Writers & Artists Gather Together
Ridgewood is the birthplace of two new creative organizations seeking to unite the growing community of local artists and writers. The Ridgewood Artists Coalition (RAC) and Ridgewood Writers’ Group both held inaugural meetings this month in an effort to forge connections with fellow creative minds.
RAC founder Emily Heinz welcomed members to the group’s first meeting last Saturday, Oct. 11 at The Spot café on Madison Street. Heinz, a senior at Parsons School of Design, formed the coalition as a way to bring local, individual artists together in a creative, supportive network.
“I guess the main thing that spurred me to suggest RAC was knowing that this community existed, and also my strong desire to become a part of it and to meet more people in my area,” Heinz explained.
“I’m obsessed with art. All art. I love it,” she added, “Everything comes back to art for me. So to know that there were people in this area that I loved so dearly who were artists was a major factor for me to want to begin this group.”
The creation of these new creative societies reflects the changing Ridgewood cultural landscape. With soaring rents in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Ridgewood is quickly becoming a haven for artists and writers seeking not only affordability, but a greater sense of community as well.
Heinz and her boyfriend, filmmaker Cody Cardarelli, were part of this migration. Both Heinz and Cardarelli relocated to Ridgewood nearly six months ago from Manhattan and Bushwick, respectively.
“We knew that Ridgewood was somewhere we would inevitably fall in love with,” Heinz explained. “The persistence of the community, the pride that so many residents seem to have in their history, the support felt by our neighbors; all of these things is sort of a rare mix anywhere … but especially to have it so close to the center of New York City is very rare.”
Heinz chose to base her group here in Ridgewood out of genuine love and appreciation for the neighborhood and its residents.
“Ultimately, it’s the people that make me feel so at home here,” she added, “and I think Cody would say the same thing. People in Ridgewood seem to genuinely care about everything having to do with the neighborhood, and they like to talk … they want to share their stories, and I love that.”
After moving to Ridgewood, Heinz quickly recognized the need for an organized, formal group in which artists could meet, hold discussions and exchange ideas.
“I started realizing that not only were there more and more artists moving to Ridgewood,” she explained, “but there was a pretty strong presence of people who had been here for many years or their whole lives who were also artists, and yet there seemed to be no epicenter for any of it, near as I could tell—and if there was, it was a formalized setting such as a classroom or committee format.”
Heinz founded RAC in an effort to create such a forum.
One creative roundtable
Saturday’s meeting of RAC was a veritable roundtable of Ridgewood-based artists and writers of all ages and backgrounds working in a variety of media. Multi-media sculptor and artist Liana Pom recently moved to Ridgewood after living in Bushwick for nearly a decade. Pom works with a variety of materials and media, including fiberglass, fabric, paper and sound, to create unique sculptural installations.
Ridgewood artist and musician Gabriela Rassi explained how she strives to incorporate visual art, such as slide projections and drawing, with live music performances. Rassi and her husband Bill Bartholomew formed the local indie band Silverteeth. A native of Brazil, Rassi counts folk music and rock and roll as two of her major influences.
“I’ve been a rock and roll person since I was a kid,” she explained.
Silverteeth was chosen to perform as a part of CMJ, a large local music festival for music industry insiders. The duo will perform at the CMJ Day Party on Saturday, Oct. 25, in Williamsburg. They also hope to release a new album next year.
Costume and prop designer Richard Callender also joined the group. Callender moved to New York from Pittsburgh two decades ago to attend college and fell in love with the city. He has lived in Ridgewood for the past eight years and runs Cowardly Lot Costumes and Props, a small costuming business which handles custom orders from a wide list of clients.
Callender works in a variety of media, including fabric, electronics, wood, plastics, 3-D foam sculpture and prop fabrication.
Also in attendance were two Ridgewood-based writers, Tadeusz “Thad” Zielichowski and Ridgewood Writers’ Group founder Amy Wilson. Zielichowski described his intensive, ongoing process of documenting New York’s literary monuments and landmarks.
As part of this project, Zielichowski photographs commemorative plaques from landmarks throughout the city honoring writers. He then combines those images in a bricolage format with excerpts from the respective writers’ original texts, translated into his native language of Polish.
Penning Ridgewood’s future
Fellow writer Amy Wilson recently created the Ridgewood Writers’ Group as a place for local writers to congregate, workshop pieces and engage in literary discussions.
“Ridgewood Writers is a welcoming group for selfidentified writers living in Ridgewood and surrounding neighborhoods,” Wilson explained. “We aim to support each other creatively by gathering together to discuss our individual work, and to learn from and enrich the Ridgewood community at large.”
Like Heinz, Wilson recently moved to Ridgewood and formed her group as a way to stay connected and inspired within her new community.
“I recently moved to New York City to pursue my long-held dream of being a writer but found myself struggling to stay motivated,” she explained. “I thought that having a supportive network of people in the neighborhood would help me keep accountable and stay on track and looked around for a writers group to join. When I didn’t find one, I put out some feelers about establishing a new one and was totally astonished at the immediate, enthusiastic, and positive response I received from Ridgewood residents.”
Like many artists, Wilson was initially drawn to Ridgewood for the prospect of affordable rent.
“It was basically a complete coincidence that I came here, but in other ways it really feels like fate,” she explained, “After coming here I found out that, completely unbeknownst to me, I had actually moved to a place that was two miles away from where my great-grandparents are buried. So it kind of feels like they’re watching over me.”
Both Heinz and Wilson hope to work together on collaborations between their two groups in the near future.
“We should work toward something as a collective project,” Wilson explained. “I’m picturing some sort of reading or performance as well as a publication of Ridgewood-centric writing. That’s all a few months down the line but it’s definitely one of my ambitions for the group.”
“I’m hoping that the group will grow in a really healthy way, and become a very strong, supportive network,” Heinz added. “I’m hoping that the members of the group will find a sense of comfort and camaraderie, but also that they can use the group to help push them on their artistic and creative projects, and that they can exchange skills and knowledge.”
They explained that Ridgewood offers artists and writers a much-welcomed sense of community that is both comforting and inspiring to them.
“I have fallen in love with Ridgewood very quickly and am so happy I came here,” Wilson explained. “I love the mix of lively business districts like Fresh Pond Road with quiet, beautiful side streets. I’ve spent a lot of time just walking around and observing. I love the community feeling, particularly the cafe culture. It’s convenient to most places in the city where I want to go, but also feels like a total oasis from the madness. But most importantly, I love the people. I can’t wait to meet and work together with more Ridgewood residents and learn more about the history of this wonderful place.”
The Ridgewood Writers’ Group meets the first Saturday and third Tuesday of the month at The Spot café, 61-05 Madison St. Their next meeting is on Tuesday, Oct. 21. For more information on joining, contact Amy at ridgewoodwriters@gmail.com.
The Ridgewood Artists Coalition (RAC) will meet once per month. Their next meeting is on Saturday, Nov. 8, at a location to be announced. For more information, follow the group online at www.facebook.com/groups/ridge woodartistscoalition.
