The First Thursday Dumbo Gallery Walk is tonight, Thursday, October 6, 2011, between 6-9pm. The gallery walk is free.

Welcome to the Dumbo Arts Festival! If you haven’t been here before, directions are below, courtesy of Dumbo Arts Fesetival. Full schedule of events are listed on dumboartsfestival.com.

If you’re looking for some food and drink choices, here are some suggestions:

Dining:

• Almar (v.good Italian dinner and brunch), 111 Front Street
• Bubby’s (American dining), 1 Main Street
• Miso Sushi, 40 Main Street
• Pedro’s Spanish American Restaurant, (neighborhood Mexican bar/restaurant) 73 Jay Street
• Pub One (Pub dining and bar food), 5 Front Street
• Rice (pan-Asian), 81 Washington Street
• Water Street Restaurant, (Southern American), 66 Water Street
• The Gallery Cafe (Mediterranean cuisine), 108 Jay Street
• Superfine, (Local/organic American restaurant/bar), 126 Front Street

Pizza:

• Front Street Pizza (NY-style pizza), 80 Front Street (at Washington St)
• Wild Rise (Neapolitan pizza), at 68 Jay Street Bar

Coffee/Dessert:

• Almondine Bakery (French bakery and cafe), 85 Water Street
• Archway Cafe (coffee and sandwiches), 57 Pearl Street
• Baco Cafe (coffee and sandwiches), 71 Jay Street
• Brooklyn Roasting Company (best coffee in Dumbo), 25 Jay Street
• Jacques Torres Chocolates (66 Water Street) and Jacques Torres Ice Cream (62 Water Street)
• Starbucks (coffee, duh), 67 Front Street
• The Best Chocolate Cake (really is the best), 68 Jay Street

Deli/Grocery:

• Bridge Fresh Market, 68 Jay Street
• Foragers Market, 56 Adams Street
• Peas N Pickles grocery, 55 Washington Street (at Front St)
• 7 Stars Deli, 59 Front Street

Bars:

• 68 Jay Street Bar, 68 Jay Street (at Water St)
• Almar, 111 Front Street
• Pedro’s Spanish American Restaurant, 73 Jay Street
• ReBar, 147 Front Street
• Superfine, 126 Front Street

The Dumbo Arts Festival spans the neighborhood of DUMBO, Brooklyn between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, including the Waterfront. Parking is scarce and public transportation is encouraged, though if driving, use 45 Main Street as a GPS terminus. Biking or walking over either bridge is also a great way to arrive from the West.

BY SUBWAY
F to York Street
Make a right when exiting the train station. Make a left onto York Street, walk 3 blocks to Washington Street and turn left on Front Street or Water Street

A/C to High Street

Walk downhill toward the Brooklyn Bridge on Cadman Plaza West to Old Fulton Street. Bear left on Old Fulton Street and follow it until it ends at the pier or make a right on Front Street

2/3 to Clark Street
Exit the station and make a left onto Henry Street. Turn left on Old Fulton Street and follow it until it ends at the pier, or make a right on Water Street.

BY BUS
Take the B25 to the corner of Water Street and Main Street.

BY FERRY
NEW YORK WATERWAY’S EAST RIVER FERRY operates to and from the Fulton Ferry Landing from several locations along the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts and Hoboken, NJ. Also, the New York Water Taxi operates from South Street Seaport. Exit the Ferry Landing onto Water Street and walk north

This weekend, Dumbo Brooklyn is host for the 2011 Dumbo Arts Festival and will feature open artists studios, exhibitions, and outdoor projects throughout the neighborhood. This year’s festival will feature more than 500 artists, 120 open art studios, 40 live performances, family programming and more — all free of charge.

