BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
Gowanus artists were
among the thousands of New
Yorkers spending their days
dealing with the destruction
of Hurricane Ida after
the storm dumped historic
amounts of rain on the city
earlier this month.
Dozens of working artists
work out of studios at Arts
Gowanus and the Brooklyn
Art Cluster, both housed in
the basement at 540 President
Street, blocks away from
the Gowanus Canal. The
building fl ooded badly on the
night of the storm, taking on
as much of eight inches of water
that ruined fi nished artwork,
works-in-progress and
raw materials alike.
Jo-Ann Acey has rented
a small studio at the Brooklyn
Art Cluster for about six
years. A lifelong painter,
Acey woke up to an email the
morning after the storm letting
her know the building
had fl ooded, and asking artists
not to come in until it
was safe to do so. When she
fi nally made her way to Gowanus
that afternoon, she was
hopeful, she said. The streets
had dried, and it seemed like
the damage might not be so
bad.
“As soon as I went into
the hallway and I saw the
puddles that were still there,
I was like, ‘ugh,’” she said.
“And then as I went down the
hallway to my studio and I
just followed the water, I was
like, ‘Oh, this is going to be
bad.’ Initially, I cried, I hate
to admit. I sobbed.”
The entirety of her most
recent solo exhibition, “Urban
Stories: A Changing
Landscape” was framed
and stored in her studio. All
eleven pieces were ruined,
she said. So were around 70
other fi nished and framed
works.
On the low end, she estimates
that she lost $100,000
in fi nished artwork.
In time, she said, she said,
she’ll probably sift through
her damaged pieces and see
what can be salvaged. She’s
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been able to pull some of her
pieces mostly intact from
their frames, and they’ll
probably be able to be sold in
the future.
But for now, the revenue
she would generate from selling
her artwork both online
and in gallery shows is in
jeopardy.
“The open studios are
next month,” Acey said. “A
lot of that work would have
been hanging in my studio
for people to purchase. You
just never know when someone
is going to reach out to
you and say, ‘We need six
pieces for this show, are you
available?’”
Some of the work lost in
Acey’s studio was decades
old, she said, bits and pieces
of old series she’s accumulated
since she started painting
in graduate school.
“It’s a lifetime of work, in
a way,” she said.
Gowanus artists are getting
ready for two big fundraisers
— ArtWorks on Sept.
17, and Gowanus Open Studios
Jo-Ann Acey stands in her studio at the Brooklyn Art Cluster before Hurricane
Ida. Courtesy of Jo-Ann Acey
next month.
“Even if it’s not the intention
to buy from artists, it’s
the support of being present,”
Bierly said. “Showing up for
the artists in the sense that
the community is here.”
“Just being present and
seeing the work is just as important
as the monetary,” she
said. “But I would really plug
the monetary.”
Donations to Arts Gowanus,
and information about upcoming
events can be found on their
website www.artsgowanus.org.
‘I cried. I sobbed.’
Gowanus artists grapple with aftermath of fl ooding
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