is distinctive in many ways and is so rich historically.

“I am a visual person. I walk the streets daily and stare at the details of the many beautiful structures and homes, always happier when I see a place renovated rather than destroyed for new construction or high rises. This, I feel, is vital to the integrity and character of this quaint, mile square city. I have watched it change a lot since the mid-1980s but it still feels like home.”

One distinctive fixture of the Hoboken cityscape is the historic 1907 Lackawanna Terminal, the gateway to Hoboken and NYC for so many visitors and new arrivals. The terminal and its surroundings are the focus of the exhibit, “Lackawanna ~ from drawing to print, New Works by Kelli Glancey,” going on view from Nov. 10 through Dec. 29 in the Upper Gallery of the Hoboken Museum. On display will be works in silkscreen, lithography and woodcut all based on her observational drawings as well as solar-plate photo-etchings. 

Glancey explains: “‘Lackawanna from drawing to print’ is an ongoing discovery of both past and present. For many years, Hoboken and my lifelong passion for travel, trains, preservation and conservation have been a part of my drawings and ideas. I have marveled at this historic structure in my Mile Square city since I first took the train here from western Jersey many years ago. Completed in 1907, this magnificent architectural masterpiece is the only remaining terminal along the river still operational. Following his studies at L’École des Beaux Arts in Paris, it was designed by Brooklyn-born architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison in the classic Beaux Arts architectural style.”

Glancey marvels that the Lackawanna terminal has survived, and says that’s due in part to its location and also to its remarkable design, seamlessly connecting train, ferry and former trolley service, today replaced by buses. The PATH subway system, engineered by Dewitt Clinton Haskin, also connects directly below the Lackawanna Terminal and has been operational since 1908.

She found a personal connection to the terminal, she says. “In addition to its history, I ponder the many who have built it, worked in and passed through it, including my own Hoboken family roots.” She found out recently that her maternal great uncle once worked for the railroad after serving in World War I.

“I am optimistic the Lackawanna terminal will continue to survive, rebuild and thrive as a gateway to passengers on both sides of the Hudson,” she adds. “I hope it will serve as a symbol of past to future possibilities of a modernized 21st century infrastructure, reigniting mass transit as a viable means of travel and environmental conservation.”

Glancey describes the works on view as drawings that began in her sketchbook. “My drawings are a visual journal of my travels and the world around me, observational interpretations of people, places and things. Drawing on location allows me to stop, feel and experience what I am passing by or through.”

Afterwards, in the studio, she develops those drawings further using various methods of printmaking, including hand-printed silkscreens, lithographs, woodcuts, and solar-plate photo etchings. “As a printmaker,” she says, “I delight in the ability to transform one into many. All the techniques allow me to create multiples, to play and explore variations of the same image. The possibilities are infinite.”

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.

Steven Vizena – “Cloud Zombies Visit the Museum”

September 21 - November 3

Artist Steve Vizena has been dazzling neighbors and passers-by every Halloween for over a decade with his thought-provoking 3D assemblages in his garden at the corner of 11th and Garden streets. (He also dazzles passers-by with his ever-changing garden from early spring through late fall!) His goal isn’t merely to join his neighbors in the annual frenzy of Halloween decorations; rather, he enjoys engaging people in conversations about our engagement with and disengagement from the visual world around us.

The Museum has invited Vizena to create a display that captures the spirit of those art assemblages, and to bring his archived images of past Halloween creations, along with a display of some of his other visual art. His artwork is an exploration of what it means to fully engage our visual senses.  

Vizena’s “Cloud Zombies’ installation was inspired by his sensation of dodging zombies as he navigated through crowds of phone-mesmerized pedestrians on streets of Hoboken and New York. He worries about how the two-dimensional screens are affecting the way contemporary humans connect to the world, how we perceive our visual world and the reality we experience. 

“The Halloween installations are meant to suggest ideas, not show a particular idea, but to stimulate you to have your own experience and your own ideas,” Vizena explains. “It’s meant to engage your eye, with color and design, and seem plausible, with natural references, in a way that connects to something in your visual world.”

What he enjoys the most about his installations are the conversations they generate with neighbors and passers-by. “My goal is to make people aware of how to experience the world around them using their own eyes and visual cortex,” he says.

Vizena melds a scientific and creative approach in his art. It’s no surprise that he had planned to study medicine when he went to Michigan State University, but found himself more fascinated with how creating art stimulates the mind.

“Art is philosophy, sociology, cultural concepts,” he learned. “Artists are trying to communicate how they see the world: How we see the world and ourselves in it and how we experience life.” He quickly dove into art as his major and profession, where he learned that “you have to exercise your capacity to see. You have to learn to see well. And then also to learn how to use your hands to share your experience.”

So Vizena brings a deep understanding of the physical and neurological underpinnings of how we see to the process of creating his artwork. He deliberately manipulates all the elements that the eye can detect uses colors, shapes, edges, depth of field, and continuity to stimulate the mind of the viewer.  

Through his art, Vizena tries to create a stimulating visual experience, one that engages viewers and draws the eye in to linger and investigate, using patterns from nature and algorithms. The neurological connections in the brain depend on stimulation, just like muscles need a variety of different movements to properly develop.

He worries about how spending so much time with two-dimensional screens will affect the development visual cortex. His fascination with the growing influence of screens on society is what inspired his “Cloud Zombies” series around Halloween, after initially creating a giant spiderweb that stretched from his home to a large tree and gate, complete with giant spider.

In 2012, he took “Cloud Zombies” to the ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a large public art show with winners selected by public voting.  Ironically, he says, “most visitors simply snapped a quick image with their phones and moved on, without realizing the Art was about what they had just done – substituting a photograph, made possible with technology advances in phone cameras, for actual experience, engagement and comprehension of what was before them.”

Prepare to have your eyes and mind opened — watch an interview by Sarah Jackson with the artist about “Cloud Zombies Visit the Museum: An Assemblage Connecting Art, Halloween and Community.” 

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.