Sunday, April 28, 2013

Elsewhere Artist Collective

I would like to start this post first by retracting a statement from an earlier post:  Da Reggae Cafe is still in business on W. Lee St.  Since moving out of that neighborhood, I was not driving around there much anymore and was just grossly mistaken.  My sentiments from my previous entry remain, but now I can rejoice and eat Jamaican food!

Now on to it.

Some friends came into town last weekend and wanted to explore downtown Greensboro a little bit.  After perusing the antique shops and the vintage shops and the antique vintage shops, we made our way down to Elsewhere Artist Collaborative.
Myself, I am an art historian and a painter, while the two friends I was with are both photographers.  We imagined that we three would be a very apt, receptive audience for Elsewhere.
Well.
Walking in, we were greeted by a cheery face who was more than happy to give us a general description of where we were and what we could do.  Taken from Elsewhere's website: "Elsewhere is an ongoing creative happening that interweaves intention and chance, artists and artwork, museum and studio, everyday things and extraordinary life."  Cool idea, very fluffy words.  Basically its this enormous space full of things and installations and materials for you to interact with.  Nothing is for sale, nothing leaves the space; its a hoarder's paradise and an OCD person's nightmare.

Gathering some history about the space, it was originally a surplus furniture store in the 1930's, then to army surplus, then to a thrift store by the 1970's.  Between the 70's and the late 1990's (when the original owner died), the space became the owner's haven for hoarded objects of all varieties.  

In 2003, George Scheer, the owner's grandson, and a crew of his writer friends stepped in to appreciate the scale of what was left in this large space.  Instead of peering upon mountains of musty junk, they saw a sea of artifacts and ideas.  Soon thereafter, the collaborative became a non-profit organization and by 2005 they had established an artist residency program and had a clear cut mission for the space: put plainly; no rules, just imagination.

After giving my $1 donation and walking into the space a little ways, I was a little disappointed.  I felt like this really was just an old thrift store, like some people just sorted out all these old musty toys for you to touch and play with.  We found old Rubix cubes, we played with tons of dated McDonald's happy meal toys, we made a tiny car show out of die-cast cars.  Honestly, I was bored.  I wasn't interested in the retro-buzz from seeing Krang dolls and 6 Million Dollar Man action figures.


Then I stepped further in and started discovering how people had used these slightly sorted objects to create installations and curiosities; I was inspired.  I certainly appreciated the front area a lot more.  It was an homage to what the space once was, and a fairly tame lead into how the space is evolving.


I came upon the Cabinet of Curiosities; a fanciful hat-tip to the freak shows of old.  I stood and watched a young girl behind a sign that said "Excuse the mess, curating in progress".  I watched her for quite some time.  She was in this area that was predominantly pink, fleshy doll parts and Precious Moments figurines.  I was entranced watching her thought processes; she picked up piece by piece, object by object and pensively imagined all the possibilities that she could create on one dusty shelf.


There was an antique kitchen that I would pay Elsewhere by the hour to use.  Outside there was an alleyway garden that was somehow both kempt and unkempt. 


Upon moving into the other section of the building, I just wanted to touch everything.  There was a tornado of plush toys.  There was a station with sewing tools, screen printing equipment, there was a mini dark room and a library.  On top of that was a cushioned loft that overlooked the whole place and Elm Street.  Past visitors and artists and pinned their wishes and aspirations to the ceiling.


I found filing cabinets full of any sort of crafting supply you could imagine; all media available to do with whatever you wanted.  So I glued eyes on everything that appeared to vaguely have a face.


By far my favorite portion of the collection was a hallway fashioned from bookcases.  It resembled a bowling lane.  At the far end were disassembled musical instruments affixed all over the wall and bookcases.  At the entrance to the lane was a basket full of small bouncy balls and a sign encouraging me to "make music".  I spent a forgotten amount of time perfecting how to bounce the balls to fly off the high hat to skate across the piano wires and onto the snare drum.


Elsewhere Artist Collaborative has big potential to bring out parts of people that they didn't really know were in them.  My friends and I were visiting on a warm, sunny, Saturday afternoon and, being a store front on the busiest street in downtown Greensboro, there was a lot of off-the-street visitors milling about and watching those people interact with the space was interesting to watch and gave me some ideas.

