John Crittenden Photography – Opening at Made With Love for Jersey City Fridays

Posted on March 6, 2011 by itees

This past friday was no ordinary friday, it was Jersey City Fridays. For those outside the Jersey City or Hudson County area, it’s a day of cultural events all over the city and only comes a few times a year. So, on friday a few friends and I headed over to downtown Jersey City to see the opening photography exhibition by John Crittenden. He has displayed his work at Made with Love, Organic Bakery & Cafe before. This time he showed his versatility by displaying some celebrity portraits, (Yoko Ono, Judy Collins, John Cassevettes and Gena Rowlands, to name a few…) architecture, theatre work and other dynamic pictures.

His work will be up for the month of March, so if you’ve not seen his wonderful work, or tasted any of the gold medal winning recipes offered at Made With Love, I suggest you head on over for a great time. My gallery from the opening event is here.

John Crittenden and Thomas Tyburski at the opening event.

Jersey City Studio Tour – Hoboken Art and Music Festival 2010

Posted on October 4, 2010 by itees

Friday night the festivities began. The kick-off party at Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey City brought out local artists and their art-loving friends. The exhibition was quite interesting with photography to 3D mixed media to painting on glass (Ibou Ndoye) to collages (Roslyn Rose). My only disappointment was they had a lovely spread of food but everything contained meat… sandwiches, pasta, meatballs… There are so many people who don’t eat meat, this truly surprised me… but the wine was very good and was donated by Jersey Wine & Spirits.

Saturday, I started out in Jersey City Heights to see some of the new murals going up just off Central Avenue & walked down to Pershing Field to meet a friend at the Community Center in the middle of the park. Inside were varied artists from photographers to painters and those working with mixed media. I was particularly interested in the work by Patricia Frank whose imagery using mixed media of wax and metallics gave the flower imagery a soft matte yet magical quality.

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After this we headed downtown to start the walkabout and visit as many galleries and friends as we can fit into a day. Some of the galleries/shows were, “Exquisite Corpse,” at 109 Christopher Columbus Drive, the 150 Bay Street studios visiting, Robert Kogge, Lynda D’Amico, Karen Fuchs, and more… Alley Cat Gallery where we met Leigh More, whose photography work of scenes, cloudscapes are printed on metallic paper and gave the clouds movement as you walked back and forth. (She will be having a show at Made With Love this Fall)… The Mary Benson Gallery where John Crittenden had one of his images (another of his is in the Exquisite Corpse show). We also visited to the OJO Gallery with work by Marco Beria.

After the galleries and catching a bite at Skinner’s Loft we were off to the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Journal Square for the silent film classic, The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks… which was accompanied by the fabulous Chris Elliot playing the Bob Balfour Memorial Wonder Morton Theatre Pipe Organ! Just outstanding!

On Sunday, I visited The Distillery, a gallery in Jersey City Heights which had an exhibition with various artists called, “Race.” This space is so nice and the work really great, I highly recommend a stop in.

Afterward it was time to switch gears a bit and head down to Hoboken for the Fall Arts & Music Street Festival on Washington St. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and cool and perfect for browsing at the craft vendors and listen to some music… Some of the vendors were the same as are there at most of the festivals but there were some new ones… Liberty Animal Rescue getting the word out about their upcoming events for support in their cause… Bike Hoboken — I signed the mailing list. I’m also a member of Bike JC. One craft vendor caught my eye with her originally crafted and interesting jewelry, Pam Meyer and Alchemy. I bought the most interesting industrial looking yet feminine flower ring…

Anyway, it was an exhausting weekend, culturally packed, so visit my gallery and have a look.

My Midwest Family Visits and Their Impression of Jersey City Heights vs Hoboken

Posted on August 17, 2010 by itees

This past week my family visited with me here in Jersey City Heights. The last time they came to this area I was living in Hoboken on Bloomfield Street.

It was so interesting to see their reaction to this urban area since they live in the foothills outside Boulder, Colorado. They cannot see their closest neighbor, but here on Central Avenue we have the typical city noise, people yelling, traffic, police sirens, taxis honking and more. Since I have a balcony they would sit out there and watch the city come to life, morning and night. They did love my space, very roomy and much bigger and more spacious than anything I’d had or could have in Hoboken. I have a small view of lower Manhattan and when we went to the roof we shot photos of the marvelous view.

It has been years since I lived down in Hoboken and my brother had fond memories of that location. He only wanted to visit Benny Tudino’s (no website? must call them) and show his youngest son the biggest slice of pizza in the world. We hit their restaurant twice! (They make a great salad too!) He also likes to run in the mornings, and last time came back so excited because he had run right past Joe Pantoliano. This time it was his son’s slight fascination with Buddy Valastro of Carlo’s Bakery and the Cakeboss TV show. Luckily he didn’t feel like standing on the line that stretches down two blocks now. Since he eats a lot of sweets he was thrilled when I showed him Goehrig’s Bakery up here. During the week he sampled almost everything Joseph Gigante makes! They also hit Rita’s for ice cream quite a few times.

It was so much fun being their tour guide around NYC. We visited the World Trade Center, Battery Park City (my favorite garden over there) and went to the top of the Empire State. We took the Yankee Clipper to see the Yankees battle the Red Sox. Yanks lost and it was brutally hot, not to mention that disaster clipper ride to the stadium which I wrote about previously. We went to the Jersey Shore, Sandy Hook and Point Pleasant.

My brother commented on the strong differences between Hoboken and JC Heights. Completely different types of people, stores, activity. It was obvious to him seeing the young professionals out to dinner and drinking every night of the week in Hoboken whereas up here some stores close and there’s no outdoor restaurants or any of the more upscale shops.

I completely understand and for a long time I thought that the Heights would change the way Hoboken did many years ago, but it just hasn’t happened. I think the Heights is stuck. With the economy suffering, businesses are closing and nothing opens in it’s place. There are stores that have been vacant since I’ve lived here. What can we do to make Central Avenue more attractive, safer and a better place to live?

They left on Sunday but couldn’t help sitting outside on the balcony one more time. It was quite early and there was no activity but I promised to keep them posted on the latest happenings.