Turning Neon into Art: Patrick Nash Returns after 20 Year Hiatus (Garment District, Manhattan)

My friend Patrick Nash, who has kept his talent for creating fine art like the proverbial lamp under the bushel for two decades, surfaced on the New York art scene in the last few weeks with a show at SL Gallery.

Tonight he gave a Q&A about his work and career, painting a picture of the East Village as it used to be, full of abandoned and semi-abandoned buildings and full of people who saw in the devastated urban landscape an invitation to create. Eventually, however, he invested his time in something more remunerative than pure art to start Patrick Nash Design, which has done all kinds of amazing installations for big and small businesses and well-known artists. It was only when Bill Schwinghammer invited Patrick to install a show in his gallery that Patrick's love of art for art's sake (and neon for neon's sake) was rekindled. Or maybe the love was always there but the bandwidth wasn't. 

In any event, as he related during the Q&A, his 20 years of creating signs and installations for others combined with his always active imagination, led him to create one amazing piece after another, like the work in the photo above, a delicate argon-infused circle around a block of cement suspended like a thought bubble over our heads.

How Much is that Performance Art in the Window? (Garment District, Manhattan)

Grazia Capri takes the stage in the storefront art gallery known as ChaShaMa on 37th Street in the Garment District. About five us stood in the rain to watch her performance through the window. She retained sharp focus, staring toward us but through us, as she moved through the precise steps of a solo performance she calls "Corpi in Vertigine#2".

For Short Time Only: A New View (Garment District, Manhattan)

The streets in Manhattan are often compared to canyons, with buildings substituting for mountains. But buildings are not mountains. For one thing, new ones come and go every 50 to 100 years. And when a building is razed, a new vista opens up. Light pours in. Life can be viewed from new angles.

Take, for example, 38th Street between 9th and 8th avenues. In one of those once-in-several-decades moments, a new view has been born, allowing strollers on 38th a little more breathing room, a little more sky and light, and a new perspective on 39th street, a block away.

Window in Progress (Garment District, Manhattan)

Green (Garment District, Manhattan)

The leaves, especially in New York City where a layer of soot blankets everything, are always the greenest when they first appear.