While you are encouraged to interact with the collection ("living museum"), I feel like people's fear of judgment of others keep them from letting loose and getting their hands dirty.  I heard lots of, "Well, that is just weird," or "What the hell?" from visitors.  To have people just come in and out of a place like Elsewhere and not be shown that it is okay to actually create is a serious waste of patronage.

Yes, the girl at the door tells you to interact and create.  For people that aren't inherently artistic or creative, that doesn't really mean a whole lot.  Late into my visit, there was a tour being given to about 10 people and they were having a complete blast.  While giving a tour to every visitor is unreasonable, having staff or volunteers that are willing to talk to patrons in the space would be so helpful to the everyday lookie-loo.  The shy walk-in patron needs to be engaged and accepted into the space to which they more than likely feel very foreign.

tl;dr - have social volunteers show patrons instead of tell.

As a person who has little to no idea to how the place is run and whose only experience is as a one-time visitor, this idea seems totally plausible and I would actually love to do this.  I know that the collaborative offers classes, holds seminars, etc; my idea is for the times when those are not happening.  There were at least 15 staff people present on the main floor while I was there.  I saw a total of 3 speak to patrons: one girl at the front desk area (there were about 8 of them in total) and the two people giving the tour.

Not all artists are brooding and misunderstood.  Talk to us.  It is a community and, from what I understand, many of them live there.  Repeat patronage and word of mouth are a great way to get people in the door and my suggestion would offer both, I believe.
Had I been someone else, say someone who hasn't been artistically trained or someone who hadn't heard anything about Elsewhere prior to walking in, I probably would not have enjoyed my experience as much as I did.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Elsewhere Artist Collaborative.  I intend on trying to frequent the establishment at the very least.  It is truly a place where you can lose yourself for hours and make wonderful things.


Check out their website here: http://www.goelsewhere.org/

Monday, March 11, 2013

Ask and you shall receive. Sometimes if you only asked in a blog post.

My plea for authentic cultural cuisine was met.

Literally the next day I was invited to Villa del Mar with two of my favorite people.
They were lauding chicken gorditas and mega-boozy margaritas at reasonable prices.  I was sold already.

Villa del Mar is a Mexican restaurant next to the Rent-N-Roll on High Point Rd in Greensboro, NC.  If you are not familiar with Rent-N-Roll, its a place for those who can't afford to buy unnecessary over-sized rims for their Toyota Camry so they RENT THEM.  YOU CAN RENT RIMS FOR YOUR CAR.  hah.
Anyway, I just wanted to offer a scene.
Outside there was a bench where a vagrant was giving us the evil eye and drooling at us at the same time.  I knew I was in for something good.

The place was packed; mostly Mexican families, a few African-american families, and us: three squirrelly looking tattooed freaks looking for some margaritas.

No one spoke English.  I was so excited.
There were bells at every table with a sticky note saying "Llame para servicio".  There was vaquero memorabilia, paper-mache parrots and silk flowers everywhere.  There was a sign above the register with a gun on it that said "We Don't Call 911".

When we were finally seated, I got to peruse the menu.

They had some staples of American Mexican restaurants: the monster burritos, the nachos with seasoned beef and shredded cheese.  Then you flip to the back of the menu.

You could chose your style of meal (gordita, sope, taco, etc.) then chose your meat.  It took me twenty minutes to chose my meats.  They offer carne asada with pineapple, slow-roasted goat, beef head, beef tongue, tripas (!!!!), chicken a thousand different ways and pork.  I know I am missing some options.  I nearly started crying when I say my options.  This is exactly what I wanted.  This is exactly what people should want when wanting an authentic Mexican food experience.  They let you pick and chose the things you want to try without committing to something that you may not entirely like.  If I had had the money, I would've tried it all.

After giving you your meal, they bring a tin bucket with three different hot sauces.  Three bottles that were red, yellow and green.  I assumed, since nothing was labelled, that green was mild, yellow would be sort of a medium and red would be a little too much.  Yellow, my choice, was a habanero sauce that made me cry.  Future reference: red is where its at.

And their prices were impossibly reasonable.
I had a margarita, 1 goat sope and 1 carne asada sope for 9 dollars total.  And I was stuffed.

