Artists decorate Domino Park
with portraits of essential workers
BY JESSICA PARKS
As Brooklyn continues to
grapple with the outbreak of
novel coronavirus, a cohort of
local artists is fi lling the walls
of a Williamsburg park with
painted portraits of the borough’s
essential workers.
“There are postal workers,
there are nurses and doctors,”
said Joe Matunis, teaching
artist of Los Muralistas de El
Puente, a neighborhood art collective
founded in 1990. “But,
we are also going to be seeing
grocery workers and musicians.”
Matunis said he was in
search of a way to fi ll his time
during the days of quarantine
after Los Muralistas had three
upcoming projects canceled
due to the ongoing pandemic.
“Because of the shutdown,
three projects that were coming
up had been taken off the
table,” he said. “I wanted to do
something so that I didn’t feel
helpless, or that things were going
on and I couldn’t contribute
24 COURIER LIFE, MAY 8-14, 2020
anything.”
He initially reached out to
Domino Park’s operator Two
Trees Management, about
painting a mural, but the group
elected Los Muralistas hang
portratits onto panels so that
the art could remain intact after
the project.
“We came up with the idea
to do them on these 24-inch
square boards,” Matinus said,
adding that the portability of
the panels has allowed him to
open the project up to a wider
FACES OF NEIGHBORS: Local artists will showcase 60 portraits of essential workers at Domino Park over the
course of the next month. (Right) Sergeant Pedro Bobe poses with his portrait. Photo by Rosalia Bobe
range of artists.
And while the portraits primarily
feature essential employees,
such as grocery store
staffers and delivery workers,
Matunis has also encouraged
artists to consider people who
have been essential to the fabric
of their communities during
the pandemic, such as someone
who has continued to take care
of a public garden.
“Essentially everyone is essential
is what we have kind of
opened it up to,” said the artist,
who has left it up to the project’s
10 team members to pick
who they will spotlight.
Each portrait is painted in
black and white and includes a
quote from the subject — something
Matunis said is reminiscent
of the murals that the art
collective creates regularly.
“We do a lot of oral histories,
so a lot of our murals have
had this same kind of concept,”
he said. “You do a portrait of
somebody and then put their
words with them.”
To provide park goers with
an ongoing experience, the full
collection of 60 portraits will
be hung about 10 at a time each
week, for the next few weeks.
“Rather than putting them
all up together when they are
done, why don’t we just unfold it
over the course of a month and
a half,” Matunis said. “That
way it gives people something
to look forward to every week.”
Los Muralistas are hung at
the South 4th Street entrance
to the park, near River Street.
BY BEN VERDE
A team of fi lm and television
set builders are using
their carpentry skills to build
life-saving equipment for
struggling hospitals.
Greenpoint set builder Bret
Lehne learned about the need
for intubation boxes — plexiglass
containers that keep doctors
safe during the most dangerous
moments of operation
— when a doctor friend contacted
him a week into the pandemic
asking if he knew anyone
who could make them. After reviewing
the schematics, Lehne
came to a realization.
“This, both in material and
in complexity, is an average
blueprint that I might get in a
workday,” he said to himself.
“I know an entire industry
that can build these.”
With set workshops empty
due to social distancing guidelines,
Lehne fi rst had to search
for a space that would allow
him and a team of volunteers
to work there for free, eventually
landing on the training
workshop of the IATSE Local
52 Studio Mechanics Union in
Queens.
He then had to assemble a
team, who — due to the inherent
danger of working with
any group of people during a
pandemic — had to meet a list
of requirements. Anyone who
wanted to join had to be under
40, have no pre-existing conditions
that would make them
vulnerable to COVID-19, and
either live alone or only with
a partner.
After putting together a
team of six union fi lm crew
members who had been sitting
idle due to the shutdown of the
fi lm industry, Lehne and his
cohort — made up of Lydia
Sudall, Margaret Gillespie,
Corey Lonas, James Link, and
Bobby Burgos — got to work.
With six people working at
once, the volunteers crank out
multiple boxes a day, using materials
purchased with money
from an online fundraiser.
Each box requires roughly
two hours of manpower, according
to Lehne. The dimensions
are cut out of plexiglass,
holes are drilled for doctors to
insert their arms when placing
ventilator tubes into patients,
the edges are sanded down,
and the pieces are joined by a
solvent that breaks down the
plastic on a molecular level.
The boxes sit for 48 hours to
fi rm before being transported
to hospitals in need.
So far, 46 boxes have been
delivered to hospitals including
hard-hit Elmhurst Hospital,
Brooklyn Hospital, and
hospitals in New Rochelle,
New Jersey and Philadelphia.
The volunteers receive logistics
and outreach help from
FEEL and ArtCubeNation, a
group of fi lm industry workers
who coordinate relief efforts,
and delivery is handled
by Teamsters drivers, leaving
Lehne and his team to focus
on manufacturing.
While New York’s curve appears
to be fl attening, Lehne
says he has seen no change in
demand, and hopes to keep assembling
the life-saving gadgets
for as long as there is a
need for them.
“I’m going to keep going until
one of two things happen —
we run out of money or we run
out of demand, and neither of
those things seem to be on the
horizon,” he said. “It just feels
really good to help.”
Wall of fame
Set builders construct life-saving
intubation boxes for local hospitals
BROOKLYN
Set to rights
HELPING HANDS: Volunteers from the set builders group make a donation
of intubation boxes to a hospital. Photo by Bret Lehne