ArtBridge, in partnership with Epic Records, is accepting submissions through April 1 for a new competition titled Between The Lines. Artists with an interest in music and musicians who make art are invited to submit visual art pieces, in a variety of mediums, exploring the theme of “Sound.” A curatorial panel will select 40 winners, whose works will be featured on a 400-foot-long, 10-foot-high wall at Epic’s Madison Avenue headquarters.
Founded by painter and graphic designer Rodney Durso, Chelsea-based non-profit ArtBridge brings the work of emerging artists to otherwise dull and dreary construction scaffolding, known as bridges, brightening up neighborhoods and giving underrepresented artists a chance to share their work with the public. Durso came up with the idea for the project in the summer of 2008, when London Terrace, the illustrious address where he also lives, was undergoing maintenance. “I thought to myself that something better or more useful or more beautiful could be made out of this,” he says. “Originally I wanted to put my own art up there, but that just seemed a little too self-serving.”
Bridging the Divide
The first-prize winner receives $1,000, but all selected works from Between The Lines will be professionally photographed with a high-definition camera and transferred to the sturdy, vinyl-like, waterproof material that encases the scaffolding. “If the piece can fit in the front door of my studio, then we can photograph it, and it can be enlarged and then put up on a scaffold,” Durso explains. “We’ve had collage, painting, photography, fabric. Someone is submitting a sculpture this time.”
After each show, the art works are made into vinyl tote bags—literally. “The material that the show is printed on…it’s waterproof, windproof, so when it comes down, we recycle it,” Durso explains. “We give it to another non-profit, Urban Samaritan. Their mission is to help under-employed and homeless women find work, and they actually do the sewing. They build these bags for us, and you can buy them on our website.”
While the current competition is slightly more under-the-radar than other ArtBridge events, Durso says the organization has plenty of plans for more high visibility future endeavors, including one in Brooklyn and another in Manhattan. At any given time, Durso points out, there are about a million linear feet of scaffolding up throughout the city. For him, that’s about a million feet of blank canvas.
