Innovation and Creativity are in the Air

Robert Marchant
The Journal News
September 21, 2004

 
The arts are flourishing in the Bronx. The Longwood Arts Project, the visual arts program of the Bronx Council on the Arts, offers gallery spaces and innovative programs for local artists. It has nurtured men and women who have become big names in the art world and helped fledgling talent find its niche.

The project moved from its old location at a former school on Longwood Avenue to the campus of Hostos Community College in Mott Haven in 2002 after the city school system decided it wanted to reopen a school facility at the site. Big windows and tall ceilings offer plenty of attractive exhibit space at the Longwood gallery.

At 1:30 p.m. Bill Aguado, executive director of the Bronx Council on the Arts, is holding a meeting with staffers on the creation of a new arts guild for artisans and craft workers to better market and promote their products. Aguado, 58, says the artistic community in the Bronx is gaining maturity, respect and visibility.

"Historically, the Bronx has been a stepchild in terms of the city," he says, "Manhattan was our source of leisure and high culture."

But beginning in the ’80s and ’90s, he says, the borough saw new vitality in the arts sector. There are now about 10,000 artists of one form or another working in the borough, Aguado estimates, and more than 100 arts organizations in operation.

An enclave of artists has sprung up in recent years in Mott Haven, and a "culture trolley" making the rounds of studios, theater workshops, poetry readings, musical performances and restaurants that began last year has proved to be a runaway success.

Much of the art produced in the Bronx reflects the particularly strong immigrant tradition in the borough, Aguado says, and it leans toward the craft and artisanal side of the art world.

One of the artists working with Longwood is Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, a Bronx native with Puerto Rican roots.

At 2:10, Raimundi-Ortiz confers with a college electrical supervisor on a large, multimedia arts project she is installing at the gallery, which will open for exhibition in October. It’s a big project: a recreation of her grandfather’s old cottage in Puerto Rico, lifted high in the air, as if drifting on an invisible current of memory.

Raimundi-Ortiz studied in Manhattan but finds the Bronx a fertile place to perform her work. She also finds it is becoming more conducive to others in the art world.

"You can feel isolated from the rest of the world here, but it’s definitely opening up," she says. Raimundi-Ortiz, 31, hosts a monthly get-together with other artists and the creative crowd at her Mott Haven loft with her husband, musician Jose Ortiz. "We have so many talented people around us. It’s symbiotic, and it’s a lot of fun," she says.

Back in Longwood, Victorian rowhouses lend character and a unique historical flavor to the neighborhood, a reminder of the borough’s long heritage.

At 4:10, Rayfield French, 44, a bike messenger, is relaxing on the street and catching some afternoon sun.

"It’s a nice neighborhood. People get along, and all these old houses are being renovated. It brings up the whole community," he says.

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Reach Robert Marchant at rmarchan@thejournalnews.com or 914-666-6578.