An Abundant Life - Layers and Textures

I wrote about Ricardo Roig in 2016 in the first year of my writing the current section of this blog, An Abundant Life. I had met him through a mutual friend who had suggested that I visit his Gallery on First Street in Hoboken, and one day when I was walking by and I saw him inside I introduced myself. It was a small space, but with his designer's and craftsman's eye he had managed to make it very welcoming, and because of his heart it seemed to comfortably flow out onto the sidewalk and into the community. Over time I visited him there for openings and shows for other Artists, because one of the great things about Ricardo is that he had opened the Gallery not just to show his own work but to support other Artists and help them to be recognized.

In just a few short years after meeting him, he was named the Artist in Residence at Hoboken's W Hotel, but though it was a few short years after I had met him, he had been working diligently for many years before we met and I couldn't have been happier for anyone to see his hard work be recognized. He continues to bring other Artists into the spotlight in whatever ways he can, but the space in the W Hotel is his own very special spotlight on his work. He shares that space with an Interior Designer who has done a lovely job of creating a relaxing and beautiful environment, and since his opening there, though he has continued to show his work in other places, every Thursday when the space is allowed to be open, there is an enjoyable Mix and Sip gathering for people to visit and talk and look at beautiful art and listen to music and taste light bite treats from Halifax at the W Hotel and other local restaurants.

A few months ago I saw him on First Street, and he told me that he was in the process of opening a new space that was across the street from the smaller space where I had first met him. He had continued to invite other Artists and Artisans to work in the original space, at times having pop-up shows or a frame shop, and most recently there is a t-shirt and urban style designer there. This new space was to be a combination of studio and showroom, and when I ran into him again a few weeks ago he told me that he had decided to collaborate with two interior designers to finish the space and create a comfortable place for children and families to visit and watch and learn about his process and enjoy his creative environment.

Ricardo's work depicts scenes from every day life, many times using Hoboken or Jersey City as his muse and his backdrop with other cities including New York as part of the mix. He creates his pieces using a painstaking process of cutting and printing and layering and reprinting and cutting and printing and layering again. He told me once that when he was in school and he decided that this was the art form he wanted to pursue that his friends and peers and teachers told him that he could create a similar effect by not doing so much work, but he enjoyed the full process in all its intricacies and went ahead to perfect it. I love that story because I understand that kind of way of thinking - when people tell me that I can do something another way that might be easier, I usually find myself thanking them politely and going ahead and doing it the way I feel it needs to be done. Ricardo is a perfectionist, and he makes the cuts in his paper with a scalpel, and the layers upon layers that he creates infuse the pieces with depth and color that not only bring the scenes to glorious life but gives them their own unique sense of having been part of the fabric of the city themselves.

And that is very much like Ricardo himself, who is such an integral part of the community that I don't need to go looking for him on purpose because usually I will just find him, talking to someone on the street, walking to work, or now and then out with his family for a celebration or fun day or evening out. He also is an inspiration to others, and part of so much that keeps the creative life of Hoboken alive, but if you ask him how an event or a block party happened, he'll always say it was someone else. Just as his work is layered and measured and incorporates many colors, he is a part of the multi-layered texture of the community around him, inspiring, supporting and bringing new ideas to the forefront and allowing others opportunities to shine through the glow of his own work and life.

Ricardo Roig

In Hoboken, New Jersey
At His First Gallery On First Street
https://www.roigcollection.com/

