Walking along Water Street in Brooklyn I happened across a warehouse space filled to the gills with Asian pieces. Japanese, it turns out, with just a smattering of Chines architectural elements and screens. “Just Japanese?” I asked Dane Owen, the owner. “Yes, these days just Japanese,” he replied. “There is an integrity to Japanese textiles and furnishings.” The quantity of chests, baskets and textiles astounded me. Every drawer of every tonsu contained kimono, indigo panels, firemen jackets, boro and obi and I worried that the older generations were parting, too rapidly, with their treasures. “Yes,” said Dane, “those who own old country houses need funds to repair leaking roofs. Often, to save the structure, they have to sell the items within.” He has been buying in Japan for years and selling, first in Santa Fe and now in Brooklyn.
The pieces are beautiful, particularly the finely embroidered kimono and beautifully woven baskets. Ceramics are in great supply as well and will be augmented when the next shipment arrives in a month’s time. For anyone interested in these objects, Shibui is a fine place to start looking.
I spent yesterday with Dustin Yellin, arguably one of the most influential contemporary artists around. His pieces are fascinating - stacked planes of glass, each embellished with images and painting that, when layered atop each other, create collages of staggering dimension and detail. Many of the finished pieces are massive public installations; the detailed studies for those pieces are dreams, gems, both intellectual and emotional, that rouse memory, create reverie and project you forward into strange - some would say dystopian - visions. As a traveler and an anthropologist, I was reminded of strange cultures and beautiful artifacts that I have visited, studied, or collected over the years: New Guinea nose bones; Trobriand kula shell necklaces; bilum bags; fiber skirts. Yellin's pieces are riches to dream on and to travel in, and I think every child should have one.
But artist is, by no means, the sum total of this 42-year-old. A genius with a brain constantly on the move, his art is in service to a larger dream - that of supporting a community of creatives from diverse disciplines to inspire social change. In 2010, Yellin created Pioneer Works, an independent, not-for-profit cultural and educational resource unlike an other traditional institution. Located in a large 3-story brick warehouse in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, Pioneer Works holds public exhibitions, screenings, concerts, readings, as well as lectures and courses on a range of artistic, scientific, and social topics. Pioneer also awards multiple no-cost arts and science residencies each year.
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