Category Archives: Upper Gallery
John Cheney – “Spontaneous Hoboken”
August 25 - September 29, 2013
Hoboken resident and longtime Macy’s Parade Studio float builder John Cheney loves the challenge of drawing in ink. “Ink won’t allow you to go back and erase – you can accommodate errors, but just like in life, you can’t go back and erase a mistake,” he says.
He often takes a sketchpad and a foam cushion and looks for a perch where he can observe scenes of typical Hoboken life. Using good drawing pens with archival ink, Cheney launches right in to a sketch, with no pencil underdrawing. Unlike other media, such as charcoal or pencil or paint, which require the artist to push the medium around on the paper, “ink is excited to come out of the pen,” because of the way paper pulls ink out of the pen. “I know it’s going to be good if the line tingles as it flows out of the pen,” he adds.
His ink drawings fairly dance with vitality. About a dozen were on display from August 25 – September 29, 2013 in the Museum’s Upper Gallery, in an exhibition titled “Spontaneous Hoboken: Ink Drawings by John Cheney.” The exhibit opened with a free reception at the Museum from 2 – 5 pm on Aug. 25.
Click here to see a virtual gallery of the exhibit.
Cheney has been doing these types of drawings since he was about 20 years old. Like many of his generation, he grabbed a knapsack and left his hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire to travel the world, with a sketchpad and ink pens at hand, learning his craft as he went along. “Many of my drawings are pen-and-ink sketches of my travels to Egypt and France, but many are inspired by my adopted home, Hoboken, where I have lived and worked for almost 40 years.”
Cheney returned from his travels to enroll in some classical art training, so he would be comfortable in many media, from large-scale constructions to quick, impressionistic line drawings. He studied art at the University of New Hampshire, the Art Students League in New York, the New York Academy, and the National Academy, but he often prefers working in the medium he fell in love with before his formal schooling, as an itinerant hippie in the ’60s. “My drawings still reflect some elements of what I learned along the way.”
He moved to Hoboken in 1981 after landing a job at Macy’s Parade Studio in 1976, when it was based in the former Tootsie Roll factory at 15th St. and Willow Ave. He obviously enjoys his work, as he has been there ever since! “My career as float builder with the Macy’s Parade Studio enables me to engage all aspects of my artistic training and allows me to construct large-scale innovative parade floats, some as large as 70 feet long, made to be collapsible for easy transport through the Lincoln Tunnel.”
Last year, he applied his skills as a float builder as a lark with some friends for the Coney Island 30th Annual Mermaid Parade. They built and pulled by hand an elaborate 30-foot float, in the theme of Cleopatra’s barge, to honor the anniversary.
This exhibition was made possible by a Block Grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Thomas A. DeGise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Benjamin Roman – “A Child’s Innocence”
May 5 - June 30, 2013; June 9, 4 pm: Artist Talk
Growing up in the Bronx under the watchful eye of a very protective grandmother, Benjamin Roman Jr. and his sister had a lot of time to while away indoors. He would fill hours sketching scenes of his apartment, images from TV, whatever was in front of him. He enjoyed drawing, but didn’t consider pursuing art as a career until he enrolled in New Jersey City University and met his faculty advisor, Professor Dennis Dittrich, who was also acting President of the Society of Illustrators in New York.
“He encouraged me and inspired me to be a better artist,” Roman says. “He told me, ‘You don’t need a degree to be an artist, but there’s a lot you can learn here.’” In Roman’s final year at NJCU, Professor Dittrich encouraged him to try his hand at watercolors, a medium he had been avoiding because he’d heard it was difficult. He quickly fell in love with the medium, and only regrets he didn’t try it sooner.
A series of Roman’s watercolor portraits of children were on display from May 5 – June 30, 2013 in the Upper Gallery of the Museum in an exhibit titled, “Portraits of Childhood, Watercolors by Benjamin Roman.” The Museum invited the public to an opening reception from 2 – 5 p.m. on May 5, and again for an artist’s talk on June 9 at 4 p.m.