And At The W Hotel

Where He Is Artist In Residence

At An Artist Talk In A Collector's Home

His Windows At The W Hotel

And His Showroom At The W Hotel

The Opening Celebration

At The W Hotel
With Hoboken's Mayor Ravi Bhalla


With Mark Rosado
Owner of Vintage On First
257 First Street, Hoboken, New Jersey


With Jannie Wolff

With His Beautiful Wife Michelle

At A Fundraising Event At The Antique Loft

With A Collector At The W Hotel Mix And Sip

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - You Are What You Teach

I met Lynn Fredericks more than ten years ago in a public school gymnasium on Manhattan's Lower East Side. At the time I was the Director of an after school program in the Jacob Riis Houses on Avenue D, and I was also working in ministry in the meal program and community outreach of a church that had started the after school program ten years before. My first intention when I arrived at the after school program was to bring arts education to the children and teenagers, but I was soon asked to become the Director because I had a background in administrative work, and there were many rules and regulations that needed to be followed to keep the program running smoothly. In addition to bringing arts education to the youth, I began to search out other enrichment programs, and one of the things that I felt God put on my heart to do there was to help bring healthy food and nutrition education to the meal program and the after school, and to start a community garden. In those days I didn't know anything about working in New York City community based programs and I thought the idea of starting a community garden there was impossible. But on a prayer walk up through all the housing complexes on the lower east side one Sunday, I clearly heard the message that the area would be filled with community gardens one day. Within less than ten years that is exactly what happened, but this story is not just about that. This story is about Lynn Fredericks, who is the Founder of FamilyCook Productions, and how she inspires and helps beautiful things to grow in so many lives.

The meeting in the gym where we met was for the fledgling Lower East Side Community Partnership that had just started. The LESCP as it was referred to was a program that began with a grant to create a network of agencies that could provide a safety net for families that were part of the foster care system or who were at risk in the community. I was asked to be a part of the planning process by the Directors of the lead organization who had asked me to help coordinate and introduce the faith based community to the project, and to help bring that perspective to the table. At the meeting the day that I met Lynn, the Directors of the project had been asking if anyone had any ideas for family meetings that could be held in places that were outside of offices and could be less stressful and more fun and relaxed for the families, and I got up in the room full of at least 300 people and told them that I had a vision during a prayer walk of community gardens and that I thought starting and working in them could be a way to help bring families together in a healthy and fun and relaxing way. When I sat down, a woman in front of me turned around and said, "After the meeting, talk to me. I have some resources for you." It was extraordinary that she was there and that she responded in the way that she did, and after the meeting we talked and exchanged information. She told me that there was a program through the New York City Housing Authority that would help people and organizations who were located in public housing start community gardens, and she started sending me contacts right away. Every connection and contact she gave me led to something wonderful, and I was able to start the community garden. Her contacts led to other contacts, and eventually led to my teaching nutrition and health and working in community and youth development in all five boroughs. She really changed my life.

While I was still with the after school program, I was able to write a grant that provided for Lynn to come and teach a workshop with the students and utilize and reference some of the vegetables and herbs we were growing in the garden. It was such a beautiful day with the children and teens working together to make a salad, a Nicoise if I remember the recipe correctly. I also remember so many conversations about ideas that she had as to how to encourage youth and families to cook and eat healthy food that were so wonderful that I brought them into my own classrooms then and ever after.

We've stayed in touch over the years, and recently in one of her newsletters I saw that FamilyCook Productions had published new research, "Experiential Features of Culinary Nutrition Education That Drives Behavior Change: Frameworks for Research and Practice". I contacted Lynn to ask if I could write about her and her work and FamilyCook Productions as an organization that is a long standing model of excellence in youth development work.

There is something that Lynn is able to do in a classroom of students that is both inspiring and inspired. She loves encouraging and teaching youth to eat healthy food, to learn about it and to learn how to cook it. From the beginning she had designed something called Teen Battle Chef that was an innovative way for students to compete in their mastery of cooking skills, and she had always stressed the importance of teaching children with respect, giving them tools to use that were professional, and teaching them professional techniques such as knife skills. Her programs are taught throughout major cities such as New York City, Philadelphia and Denver, Colorado, and have been replicated in over 30 States and more than 300 Sites, with 74% of students reporting healthy behavior change and 90% reporting that they positively influence their family and friends. When I was being trained to teach nutrition and health, we were taught the saying "Each one teach one." For Lynn Fredericks, she's taught so many in such a beautiful way that she has made their world and all of ours a much more delicious, inviting and healthy place to live.

