SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Unlike the rest of us cowardly souls who parked ourselves on the couch during last week’s blizzard, Max Sitnikov braved the cold outdoors. The 22-year-old photographer and filmmaker was rewarded with a stunning set of photos that captures the beauty of the snowfall in our coastal community before it turned to brown muck.

Sitnikov received his degree in film from Pratt Institute just last year, but he’s been making videos for eight years. He’s currently working on the release of Brighton 2, a comedic action thriller focusing on the subject of Eastern European gang crime in New York City and mostly shot in our neck of the woods. An earlier film of Sitnikov’s, a remake of SNL’s Lazy Sunday music video, garnered nearly 4 million views on YouTube.

Originally born in Belarus, Sitnikov emigrated to Sheepshead Bay in 1996. He attended P.S. 209 and James Madison High School. For more info, check out his IMDB profile.

View Sitnikov’s Sheepshead Bay blizzard photos

Recently we ran an article that covered a graffiti problem on East 19th Street and other places (and here, here, here and here). It began to look like Sheepshead Bites is anti-graffiti, but in reality this blog’s editor, Ned Berke, is a big fan of street art done well. We just don’t like the shmucks who are putting their hideous marks on other people’s property.

We have a message for them: practice at home. Get good, then get paid for it.

There are many businesses in the area that have put talented graffiti artists to good use.

Benny's Gourmet Pizza (Photo by Ray Johnson)

Above, Pizzeria Del Corso (3003 Avenue U off Batchelder Street) has done a mural that is a perfect example of graffiti done right. It’s a beautiful, full-size mural promoting the business it adorns. It is there with purpose and reason, it’s fun to look at, and it’s not vandalism.

They’re not the only pie-tossers with the idea. Benny’s Gourmet Pizza (1730 Jerome Avenue) has a really well-done piece that takes up the entire length of the building and has some interesting characters on it.

The new Boost Mobile store opening up at 1505 Sheepshead Bay Road is getting artist Sueworks to put up a mural indoors once they get permission from the suits higher up.

And sometimes graffiti can be informational, like this piece on Coney Island Avenue:

For those of you “artists” out there that enjoy tagging post offices and garages, why not take this example to heart? You don’t have to vandalize property to display your art. It certainly doesn’t make you better, and no one gives a crap about your street cred. You get cred by being good. So find someone who’ll give you a legal canvas to work on, volunteer your talent, and help make your neighborhood a better place to live. You can earn some respect and some bank while you’re at it, and come out of the shadows as a respected artist.

With additional reporting by Ned Berke.

We got a photo of this lovely painting recently purchased by a Sheepshead Bites reader (who can reveal himself if he wishes, but I figured it best not to identify people with valuable art in their homes). This is an Alan Streets original streetscape of Coney Island.

Streets is a rising star in the contemporary art scene and has been compared to Picasso, van Gough, and Basquiat. A native of London, Streets is paranoid schizophrenic and uses his art as a form or therapy. His influences include New York graffiti, Hieronymus Bosch, and Salvador Dali.

You can find out more about Streets by visiting his website or watching the documentary My Name is Alan and I Paint Pictures, which follows Streets for six years in London and New York City.

Born in Calcutta, India, Bivas Chaudhuri is an award-winning international artist whose journey to Southern Brooklyn’s waters resonates in his art.

Chaudhuri received his MFA in Painting and Print Making from Brooklyn College, studied at SVA, The Scottish Church College, The Government College of Art and Craft and the University of Calcutta. Though taught by wonderful teachers abroad, Chaudhuri notes that he had to “learn all over” once in America. No problem: he seems to be an eternal learner, serving as an art instructor and art restorer as he pursues his craft.

“One of my goals has been to blend some of the concepts and techniques of Western Painting into Indian Painting and vice-versa,” says the accomplished artist. Continue Reading »

We stumbled across this cute watercolor of Manhattan Beach – that’s Kingsborough Community College in the background – and thought we’d share it with you. The art comes to you courtesy of Nikira, who has a lot of really awesome New York scenes sketched and painted into her little Moleskin book. Check it out; you’ll be glad you did.

(Location artwork for the Glass Bees project "Venice, Brooklyn")

If you thought traffic was bad at the Sheepshead Bay Road bus stop, teeming with Kingsborough students late for their 9 a.m. class and exasperated espresso fiends tweeting about their frustration, wait until you have to push your way off the back of a gondola.

Oh, you heard right; we said gondola.

New York City’s own Atlantean harbingers in their own right, Christopher Williams and Jason Das of experimental musical project known as the Glass Bees, recently embarked on a morning-long acquisition of a variety of media taken or inspired by the southeastern coast of Brooklyn, including our very own Sheepshead Bay, to form a multimedia experience called Venice, Brooklyn.

Voracious listeners of genre-bending tunes including indie rock, avant garde, and free jazz, Williams and Das are no strangers to the local music scene. Former members of Sick Passengers, the Glass Bees have come to the conclusion that “you don’t have to just compose a song.” After years of working within mainstream conventions, the duo ventured into more abstract work, and have amassed an amazing library of sound prior to their involvement with the 2009 ConfluxCity festival.

The duo decided to participate in the underground music and arts festival, focusing on neighborhoods that the other participants neglected. Noting that New York is larger than just Manhattan, the Glass Bees headed to Gerritsen Beach and Sheepshead Bay because, as Jason so succinctly puts it, “Nobody goes there.” Most of Conflux 2009 took place in Manhattan or northern Brooklyn.

Completed within a span of ten hours on September 20, the Venice, Brooklyn installation came armed with debris collected from our shores, recordings of coast guard frequencies and ambient noise, as well as maps highlighting the areas that would be affected by severe coastal flooding in the coming years. Continue Reading »

(Courtesy of http://shop.zlatoff.ru/)

Swords are cool. The only thing more badass than a big, swingin’ sword is a big, swingin’ sword with a badass engraving. Cool. Badass. Swords…

… in Sheepshead Bay? Yup!

Chances are if you’re not Russian – or an expert on historic weaponry – then you’ve never heard of Zlatoust. But the city, sitting on the border between Europe and Asia, has been a regional capital for world-class metallurgy for more than 250 years. Now their goods are coming to Sheepshead Bay’s Rasputin restaurant, for a two-day expo starting this Friday.

An industrial ironworking town since its foundation in 1754, Zlatoust produced the first Russian steel blades in the early 19th century and the first cannons made from Russian steel. Artists emerged out of the industrial mills, led by pioneers like Ivan Bushuyev and Ivan Boyarshinov, who left a legacy of unique patterns engraved in cold steel. Bushuyev was well-known for his designs of winged horses, earning the name “Ivan the Wingy”, and eventually the town adopted the Pegasus as their emblem. Over two centuries, Zlatoust refined its image as a center of artistic engraving. Though early works primarily appeared on weapons, the practice spread during the Soviet era to metal plates, jewelry, tools, and any other surfaces those zany Zlatoustskys could get their tools on.

Golden World Business Group has invited the Lochtachev & Co. artist collective, Zlatoust’s largest arts studio, to exhibit and sell items in our own Little Odessa. More than 150 artists are showing an assortment of blades, clocks, decorative items, and religious works displaying traditional and contemporary Zlatoust styles. Lochtachev & Co.’s pieces are owned by Russian celebrities and newsmakers, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Featured at the event are two unique works highlighted by organizers. “Crosses of Memory” was unveiled on the first anniversary of September 11. They are made in memory of the tragic events, showing how its effects were felt across the world. The Crosses, made from platinum, silver, and gold with sapphires, diamonds, and rubies, symbolize the Northern and the Southern Towers of the World Trade Center.

The other work is a replica completed in April 1997, commissioned by the “Highest benediction of Moscow and Russian Patriarch Alexey II.” It recreates the Tabernacle of Temple of Christ the Savior – a sacred object of the Orthodox church and a monument of the Patriotic War 1812. The original was destroyed in the 1930s, and Zlatoust artists have attempted a complete and accurate replica.

Interesting stuff, but, uh… Swords, people! Friggin’ swords!

(Flyer after the jump)

Golden World Business Group cordially invites you to attend Zlatoust’s Decorative ArtShow -2009. Please join us to celebrate 250 years of the Zlatoust City – famous for the unsurpassed style and unique tradtional Russian techniques used in the creation of its Russian weaponry, art and jewely. The show will exhibit highly-artistic works of decorative-applied art featured by workshop “Lochtachev and Co”. All products presented at the exhibition are unique and exclusive articles, collector’s items of modern decorative art. All items presented at the exhibition will be offered for sale during the exhibition and auctioned off on the final day of show.

Event Schedule:
October 16th, 11 A.M. – Reception and Exhibition
5 P.M. – Day exhibition ends
October 17th, 11 A.M. – Exhibition Continues
2 P.M. – Exhibition Auction

Event Location:
Restaurant Rasputin
2670 Coney Island Avenue
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11235

RSVP: swordsandgifts@yahoo.com Tel. 1-(800) 788-6106

Thanks to Gowanus Lounge, I’ll be on the lookout this week for the historian, otherwise known as, Master New York Factologist Kevin Walsh.

Gowanus Lounge said that his trip is specifically to take another look at the familiar mural at the Sheepshead Bay train station. But will the historian be able to keep himself from stopping by Randazzo’s for some clam chowder?

It might be that he’s already paid his visit. Has anyone seen him around this part of Forgotten NY area? He might be a little lost, though, since based on this quote, it sounds like he might be wandering over on West 15 Street in Coney Island (of course, he’s not wanderng — he’s the authority on all things New York and even wrote a book):

Sometimes, NYC history can be preserved in the unlikeliest of ways and in the most unusual places. Take a large mural along West 15th Street in the shadow of the BMT Brighton line (B, Q) just north of Sheepshead Bay Road. The mural, entitled “Sheepshead Bay’s Historic Future,” depicts Emmons Avenue as it was in 1994 and how the artist, Faith Palmer-Persen (probably with the camera in the mural), apparently predicted the ways it would evolve.

Anyone in Coney Island seen Mr. Walsh? please point him over here.

(Photo courtesy of
A.R.T./New York’s South Oxford Space)

Okay, so Sheepshead Bay is not moving to Fort Greene, but our fishermen are! No, no, that’s not true either. I took the liberty of writing the sensational headline to make sure that you will read this post and hurry on over to this special exhibit. Let me explain.

We would like to tell you about Fishermen of Sheepshead Bay, a special presentation of photographs and essays having to do with our very own Bay fishing culture and those who participate in it. These unique documentary photographs were taken by contributing New York Post photographer, Christian Johnston, and the essays were written by award-winning writer and soon-to-be novelist, Shamar Hill.

You’ll have to hurry over to the Gallery Three at A.R.T./New York’s South Oxford Space to see this exhibit before it ends its run there, by this Friday, September 19, 2008. If you can’t make by then, you might be able to catch this exhibit in its next run at another venue. Please stay tuned to Sheepshead Bites for information about where you can catch this fish, ahem, Fishermen of Sheepshead Bay display.

Fishermen of Sheepshead Bay Photography Exhibit
Where: Gallery Three at A.R.T./New York’s South Oxford Space
Address: 138 So. Oxford Street
Ft. Greene, Brooklyn
Date: until Friday, September 19, 2008 (stay tuned for other showings)
Times: Mon – Fri 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., Weekends 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., or by appointment
Contact: Stephanie Bok, Operations and Community Relations Manager
718-398-3078 or email sbok@art-newyork.org

Organizations working together to bring this exhibit alive:
The Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York)
Brooklyn Arts Council
Off-BroadwayOnline.com