(Immersive Surfaces)

Friday’s performance art highlights include:

• 8:30 PM – 9:00 PM: Janet Biggs’ premier of Wet Exit, a multi-media performance that combines projected video images and musicians with choreographed kayakers performing in the East River.
• 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM: Carl Skelton and Luke DuBois’ Sweet Stream Love’s River gives guests the chance to text short love notes from their smart phones to be projected glowing in the rippling surface of the water at Empire Stores. Visitors to the festival are invited to send short love notes via SMS from their smartphones to 646-389-1766 to be displayed on the Main Street façade of the Empire Stores.
• 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM: Immersive Surfaces projects video onto the Manhattan Bridge anchorage and surrounding cityscape to blur boundaries between perception, art and technology. (Locations: The Triangle at Pearl & Front St., Jay & Water St., Front & Adams St.

There’s also The DUMBO Underground, a benefit party for Free Arts NYC: “Help us kick-off the DUMBO Arts Festival on with a night of burlesque, music and raffles to help raise funds for Free Arts NYC, a wonderful organization that provides arts and mentorship programs to under-served children in NYC.” (on Friday, 9/23 10pm-3am. 1 Front Street, Corner of Front St & Old Fulton, Brooklyn, 11201) *Use code: DUMBONYC to receive $5 off when purchasing tickets online*

Below are some additional preview items you don’t want to miss.

1) Smack Mellon Gallery – Isidro Blasco

Isidro Blasco
Tilted

Madrid-born New York-based artist Isidro Blasco creates photographic sculptures and multimedia installations composed of images of places where he has lived, worked and visited. In Tilted, Blasco creates perspectival fragmentations of Smack Mellon’s gallery space alongside a prismatic recreation of a Dumbo streetscape. Photographs taken from multiple perspective points are combined to create mosaic-like patterns and are then mounted onto three dimensional ramshackle constructions built from repurposed wood. More info.

Exhibition Dates: September 24 – October 30, 2011
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, September 24, 5-8pm
Location: Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, upper level

2) Smack Mellon Gallery – Rachel Beach

Rachel Beach
Distance Trance

Re-imagining the basics of structure and image, Rachel Beach’s skillfully constructed architectonic objects curiously hover between sign and real, visible and invisible. Highlighting the tension between artificial and natural, Beach’s new series of sculptures methodically combine contrasting surfaces of trompe l’oeil veneers with salvaged construction beams left in their aged condition. Brightly painted edges carve out illusions of space from the chunky cuts of wood. In dialogue with the sculptures are new series of silkscreens in which monochromatic patterns of formal geometric abstraction become symbols of space. More info.

Exhibition Dates: September 24 – October 30, 2011
Artists’ Reception: Saturday, September 24, 5-8pm
Location: Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, upper level

3) Dumbo Arts Center’s video_dumbo

Dumbo Arts Center’s video_dumbo is a festival for contemporary video art curated by Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy. The festival provides local emerging artists with an exhibition platform and is augmented by a number of established, international selections.

Location: 112 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY

4) Dan Wonderly’s PORTALS at 30 Washington St

From Dan Wonderly: “The inspiration for this body of work stems from years of looking at my surroundings, imagining how things might appear if I could shrink down to an inch tall and go exploring. For the series, I scoured the DUMBO neighborhood and photographed different PORTALS—defined as a doorway, gate, or other entrance—to create 16 macro or near-macro vignettes of drains, cracks, holes or miniature environments I envision as entrances into another world.”

Location: 30 Washington Street (dumboartsfestival.com/events/portals-dumbo)

This weekend is the annual Dumbo Arts Festival. Each year, the Dumbo Arts Festival highlights the arts community by presenting the best in local, national, and international art between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. The festival will take place between Friday, September 23 and Sunday, September 25 and attracts 200,000 visitors and participation of over 500 artists from a variety of disciplines, 100 studios, 50 galleries and stages. The neighborhood becomes one big event of experimental art and music in unexpected places.

Festival hours are Friday 6pm to 9pm, Saturday 12pm to 8pm, and Sunday 12pm to 6pm, and 6pm – midnight for all outdoor art projections.

Go to Dumbo Arts Festival for the full program guide. The Dumbo Arts Festival is produced by Dalzell Productions and Two Trees Management.