The Inspirational Teaching Of Lynn Fredericks, Founder

FamilyCook Productions

Photographs Courtesy Of The Website and Instagram Pages

http://familycookproductions.org/

Ten Drivers Of Behavior Change

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

     

An Abundant Life - A Beautifully Moving Work Of Art

There are so many beautiful murals in Jersey City, New Jersey, and so many wonderful Artists. It's known worldwide to be a place that is filled with exciting, unique and visionary art and cultural projects and for good reason. One of the things that makes my walks around the different neighborhoods so enjoyable is that I have the opportunity to see so much of the art that is done in public spaces, and over time I have had the opportunity to meet some of the Artists who create it. I've written about a number of them in this blog, and whenever I have the opportunity I try to see as much art and meet as many Artists as I can. My business for many years has incorporated working with Artists in the areas of public relations and marketing, finding space for shows, curating multi-media art events and helping to connect Artists with the community and with galleries and collectors and projects. I also walk everywhere, and though people sometimes think I'm crazy for doing it, especially now in the days of Uber and Lyft at our fingertips, I purposely have never downloaded those apps because I like to have a reason to keep on walking. One of my Artist friends jokingly calls me Jannie Walker after the ever present ad campaign for Johnnie Walker scotch, and I love the title because it's such a part of who I am and what I do. I love my walk abouts because I see great things and meet great people, and I find that my life is connected in a way to the community when I'm at street level that it wouldn't be otherwise if I was in a car, a bus or even on a bike.

One day last Spring when I was on my way to visit an Artist to talk about an event I was curating, I walked under one of the overpasses on my way to the other side of Jersey City from Hoboken and I saw two Mural Artists working on a project on each side of the concrete facing walls. I took a quick photograph as I walked up to them, and then walked closer and introduced myself to the one who was working on the wall to the right. After I had said who I was, I said, "I know you must be someone famous," and I meant it, because the work was so beautiful and so intricate that was being done. It told a story even though it was only in the beginning stages, and I knew that so much thought and design was being poured into it, so much history and emotion and life. The Artist laughed and said that he went by the name DISTORT, and I honestly nearly fell on the ground. For someone like me who is an admirer of street art and murals, it was an honor to meet him because he really is not only famous but at the top of his field. He's well respected and liked by other great Artists as well as by community leaders, community members and business owners, and he's looked up to by a generation of rising Artists and youth who see the integrity of his work and of his work ethic and life. Of all the people to meet on my travels, it was such an unexpectedly beautiful blessing, and I gave him my card and asked if we could meet again at some time for a blog post.

Over the next months I ran into him a few times when he was working on other projects, and I posted and tagged him on photos whenever I saw new work or had an opportunity to photograph one of his existing murals. Street artists very often don't like to be photographed and identified, to protect their privacy and also because at times, though they can often be part of projects that are legally created that they are invited to do, they also sometimes have tagged in the past or may still be actively tagging or painting in areas that are not legal, and where they can be fined or given jail time if they are caught. A number of years ago a good friend of mine who is known as Jesus Saves was caught for some old graffiti from the time before he was born again. He'd stopped illegally tagging but ended up spending time in Rikers for paint he'd put up some time ago. The photograph that I took on the first day that I met Distort had a part of his face showing, a piece of his profile, and though it wasn't much I asked him if I could post it because I didn't want to go out of bounds. He allowed me to at the time, but I won't post it here out of respect for his privacy and the code of this very special group of Artists that he is a part of.

When we sat down to talk recently in his studio, I had the opportunity to learn more about the beauty in the vision of this very wonderful and extremely talented Artist. He cares so much about the world and about the community around him that he is a part of, and he feels very deeply the courses of injustice and harmful influences that have been damaging to the earth's ecology and to people's lives. His process as he creates his pieces is an intricate and time consuming one that includes creating a kind of vision board in his notebook, an outline in collage form of what the finished project will be using drawings and images from magazines and newspapers and vintage advertisements that is a work of art itself. The pieces I saw in his studio are being created for the most part on metal surfaces with a mirrored finish. Layering enamel paint and etching onto and into them, sometimes the mirrored surfaces become part of the layers of the designs in ways that are unexpected. He was also in the process of working on a piece that included electricity to light up a small area to give a window into a hidden underground world that reflected the viewer and the vision beyond it.