Villa del Mar is a gem; a diamond in the smell rough of Greensboro.  It feels like a very well-kept secret.
I was met with something truly authentic in my little southern town and I was not disappointed.
I would recommend this restaurant to anyone who likes Mexican food, doesn't mind lax service and is willing to try new things.
Also, to people who don't mind a vagrant begging for scraps inside the restaurant while you are still eating.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Poor Man's Dinner Tip #1

In this bustling world of too much good food and no money in my wallet, I have come up with some at home, easy tips to make me feel a little less hopelessly poor.  Hopefully you can use these tips to ease the economic blow to you take-out chinese in-take.

Tonight, en lieu of actually going to find Caribbean food, I made myself dinner.

I sliced two yellow onions (@ $2.43/bag of 8) and browned them in olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Cavender's Greek seasoning blend (all shit I had lying around) and threw the mess into some leftover spaghetti sauce that my roommate/boyfriend/bestfriend/chef extraordinaire made last night.

BOOM.

Onions = flavorful and interesting pasta substitute.

And damn, its good.

Intros and No Caribbean Food in My Mouth Right Now

I have lived in Greensboro, NC, for around five years.

I spent the first fifteen years of my life in the culturally rich, ultimately ridiculous, sun-baked Broward County, FL.  From a very latch-key upbringing in a very lower middle-class neighborhood a mile from the Atlantic, I was exposed to things that people in my current area just can't appreciate.  I grew up surrounded by reggae, Haitian and Cuban cuisine, voodoo and neighborhood cat abductions, Latin invasion, and Caribbean influence; I also grew up going to goth and heavy metal clubs.  My first two CD's I owned in fourth grade were the Prodigy's "Fat of the Land" and the Miami Sound Machine's "Cuts Both Ways".  

When riding the public bus to the surf shop when I was 10, a crackhead drooled on me and asked if I had a cigarette. 
Mine and my brother's favorite pastry is Brazilian and is stuffed with meat.  I can't spell it, but it sounds something like this: Gojeena.  I think there is an 'X' in there somewhere.  

I first ate alligator and frog on a school trip to an Indian Reservation in the Everglades when I was in Elementary school.  We spent the day literally wading through the world's largest swamp up to our belly buttons because we were told 'that's how they used to do it' by a white native who called himself Chakateekee.

Very long story cut short (tl;dr): I was lucky to have a very culturally diverse and eye-opening childhood.

Greensboro is trying to do something.  The city doesn't have a clear enough direction.  A place like this thrives on artisan pizza places and craft beers.  Any authentic cultural restaurant I have experienced cannot stand on its own without having to Americanize its menu to death or just flat out going out of business.  Aside from places like India Palace on Tate St. who play the same Indian awards show on their TVs every time I go in there.  They are an institution at this point.

I was genuinely excited the first time I went to Jibaro.  Jibaro, for those who don't remember, occupied that awkward space on Tate St across Walker Ave from the dynasty that is NY Pizza. Jibaro was an authentic Caribbean establishment that didn't serve their sandwiches with bread.  They created godlike pork and chicken sandwiches with giant, salty plantain bread-substitutes.  This was five years ago, so I can't get into exact sandwich details, but I left with memories of childhood food truck meals.  I tried to go back a week later and it had gone out of business.

A few years later I moved to Glenwood.  The swift car door-lockings, condom wrappers on the sidewalks and shoes hanging from telephone wires reminded me of my neighborhood growing up.  And then I heard about Da Reggae Cafe.  Reasonably priced strip mall Jamaican and Caribbean food.  I was curious.  There was a sweepstakes two doors down in the strip mall.  They sold me everything I could have possibly wanted.  The first time I went I think I ate 3 Jamaican patties, once beef, one goat and one pork.  The second time I had curried goat with potatoes and plantains.  The third time I tried to go UNCG had bought the land and was in the process of knocking Da Reggae Cafe down, along with the sweepstakes next door.

Yeah.  I was upset.

From my experience, people in this area are afraid to try new things like Caribbean cuisine or real authentic things that haven't been overly Americanized.  The hopeful cultural ambassadors try to express their culinary differences and are instead pallbearers of restaurants past.

This was supposed to be a blog post about the actual culture I am experiencing living in Greensboro and eventually about visual art.  I am hungry so there was a long rant about how I want Caribbean food right now and I won't be able to find any, blah blah blah.