Episode 6: Richard Velloso of Olga Guanabara (olgaguanabara.com)
Directed by Orlaith O’Neill
Created by David Castillo
Produced by Blue Barn Pictures, Inc. for DumboNYC on vimeo

In this episode of Crossing Dumbo, Blue Barn Pictures interviews Dumbo resident Richard Velloso, co-owner of Olga Guanabara, a furniture studio in Dumbo at 63 Pearl Street. Olga is named for Richard’s chocolate lab dog, and Guanabara comes from the Tupi-Guarani language (South America), goanã-pará, from gwa “bay,” plus nã “similar to” and ba’ra “sea.” It’s also translated as “the bosom of sea.” Richard talks about his creative work on his custom furniture pieces using wood found on the beach under the Manhattan Bridge.

Crossing Dumbo, a web series of video portraits of artists, entrepreneurs and residents in Dumbo Brooklyn. This is a collaboration between DumboNYC and our talented friends over at Blue Barn Pictures. Different directors from Blue Barn Pictures, a creative content agency, bring their own approach to each interview to create a distinct profile of the person being interviewed and place them within the Dumbo community. The people at Blue Barn Pictures truly love what they do and support the community in a positive way, and for that we’re grateful to have them be a part of Dumbo.

For the Dumbo Art Festival (Sept 23-25) Blue Barn Pictures will open their office into a gallery to showcase Crossing Dumbo. All the Crossing Dumbo participants will be displaying their art and things related to them. Sponsored by Tekserve, they will have with several iPads displaying the episodes along side their art work.

{DumboNYC.com/category/crossing-dumbo/}

Doudou 7 Photography Project

It is that time of year again to invite you for the 7th “Doudou Project.” Doudou is the French word for security blanket. This month Davina Zagury invites children to be photographed with their most treasured/security possessions. This “Doudou Project” will result in a month long exhibit, during which prints will be available for order.

In order to secure your session with Davina a non-refundable $30 deposit ($45 for siblings) is required.
The deposit includes:
- 10 minute studio session time
- On line gallery of edited images
- Option to order prints from the online gallery for additional cost
- Exhibit of images chosen by Davina

To view images from past projects please log on to: www.davinaz.com/705/the-dou-dou-project
To book an appointment: please go to: www.davinaz.com/projectpromotion-signup/
Please note that children should be able to sit independently.

Details:
Date: September 18 & 25th
Hour: 10:00a.m. – 5:00p.m.
Place: POMME, 81 Washington Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn
RSVP in required: www.davinaz.com/projectpromotion-signup/
For additional questions: davinaz@davinaz.com, 914 671 3735

Ten artists, one representing every year since September 11, 2001, create interactive memorial stations. The project includes a site for members of the public to create an ephemeral memorial. Participating artists include DUMBO-based Illegal Art whose project will ask participants to dip two fingers into a pot of grey indelible ink to represent the twin towers, and to reflect on the location and impact of the event over the number of days it takes for the ink to fade from their fingers, and others.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011 • 11AM–5PM
Site locations: Begin at The Pearl St. Triangle (Pearl St. btwn. Front St. & Water St.) and walk to The Archway (Water St. btwn. Adams St. & Anchorage Pl.) continue your walk on Water St. to Dock St., along which the remaining artist stations will be located. Rain sites: 30 Washington St. and The Archway.

More information about each participating artist –
http://www.brooklynartscouncil.org/documents/1714

The internationally-celebrated Fashion’s Night Out returns for its 3rd year this Thursday, September 8th, 2011. This year, you don’t have to leave Dumbo to enjoy the festivities. Coinciding with September’s 1st Thursday Gallery Walk, art and fashion lovers will have many places to celebrate and indulge in their passions.

For the most up to date listing of participating locations, please go to the Dumbo BID’s facebook page.

The First Thursday Dumbo Gallery Walk is next Thursday, September 8, 2011, between 6-9pm (NOT tonight as first posted). The gallery walk is free.

Jane’s Carousel is being installed in Brooklyn Bridge Park in the Jean Nouvel designed Pavilion, and will open to the public September 16, 2011.

Here’s a few photos taken yesterday:

According to the poster under the Brooklyn Bridge, the carousel will be open 11am-7pm (closed Tuesdays), and will be $2 per ride.

Flickr user funkymonk2000 also posted a few nice photos close up: