Flickinger Glassworks Newsletter |
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Our brief monthly newsletter about Red Hook, Brooklyn...
and other people, places & things we think you should know about.
Welcome to the December edition.
This edition we highlight two indomitable women who bend over backwards for their communities. We invite you to view a significant public arts project that Flickinger Glassworks is helping restore. Lastly, check out this pre-release music video by Josh Matthews of Blue Man Group. Happy holidays!
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Tiffiney Davis (left), Executive Director of RHAP
Photo Credit: redhookartproject.org
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Tiffiney Davis knows the power of a helping hand. A single mom at fourteen, she cycled through the shelter system until she was old enough to manage on her own. So when the chance came for her to champion others, she’s been giving it both her hands and more.
As executive director and co-founder of Red Hook Art Project, Davis oversees an after-school program in Red Hook that provides free homework help, art instruction and a safe space for kids who might otherwise have no place to go. She’s earned a rep for running a tight ship. Which just makes the kids love her more. They know she’s got their backs and well-being in mind. “Art is a human right,” says Davis, who describes RHAP’s mission in this video far better than we ever could.
During the height of the Covid pandemic, when RHAP’s storefront space had to close, Davis organized food donations from local restaurants for people in need. She even arranged for two community refrigerators to be erected outside local Red Hook businesses for hungry people to access any time of day. At times she fishes money from her own pocket to fill them.
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Tiffiney Davis shares the purpose behind Red Hook Art Project. |
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Pedestrians stop to take a peek into Private Passage
Photo Credit: Malcolm Cochran
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Malcolm Cochran and Charles Flickinger inside Private Passage (left); Malcolm Cochran (right)
Photo Credit: Max Guliani for Hudson River Park
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This huge art installation normally looks like it washed onto the shoreline of Clinton Cove Park (Hudson River & 56th Street). For years the 30-foot steel wine bottle, titled Private Passage, beckoned visitors into its 8-foot tall space, designed to simulate a cabin in the RMS Queen Mary. Stepping inside the giant bottle and exploring its stainless steel chair, bed, stove, sink and toilet, it was easy to imagine oneself bobbing across ocean waves.
“It’s like the passage of life,” says artist Malcolm Cochran, who created it. “You could just float away.”
These days, however, after 16 years of harsh weather and light vandalism, the installation sits in a VA boatyard getting a complete overhaul. That includes replacing the fifteen bent glass portal windows that line the top and sides, a task that Flickinger Glassworks is handling. “It’s extraordinary,” says Charles Flickinger. “It’s so much fun to be part of restoring such an important piece of public art.”
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Manager Joe Bailey with damaged bent glass portals to be replaced by Flickinger Glassworks |
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It’s also a highly personal one. When visiting it the day before it temporarily departed the park, Cochran shared with Flickinger his story of crossing the ocean at age 6 with his family in a Dutch liner. The ship eventually sailed past the Statue of Liberty, up the Hudson and docked not far from where Private Passage will once again (in spring, ’22) rouse people’s imaginations. |
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Don't Trash Talk, Take Action |
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The NYC CLEAN Volunteer team |
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According to an international poll conducted by Time Out this year, only Rome and Bangkok are dirtier metropolises than New York City. And that was before all the alarming reports of a burgeoning rat population here. There is, however, at least one New Yorker who is not going to stand for it.
Sokie Lee and her partner Ken Gray recently organized the Facebook group NYC CLEAN Volunteers Eastside to help keep their patch of the city (from the East Village to Kips Bay) tidy. The ad hoc group gathers for an hour or so on the weekends with gloves, orange safety vests, paper bags and tongs to pick up trash. Afterwards they might go to a museum or cafe or whatnot. “Join us for good clean fun and maybe adventure,” says Lee, who works professionally as a graphic designer and movement motivator, and is a veritable agent of cheer.
Or maybe you’d prefer to sic your tongs on your own garbage-strewn hood. Lee will help you organize a neighborhood chapter. Meanwhile, visit her Events page to find out which sullied parks and pavements are scheduled for an upcoming treatment. And maybe, just maybe, Sokie and her team can jack NYC into fourth dirtiest place.
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Sokie Lee, co-founder of NYC CLEAN Volunteer, shares how easy it is to join. |
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"Cliff Against the Waves" Music Video |
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As a special treat, we invite you to watch this pre-release by Josh Matthews (aka Young Joshua), music director/performer for Blue Man Group and a former Flickinger Glassworks employee. (Remember his bent glass drums we reported on?) Info on Young Joshua album release coming soon!
The only other thing we’re going to say about this video is: it was directed by 16-year-old Majka Keily-Miller. After viewing her precocious talent, we thought we’d just turn in our glass bending tools and call it a day.
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