Community

These past two Sundays, in a county funded local park in the town of Sayville NY, The ART Lab has invited the community to become involved in our artistic endeavors.  From the early morning hours we were welcomed and encouraged to create our own version of an art festival or fair.  Keeping in mind what most art and music events have become, we didn't want to do what everyone else is already doing.  Instead of focusing on the entertainment as the central focus and the guests as just audiences we wanted to get eveyone involved and feeling as if this event was different and special because of their involvment. 

From kids hula hooping in the lawn to adults painting on canvas.  Musicians siging up for open mic and vendors displaying their art from trees.  BBQ available to everyone and blankets spread about the field.  Community ART Laboratory was not a structured and planned event but a natural and organic gathering of talented people creating the afternoon as it unfolds and participants involving themselves and completely appreciating the atmosphere.   A be-in or happening would be a more appropriate term for what we did the past two weekends.  Bringing back a group dynamic and community feeling from a generation past in small but potent doses. 

The Community ART Laboratory will be an on going summer series occuring June 12th, August 14th and September 18th at The Common Ground Park in Sayville NY between Candee and Gillette Ave. 

The ART Lab is a eclectic group of unique artists in varying fields who gather in public places to create and display their art for the community. 

In the Beginning

Art has always been a giant part of my life, making music never came hard either.  However neither of these traits defined who I was or even materialized as a characteristic most if any people would describe me by.  Little do they know the hours spent with a pencil recreating the small details present in a leaf or the repitition of playing the same tablature over and over in order to perfect a song that will never be played for anyone else.  Art & Music have always been a huge part of my life, but I never made *my* art or music the focus.  I always admired and shared the talents of my friends.  Whether it was promoting my best friend's band in high school Battle fo the Bands or booking a tour for Silent Chaos down the east coast to Florida, I've consistantly found talented individuals in my presense and without hesitation helped spread their "art". 

Photography, Acrylics, Clay, Ink, Crayon, Stone.

Food, Comedy, Yoga, Astrology, Hip Hop, Dancing

Art doesn't have to be limited to the classical interpretations.   Everything is an art form.  Music is an art, painting and drawing and sculpture are art.  But so is archery, as well as acting and writing, along with wood work and masonry.  Music brings people together, there is no doubt about this.  So focusing on music as a centerpiece to any gathering is essential, but as participants interest in the stage starts to dwindle pretty pictures on the wall are there to distract.  These are the noticable and visible forms of art.  But what about the chef in the kitchen who made the food your eating or the set designer who put up the curtains and stage lights?  Do they not put as much emphasis, talent and creativity in to their specific outlet as the "painter" and "singer"? 

I feel like truly artistic individuals don't need to label themselves as any type of specific artists.  I paint, but I never tell anyone that I'm a painter.  I play music but I am most certainly not a musician, I can sketch a person that doesn't make me an illustrator.  I am a creator with no special connection to my creation.  I see however in others the deep connection they end up with betwen themselves and their art.  The inability to look at their work with unbiased eyes and promote it unabashedly.  Seeing such talent exist and knowing it to be so much better than some of the main stream successes is what created this urge in me to speak out for artists who may not know exactly what to say or who to say it to on their own. 

That's where The ART Lab is at.