Roman earned a B.A. in Art Communication with a minor in Early Childhood Education, and has been an art teacher for kindergarten, pre-K and pre-school children in area schools for the past 16 years. He now teaches at Beyond Basic Learning, in Hoboken, and paints at least three or four times a week, working on commissioned portraits as well as paintings just for the sake of painting.
Naturally, as a teacher, he finds children a fascinating subject matter, but he also paints portraits of adults, and landscapes. He’s fascinated with the challenge of depicting in his subjects’ expressions the essence of what it means to be young and innocent. “To capture the warmth and heart revealed in a child’s face is my ultimate goal.”
One of his paintings, “Treasure of Innocence,” depicts a group of children in a grassy park, and hangs in the collections of the Union City Museum of Art at the William V. Musto Cultural Center. He’s also self-published two books of his paintings, as well as a book of poetry. Find out more about his work at benswatercolor.com.
Roman likes to work in layers, to give his paintings more detail and depth, almost like working in oils. He finds inspiration in artists as varied as Norman Rockwell, Mary Cassatt, Vermeer and Rembrandt. Though their styles are very different, they have in common the ability to tell a story and convey a moment in time that seems special. He’s also learned a lot about working with watercolors by studying the work of New Mexico-based Steve Hanks and Peruvian Rogger Oncoy. “Children are unpredictable, watercolor is too.”
This exhibition was made possible by a Block Grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Thomas A. DeGise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Mac Hartshorn – “Photographs”
March 17 - April 28, 2013; April 13, 4 pm: Artist Talk
The Museum is pleased to open a new Upper Gallery art exhibit on the same day as Hoboken’s 3rd Sunday Gallery Walk, March 17, with “Mac Hartshorn, Photographer,” an exhibit of artistic photographs of babies and children by professional portrait photographer, Mac Hartshorn. The exhibit opens with a free reception from 2 – 5 pm, and all are welcome.
This exhibit consists of photos Hartshorn has taken for the art of the image, which usually results in something more abstract than a typical family portrait session. Describing his process, Hartshorn explains, “I approach the photo session being open to whatever happens. I want families to feel totally comfortable and interact naturally. That’s when the magic happens. Little toes or a baby’s tiny hand grasping a father’s finger can be appreciated by all, not just the parents.”
The artwork is both as unique as the people he’s taking pictures of, and universal enough to be appreciated by all. Please stop by on Sunday, or before April 28.
Visit his website at hartshornportraiture.com.
This exhibition was made possible by a Block Grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Thomas A. DeGise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Thomas F. Yezerski – “Meadowlands, A Wetlands Survival Story”
January 27 - March 10, 2013
For Tom Yezerski, all roads seemed to lead to the Meadowlands. Literally.
As a recent transplant to New Jersey from Allentown, Pa., Yezerski moved to Rutherford 14 years ago seeking a reasonably affordable community close enough to New York City for him to pursue his dream of becoming an established children’s book artist and author. As so many newcomers discover, the dizzying array of the area’s highway signage conspired to lead him astray, and more often than not, he found himself driving into this vast wilderness with the reputation as the source of what made New Jersey the butt of many jokes in Pennsylvania.
Click here to see a virtual gallery of the exhibit.
A nature-lover, Yezerski found his curiosity piqued, so he did some research into the history of the Meadowlands and visited the nature center at the heart of it, and soon hatched a project that became his fourth work as a writer and artist of children’s books, Meadowlands, A Wetlands Survival Story, published in 2011 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The Museum is pleased to present an exhibit of the original watercolor and ink paintings that comprise the book, with an opening reception on Sunday, Jan. 27, from 2 – 5 p.m. The show will be on view in the Upper Gallery until March 10.
Ten years in the making, the book plunged Yezerski into research not only about the history of the place, but the biodiversity of the species that once teemed in the tidal marshlands and are now returning, after a concerted effort by federal, state, and local authorities and environmental activist groups. His book details in images and text—simple enough for elementary school readers but complex enough to suit the enormous scale—the fascinating story of the return to health of this natural treasure at the western edge of Hudson County.
Yezerski wrote Meadowlands and sketched the drawings while living in Rutherford, but painted the final art after moving to Hoboken. He currently lives in Hoboken on Garden Street, with his wife, and says they both enjoy hiking and canoeing through “the Meadows” and excursions with the Hackensack Riverkeepers organization.
Yezerski’s first work as a professional artist came in creating prints for children’s clothing. Eager to return to illustration, he started writing and illustrating his own book, about his Polish and Irish immigrant grandparents, a Romeo-and-Juliet love story set in the coal-mining country of eastern Pennsylvania. That story became his first published book, Together in Pinecone Patch, in 1998. Subsequent picture books Queen of the World and A Full Hand also depict family members as comic or historic characters. He has also illustrated 10 other books for other authors. The New York Times listed Meadowlands in its Notable Children’s Books of 2011, and the New York Public Library listed it among its Best Non-Fiction Books of 2011. It earned an inaugural Cook Prize Honor from Bankstreet College.
Yezerski took his first art lessons while in the third grade, riding his bike to an artist’s studio every Saturday morning to copy greeting cards in chalk pastel. During high school, he studied drawing and color theory at The Barnstone Studios, in Coplay, Pa. Yezerski earned his B.F.A. in Illustration in 1991, at Syracuse University. Visit his website at http://www.thomasfyezerski.com/index.html.
This exhibition was made possible by a Block Grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Thomas A. DeGise, County Executive, and the Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Raymond Smith – “En Plein Air: Seeking a Sensation”
November 11 - December 23, 2012
Hoboken’s physical character is known for its storied waterfront, its compact and walkable streets, and its rows of well-preserved late-Victorian homes. But not since the Elysian Fields were converted to industrial use in the early 1900s has it been known for its natural vistas.
The crush of modern urban living poses a challenge to Raymond Smith, a painter who has been seeking to capture the sensation of light and atmosphere in natural settings in the “plein air” tradition favored by the Impressionists. It’s hard to avoid the jarring elements that can ruin the mood he’s trying to render on canvas, but the artist perseveres and has developed a process that translates these fleeting sensations into oil on canvas. The results can be seen in his second show in the Museum’s Upper Gallery, En Plein Air: Seeking a Sensation, by Raymond Smith, which will be on view through Dec. 23.
Click here to see a virtual gallery of the exhibit.
The scenes in his paintings range from a sun-drenched beach filled with brightly colored kayaks in Hoboken Cove, to a moody, fog-blanketed tugboat moored to a pier, to a thoughtful young woman sitting on a patch of grass or a buoyant woman (the artist’s wife) in a bright sundress and hat strolling along the edge of the water.
To explain what inspired this series, he refers to a quote from an essay by Henri Matisse: “One starts off with an object. Sensation follows.” He says he keeps his mind open to receiving sensations or ideas and then he works on how to translate them on canvas. Each painting is the result of a careful process of making notes and sketches on site, with color swatches and measurements that he uses later to recreate on canvas the feeling he responded to in the first place.
Sometimes in working with a model, he says, “the expressions or postures before or after the sitting are what strike me the most—the unguarded moments are most revealing.” He enjoys painting outdoors, but doesn’t like the disruptions. If someone wants to talk to him while he works, he’ll put his paintbrush down and talk to them, at which point they tend to move along. But if it’s a young kid, he says, “I’ll let them take a brush and make a few strokes.”
In addition to his fine art, Smith is an art instructor and professional illustrator, who has worked for many brand-name companies. A couple of his iconic works include the 9/11 Memorial Flag composed of children’s handprints that hangs in the Board of Education meeting room, and the “Greetings from Hoboken” image reproduced on t-shirts, posters, mugs and greeting cards. For more information on Smith’s work, visit his website, www.raymondsmithart.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.
Roslyn Rose – “Hoboken from Afar”
September 15 – November 4, 2012
Sometimes you have to get away—far away—to see your hometown from a fresh perspective. Or, you can stop by the Hoboken Museum’s Upper Gallery this September to see Hoboken From Afar: Photomontages by Roslyn Rose.
A New Jersey native and longtime Hoboken resident, Rose credits her travels abroad for her latest series of photo montages. The foregrounds of her artworks include slides, photos, and found pictures that she collected while traveling in Europe, which are digitally superimposed upon images she’s taken of familiar Hoboken sights.
Click here to see a virtual gallery of the exhibit.
The resulting depictions, about a dozen of which will be on display from Sept. 15 through Nov. 4, convey the odd sensation of looking through foreign windows and doors onto familiar vistas of home.
“During my European travels, I always seemed to meet someone who had either visited Hoboken, had a relative living in Hoboken, or who knew of Hoboken’s history, which led to many delightful conversations about my adopted city in far away places,” she says. “By inserting my Hoboken photographs within images of foreign windows, doorways or archways, I have combined travel memories with local scenes.”
The images can evoke the mixed feelings that many of us experience while traveling—the thrill of new experiences with occasional pangs of homesickness. Rose hopes visitors to the exhibit will think about their own favorite Hoboken vistas. Meet the artist at the free opening reception for the show from 2 – 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 15. She returns to give a talk about her work on Sunday, Nov. 4 at 4 pm.
An artist since early childhood, Rose was a nationally recognized etcher and printmaker before becoming intrigued with the medium of computer-manipulated montages. Although photography is now her main focus, she considers herself a fine artist using the medium to create collages. See more of her work and peruse her extensive resume of exhibitions and affiliations at roslynrose.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.
Ricardo Roig – “Hoboken in Print”
July 29 – September 9, 2012
Ricardo Roig, a young artist who moved to Hoboken in 2009 after finishing college, has long been an admirer of the Impressionist painters. Hoboken became his muse, he said, in part because its architecture reminded him of the Belle Epoque street scenes and interiors featured in their paintings.
“I find that the city’s architecture and atmosphere make a strong impression on people, and they respond to seeing Hoboken in a new way through my work,” Roig said. “That’s why I make art, to have that dialogue with people, not just for myself.”
Click here to see a virtual gallery of this exhibit.
He developed his eye for Hoboken’s historic details while waiting tables at the beautifully restored Elysian Café, where he worked while completing a teaching certificate at Kean University. Since selling all of his paintings at his first Arts & Music festival in 2009, Roig has invested a lot of energy in the city’s cultural community, participating in the Artists Studio Tour and other festivals, and placing his works in local galleries and frame stores, including Lana Santorelli Gallery and Tresorie Custom Frames. He’s visible around town with his easel, and he also donates work to local fund-raising events and actively promotes the arts at every opportunity. He’s also active online; visit his website at www.ricardoroig.com.
Roig now supports himself through his art and as a substitute art teacher in area schools. Though known primarily for his oil paintings, he’s recently started to produce screen prints using hand-cut paper stencils. The Museum will hang about 10 – 12 of these new works in an Upper Gallery show titled Hoboken in Print: Hand-Cut Stencil Screen Prints by Ricardo Roig, starting July 29, on view through Sept. 9. Meet the artist at the free opening reception from 2 – 5 p.m. on July 29.
He learned the printmaking technique during an elective course he took while completing his teaching certificate. Knowing that the Impressionists were heavily influenced by their encounter with Japanese woodblock prints, he wanted to understand how the process works. What he likes about the medium is the vibrant, graphic and fun energy captured in the images.
Like the Impressionists, he likes to play with lights and darks and use the color of the paper as a layer. “Cutting paper makes you aware of the process of destroying while creating,” Roig says, “and the relationship between positive and negative elements.”
It’s painstaking, Roig says, but he finds it rewarding. “First you draw, and paint your image onto paper. Using an Exacto knife, I cut shapes out of the paper, creating a stencil. Attaching this paper to a silk screen, I then squeegee my colors and ink through to acid-free archival paper. Layering these stencils upon one another, the puzzle is pieced together and the image or print is created.”
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.
Puppet Heap – “Strange Neighbors”
March 18 - April 29, 2012
Did you know that Hoboken is home to one of the stars of the puppet-making world? The cover story from the Fall 2011 issue of The Puppetry Journal features Hoboken’s own Puppet Heap, an innovative design and fabrication studio that creates and brings to life some of the world’s most beloved characters by integrating both traditional and cutting-edge techniques to share stories with modern audiences.
Based in the Monroe Center building, “The Heap” is led by artist and entrepreneur Paul Andrejco and boasts a team of the industry’s most talented designers, performers and craftspeople. The studio began in 1992, just a few blocks away in Andrejco’s small Hoboken apartment. The company’s name was inspired by the pile of puppets in his apartment, but it has grown into an ever-expanding creative company that develops and designs characters for film, television, theater and the Web—collaborating with some of the biggest entertainment names in the world, including Sesame Workshop, The Walt Disney Company, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
Andrejco and the Heap also produce award-winning short films such as “Omar’s Mother,” “Ye Ballade of Ivan Petrofsky Skevar,” “I Knew an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” or most recently, “Mother Hubbard Among Others.” And they’ve designed a line of retail puppets, which hit the shelves in fall 2011. Like everything Puppet Heap creates, these puppets are designed to inspire storytelling through play.
The Museum is pleased to host an Upper Gallery exhibit of the puppets, set pieces, and props built by the Heap for some of these original short films. Join us at a free opening reception on Sunday, March 18, from 2 – 5 p.m.
Through the exhibit, visitors will see some of Andrejco’s original sketches and designs for the puppets and set pieces, as well as behind-the-scenes photography, and a few production photos of the films that were filmed in their Hoboken studio. A looped video will allow visitors to see Puppet Heap’s films. The puppets are incredibly detailed and beautifully built from a variety of materials: paper tape, fabric, fur, papier-maché, silicone, latex rubber, among many other materials. The display will bring a lot of the richness of the team’s creative process to the viewer and encourage the art of storytelling through puppetry.
Andrejco has been in the business of creating puppetry in media for over 20 years. Early in his career he worked at the Jim Henson Company as a puppet maker and character designer for the Muppets as well as countless other projects during his ten-year tenure. Since then, he has been a key contributor to such ground-breaking television shows as Bear in the Big Blue House, the Book of Pooh, Bookaboo and It’s a Big Big World; his designs and ideas can be found in many productions using puppets in film, television, advertising, theater and on the Web. If you saw the new Muppet movie that opened nationwide at Thanksgiving, you’ve seen the studio’s works—Walter, the star of the movie, was designed by Andrejco.
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.
Beth Lucas – “Ta-Da!”
May 6 – July 1, 2012
For head scenic artist Beth Lucas, the Macy’s Parade Studio’s move from Hoboken to Moonachie last year was bittersweet. While the new facility offers better lighting and working conditions, she misses being surrounded by historic details scattered throughout the architectural landscape of Hoboken. Her keen eyes pick out such decorative features as rosettes and ornate carvings as she walks along Washington Street and Central Avenue in Jersey City Heights, where she’s lived for 20 years.
Click here to see a virtual gallery of the exhibit.
In her personal artwork, she uses acrylic paints to translate these shapes in bright colors and larger-than-life images on canvas and linoleum that can hang on walls, or even serve as floor-coverings or table tops, once they’re coated in tough polyurethane.
The resulting artworks are whimsical and fun, which is not surprising, considering Lucas’ job for the last 25 years has been decorating the brightly colored, whimsical floats that entertain millions on Thanksgiving day. Come see them on Sunday, May 6, at a free opening reception from 2 – 5 p.m. for Ta-Da! Artworks by Beth Lucas in the Museum’s Upper Gallery. The show will be on view through July 1.
“My dual background in fine art and commercial art has led me to continuously develop a style that is bold with expressive color,” she says. “My imagery is taken from both popular culture and subculture. My work explores the recontextualization of ordinary objects I see, we see, in everyday life.” Flowers also figure prominently in her work, perhaps inspired by her work on Macy’s Annual Flower Show scenery.
After earning her Master’s degree in Fine Art from Rutgers in 1984, she started working at Macy’s Parade Studio, which was based in Hoboken at the former Tootsie Roll factory until last year. She loves working for Macy’s, and met her husband, Charles Walsh, there. After living in Hoboken for five years, she moved to Jersey City Heights where the couple renovated two houses and raised two daughters, Isobelle and Olivia.
The one down side to working on the Parade is never getting to celebrate Thanksgiving on the appointed day, she says. The design crew creates floats that are cleverly designed to fold up into boxes that can fit through the Lincoln Tunnel. This requires the team to start unpacking the floats at 7 p.m. on the Wednesday evening before the Parade in the staging area near the American Museum of Natural History.
They work through the night, finishing just in time for the Parade to get under way, and race down to the finish line at 37th St. to grab a quick bite and start repacking the floats as they arrive. They don’t get home until after 4 p.m., too exhausted to make or even enjoy a meal. Fortunately, the Macy’s Parade Design Studio hosts a special Thanksgiving dinner for the employees’ families on the Friday afterwards.
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.
Laura Alexander – “Mostly Rosemary”
January 29 - March 11, 2012
Hoboken artist Laura Alexander’s Monroe Center studio is a fixture on the annual Artists Studio Tour. In addition to her paintings, her studio walls are covered with colorful and interesting pop culture artifacts, which are fun to look at, but it’s her large portraits that arrest the visitor’s gaze and stay with you after you leave.
A series of four large portraits—with a twist—are the focus of her latest exhibit, “mostly Rosemary, Paintings by Laura Alexander” is on view in the Museum’s Upper Gallery from January 29 through March 11.
The title of the show is inspired by the model who posed for the photographs that Alexander worked from in creating these 50-inch-square portraits. “They’re ‘mostly’ her,” Alexander explains, “but we changed her cosmetically for each portrait. The concept was to portray different ethnic varieties. I attempted to do this with wigs and make-up, while Rosemary is skilled enough as a model to change her facial expressions…the pull of her smile, the squint of her eyes, etc.” The model applied her own make-up and the two spent as little as an hour to capture three different “personas.” While the results look very serious, Alexander said she and Rosemary had a lot of fun doing the photo shoots.
“The point of art making is to say something: hopefully, to create a dialogue with the viewers…within the viewers’ own thoughts,” Alexander says. “These paintings speak about the many differences we perceive in one another while we still recognize our shared humanity. Real tolerance of these differences seems to be the challenge of this century.”
A full-time artist who attended the Maine College of Art, the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vt., and the New York Art Students’ League, Alexander lives in Hoboken and has had a studio at 720 Monroe since 1991, when it was still known as the Levelor Factory. She works at her art while she’s home-schooling her 11-year-old son (also an artist), and teaches art to young students on Saturdays. Art is a family affair, as her husband has a studio there as well.
This is Alexander’s second Hoboken Museum exhibit. Her work is exhibited frequently in New York and New Jersey, and occasionally internationally. She earned a fellowship in 2006 from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and was awarded a solo exhibit in the 1998 Viridian National juried competition in New York, as well as an award from the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio program in New York (1996).
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.