Derek and Ty of Floor One
Day 32, Wednesday, November 26, 2008- A few months ago, former Syracusans Ty Marshal and Derek Bryant opened Floor One, an artist live/work space and gallery in Beacon, NY (http://www.myspace.com/flooronegallery). The small Hudson river town is known as being home to DIA Beacon, a major art museum with installations by artists like Richard Serra and the like. It turns out Beacon has a hopping local art scene of its own.
Floor One is located on the first floor of a building on East Main Street. Walk inside past the storefront windows and find an open front room gallery space. Walk further back and find a small kitchen used to cater during events along with a blue bathroom and a large fishtank. It’s a homey space, but not one to be underestimated. If you’re lucky, you will get to wander downstairs and onto the back porch, which overlooks a waterfall. Great digs.
As I showed up, Ty and Derek were just finishing a rehearsal with their director for the upcoming play/performance art piece, “Narrator.” Ty explained his newest rose paintings, part of the Old Factory Series, as we found ourselves sampling one of the props for Narrator, a bottle of Sherry. “Smell the roses,” he told me, “…really.” So I did. The paint is mixed with rose essence so it smells like roses. Ty has more paintings planned for the series… perhaps chocolate or citrus? mmm… can’t wait to smell those….
smell the roses, paintings by Ty Marshal
Madeline and Ty Marshal's pink clouds trash can
Ty Marshal's pink clouds shoes
Orbs by Derek Bryant
Narrator postcard
drinking the props... sampling the sherry
After a delicious bowl (and I mean that) of homemade chicken soup, we went for a walk down Main Street to look at Beacon’s public art. Most obvious is the Electric Windows project. Artists were asked to paint pieces of vinyl which were then hung in front of the windows of a former electric blanket factory. Not so obvious is a street character hiding in the shadows of the building across the road. Main street is lined with little galleries and restaurants. We walked past at least half a dozen galleries in a few blocks before we stopped at a new wine bar called “Chill.” I had a local microbrew hard cider and we shared a cheese plate.
On the way back I stopped outside of their gallery to photograph the work of a Brooklyn artist Ellis G. As Ty explained, he was talking to him on the internet about his work. One day he heard a knock at the door and opened it to find a man standing there who said, “Hi, I’m Ellis,” and proceeded to do some improv chalk art on the gallery’s outside wall. How fun!
Electric Windows Project
street art in Beacon
street art by Ellis G outside of Floor One
All in all it was a great visit. I highly recommend a visit to Beacon on the Second Saturday of the month to visit Ty and Derek at Floor One, participate in the town’s gallery hop and visit DIA Beacon. (By the way, Ty works there so he can give you some pointers on what to see.) If you can check out their upcoming play, it starts on December 2nd and runs through December 14th at the Paradise Factory Theater. Get tickets at www.theatermania.com
