A Chelsea arts festival for the young at heart

Jeanette Arnone holding the photo reproduction of her “On Thin Ice” mural, which showed in her permanent space at the Theater for the New City in 2002. She’s including it in this weekend’s Art Launch VI at Penn South.

By Sandra Larriva

The members of Penn South’s Program for Seniors will join forces this weekend to bring Art Launch VI, a multimedia intergenerational arts festival, to the Chelsea community. Now in its sixth year, the event will open on Friday with a multi-media exhibition and several live performances, and continue on Saturday with workshops, a poetry compilation, a dance performance, and more.

The Program for Seniors serves New York City residents who are 55 and older. Housed in a senior center in Penn South, a residential cooperative community in Chelsea, it has an extensive schedule of activities/classes — there are a minimum of eight per day — and supplies social work support and nursing services. Partially funded by the New York City Department for the Aging and the New York State Office for the Aging, the center originally financed Art Launch through the Jeanette Solomon Fund at the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York.

According to Harold Vander Malle, a senior volunteer at Penn South, the program really began in 1999, when “Jeanette Solomon, who at that time had a gallery, came to a little exhibition we had, “Art on the Fence,” on June 4. She was so enamored [with the show] that her children decided to give her a birthday present by giving the center money for us to have art launch projects, to promote the arts in our development through the senior center.” The center organized five festivals with the support of the Solomon family and then carried on without it.

In their search for visual and performance artists, the producers of Art Launch VI reached out to the entire community. Opening night this Friday June 1 will feature a violin and piano recital by Galina Heifetz and Mimi Stern-Wolfe, both professional musicians, a theatrical performance by members of the program’s drama class, and a multimedia fine art exhibition by over 75 artists from the Chelsea community.

“He Took a Walk,” the title of the short play that will be performed this Friday, was written by Larry Littman, a long-time writer, teacher, and resident of Penn South. Mr. Littman, who is a member of the senior program’s drama group, once wrote a short story about a man who breaks with his monotonous daily routine — getting up at 5 a.m., going to work, returning home to his wife, waking up at 5 a.m., and so on — by taking a walk from Chelsea all the way down to Chinatown and encountering bizarre individuals. This man’s tales eventually turned into a seated play, which was performed in the Muhlenberg Branch of the New York Public Library on W. 23rd Street and 7th Avenue. For Art Launch VI, Mr. Littman re-wrote the story, dramatizing it more so that it could be acted by the drama group.

According to Mr. Littman, “there is a lot of talent at Penn South; the festival is one way of bringing it to the public.”

Frank Engel, head of the drama program and art teacher at Penn South, is among the many talented seniors involved in the festival. He and his wife (actress, director and playwright Miranda McDermott) own the New Media Repertory Company Inc., a non-profit organization on the Upper East Side committed to cultural diversity. In addition to having directed “He Took A Walk,” Mr. Engel, a multimedia artist himself, also curated the fine art section of the event, which will consist of painting, drawing, ceramics and graphic art by around 75 artists from the Chelsea community.

Regarding his role at the center, Mr. Engel said, “my job there is trying to make whatever they want to do successful, to facilitate their work.” And at that he seems to have succeeded. Since the program’s very first performance, “Waiting for Lefty” by Clifford Odets, several of the drama group’s members have been in movies and TV commercials as a result of their in-house work. (Hope Bernstein and Ethel Greenbaum acted in the independent film “Bell,” which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years ago.)

New to the festival’s program of events will be a photography slideshow assembled by artist Normal Shapiro, containing work by four different artists. The first images to go on screen are by husband and wife Robert and Jeanette Kimmel, who, according to Mr. Shapiro, “make art out of objects they find on the street.” Next is a photo essay by Robert Aberdeen of a tour that seniors from Penn South took of the High Line, the 1.5-mile-long elevated rail structure that spans 22 blocks on the West side of the city. And, finally, there are photographs taken by Mr. Shapiro during a demonstration at Penn South by acclaimed ceramics and jewelry designer Jono Pandolfi.

In putting together the festival’s first photography slideshow, Mr. Shapiro wishes to celebrate “the variety of kinds of art that take place here in Penn South.”

Mr. Shapiro, a graduate from Cooper Union, is himself a well-known teacher and artist. His work can be found in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the archives of universities such as Indiana State at Bloomington and in a book of poems that he helped put together and which will be available at the festival.

An edition of 300, the book was generated by seniors and residents of Penn South and dedicated to Esther Smoke, a poet who was part of the center’s poetry workshop until she died last year. According to Harold Vander Malle, a senior volunteer and an important figure in the creation of the book, Mrs. Smoke “had always wanted us to put together a book of poetry.” And so they did. All 300 copies of the book will be given away for free at the festival on a first come, first serve basis.

In addition to the above-mentioned events, Art Launch VI will also feature Origami and Haiku workshops and a Mediterranean dance performance. Despite the high levels of commitment and participation claimed by a number of participants, Mr. Vander Malle, who originally got involved with the senior program to connect with the community, laments that not all of the program’s artists participated: “We hope that what we show this year will encourage artists to make contributions next time.”

Art Launch VI will take place on Friday, June 1, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday, June 2, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Toad Lane Gallery (community room) at Penn South, 343 Eighth Ave. For more information, call 212-243-3670.