His work is extraordinary. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he is classically trained and has exhibited extensively in the Tristate area, and has completed murals in Miami, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York and North Jersey. When you read his Artist Statement, it is a glimpse into the mind and heart of someone who is looking deeply and seeing the multi-layers of history as it overlaps with the present and informs our every day lives. But there is something else that can be understood, when you meet him and see the Art he has created. There is a quietness and a sense of listening, of being a part of the deepest and innermost secrets of the world around him, of a very human being who is present in every sense, who is taking time to hear people who are often unheard and trying to give voice to those who may not know how to use their voices or may not be able to. I am reminded of writers and philosophers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose work and life were so deeply rooted in getting back to the basics of who we are as people, and of William Wordsworth whose poems gave voice to the earth and sky and the birds and trees and brought us all a bit closer to what it really means to be human.

DISTORT

http://www.distoart.com/

A Collaboration With T.Dee

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Blossoming Where You Are

The first time I visited Saku in Hoboken, it was shortly after the restaurant opened. I am a fan of the owner Dan Grey's restaurant Grand Vin, and when I heard he was opening a new restaurant I asked if I could stop by for a blog post. As I wrote at the time, Saku is a truly magical place, with gorgeous design and delicious Japanese inspired fusion tastes on the menu. The cocktails were delicious as well as being inventive and fun as everything else was. I went back to visit and bring friends and recommended it to everyone, and then one day when I was talking to the Mixologist Stephanie O'Neill, she said that she was planning a trip to visit with Melanie Carugan, the Bar Manager and Mixologist at Saku, and asked if I'd like to join her. She had never been to Saku before, but she had met Melanie online on Instagram and they had a mutual admiration and wanted to meet. I was more than happy to join Stephanie, because as I have written about her in these pages, I'm an admirer of her creative ideas and delicious cocktails and we always have a great time when I visit her when she is working at Antique Bar & Bakery and at the Hyatt in Jersey City. And so we made a plan and one evening found ourselves sitting at the bar at Saku, meeting with Melanie Carugan while she worked behind the bar.

We tried lots of delicious tastes that night, with cocktails that Melanie created and also a flight of Sake she took us on a journey with, and of course we ate the wonderful food at Saku which goes wonderfully well with the cocktails as well as the Sake. And we had lots of fun, because how can you not have fun with two women who both love to craft delicious and inventive cocktails, talking shop and tasting delicious and interesting things? Mixology is a craft of its own, in some ways like being a Chef with liquid, and though parts of the ingredients can sometimes be cooked or heated or infused or vaporized, for the most part a Mixologist is dealing with things that are chilled, shaken, stirred and mixed in their natural state. It takes a very special kind of palate to pull the flavor notes out of a type of alcoholic beverage, combine them with things that will compliment each other and bring everything together into something that tastes delicious and is presented with beauty and style. And then there is the question of Garnishes, or the Garnish Game as Melanie will sometimes admiringly describe someone else's ability to add those lovely additions on the glass that finish the cocktail and make it oh so perfectly photographable. Deciding what to put on a glass, how to place it, should it be combined with something else or several things or allowed to be simply itself, these are all questions that Mixologists answer, sometimes deciding on the spot if they are making a new version of a cocktail or using a classic ingredient or if they are following after or riffing on an older recipe.

Just after meeting with Melanie, I saw on her Instagram page and the page for Misunderstood Whiskey, one of my favorite Whiskeys that I have also written about, that a cocktail she created had been featured in Forbes for their "13 Delicious Chocolate Dishes and Cocktails for National Chocolate Day". Her cocktail, "Crazy About Bou" was made with Misunderstood Whiskey, Bouvery CV Chocolate Liqueur, Negori Sake, house made creamy chai and aromatic bitters, and was garnished with Cookie Crisps. A lovely and whimsical twist on cookies and milk for adults, she had decided to serve it in a glass that was made to look like a clear, small milk carton. If I hadn't already met Melanie and didn't know that her cocktails were on point, I would have wanted to go there immediately to try it anyway because it looked and sounded so luscious and so charming.

When I sat down with Melanie the other day to talk a bit for this blog post, she told me that she had been working in restaurants since her earliest jobs, and that she liked the atmosphere and the people and the experience of that environment. She had worked in nearly every restaurant job by the time she had been hired at Saku, and because of her experience, hard work, creative ideas and great personality she had moved up to the position of Bar Manager. She told me that she gets her creative ideas from everywhere, and that though she enjoys a challenge, her favorite alcohol to mix with is Vodka because it blends so well and can be used as a base for just about any other flavor or combination of tastes. Prior to working at Saku, she had worked at Corgi Spirits and at some other high end restaurants, and in each place she excelled and grew, working hard to learn and master the art of whatever it was that she was being asked to do wherever she was placed. The name Saku means "To Bloom" and after meeting Melanie Carugan I think she may have found the place that suits her best, because though she is able to bloom wherever she is, she is certainly blossoming there.

Melanie Carugan

At Saku
https://sakuhoboken.com/
Photograph Credit Zack Perl, The Bacyard

Her Creation "Crazy About Bou" With Misunderstood Whiskey

That Was Featured In Forbes 

 Photograph Credit Zack Perl, The Bacyard

Selected Photographs From A Visit To Saku

A Sake Flight

An Inventive Cocktail

With A Cleverly Submerged Burst Of Flavor

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - A Star Was Born

I am a firm believer that we are given gifts and talents from the time we are born that are meant to be shared with the world. Over time we can hone them and do the hard work of learning and refining our craft, but it is our own unique way of creative expression that is our starshine. I recently met a young woman who is a singer and songwriter, and when I had the opportunity to see her perform at her EP release party at Pianos on Ludlow Street in Manhattan the first thought that came into my mind was "A Star is Born." But that of course is the name of a film that has been made and remade many times over the years that includes the heartache and heartfelt love and loss that often go into the lives of people who are truly and deeply creative in their souls. By reaching deeply into that well of emotion and allowing ourselves to feel, we become our most vulnerable, and in the process we allow others to be healed and helped with our voices and art. I changed the title here to A Star Was Born because not only do I believe that we are always the stars that we are in the process of becoming, but I also fervently wish only love and light in the life of Sage Leopold. For one so young the passion and emotion run deep, and I would wish that she only always be filled with beauty and hope throughout her life.

The first time I met Sage I was at one of the impromptu events that her mother, Pamela Lubell, organizes on a fairly regular basis and that she calls PamJams. On these beautiful evenings musician friends come from all over to congregate and sing and play and have fun together with their own music and favorite cover songs from the history of rock and pop, jazz, country and blues. The room gets filled with musicians and music lovers, and as the spirit moves songs go from one to another with people nodding and swaying, dancing and singing along. It's an incredible experience to be in that room, not only for the excellence of the musicians but also because of the casually beautiful and comfortable surroundings that bring everyone into a place of enjoyable reverie. Pamela herself is like that, with a heart that welcomes beauty and life and light and love and creates them all around her, and when Sage sat down to play I knew we were in for a treat. That night she sang a cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game,"one of my favorite songs in more recent history. I'm a real stickler when it comes to music. My brother was a musician, a guitarist, singer and songwriter, and he taught me from the time I was very young that if you couldn't make a song your own while still keeping the integrity of the original you needed to leave well enough alone. Sage sang that song as if she owned it, while still staying so closely tied to the original that it was an homage of love to the beauty of it. On the night of her EP release, she sang a few gorgeous covers along with her own gorgeous creations, and when she started to sing Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot," I had the same feeling I had on that other night. Here was someone who loved and admired and respected the Artist who had created the original, and while deeply touching into the emotion and truth of the song for herself, she was able to make it her own while honoring the other.

Sage Leopold's own music is beautiful, and truly has so much depth that I would have thought it was coming from the heart and soul and mind of someone much older. She is a graduate of Manhattan's LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and Tulane University in New Orleans, but in some ways I would say she's a graduate of the school of a life filled with meaning. Her star was over her when she was born, and as she grows it can only get brighter, and continue to light up even the darkest of nights.

Sage Leopold

At Pianos

158 Ludlow Street

New York City
https://www.instagram.com/sagealexleo/
https://open.spotify.com/artist

https://facebook.com/sageleopold.music

Selected Promotional Photographs

Courtesy Of Sage Leopold's Instagram Page And Spotify

Tuning Up With A Radiant Smile

Blessings,

Jannie Susan