Blog Posts - WICKHAM WORKS

Made Local Month!

12/5/2017

This year's Thanksgiving Made Local Holiday Market was a big success, thanks to the many talented vendors, and the crowds that turned out to support them by shopping locally.
To be part of the month-long Made Local initiative, you can join our growing list of Makers or Retailers by adding your name under the LoveLocal tab.

November 18th, 2017

11/18/2017

Meet and support our Community of Makers

Casa de los Muertos

10/29/2017

Casa de los Muertos ran for 4 nights in Warwick, New York. Wickham Works created the nightmare of La Llorona, the Weeping Woman who drowned her own children and hunts for her next victims. The graves reopened and revealed their secrets during the 2nd Annual #ShockFry.

Wickham Works Rocks Out at WVCC - July 15

6/30/2017

Local band, Two Bank Street perform at WVCC Doc Fry Sessions, Vol 19

Rock Camp Fundraiser
July 15th at 6pm

Dan Wixtrom from Doc Fry Sessions will be hosting a music and art night at the Warwick Valley Community Center. Check out local talent with displays and performances from Orange County artists and bands/musicians. Artists: Kayla Holterman, Moss Sherman, Stephany Alifano + more. Music by: Shannon Rogers, Sheldoncole, College Green + more.

During the night we will be collecting donations for the summer enrichment program. The funds we raise will go towards paying bands/artists to come perform for our students, buying materials so the students can all learn how to screen print their own merchandise, and towards purchasing additional physical needs.

We will also have a booth set up with information on the program & registration forms. So if you're interested come by and say hi!

((WVCC is a safe space. No drugs, no booze, & no bad attitudes. Suggested $5 donation at the door.))

Warwick Pride 2017 - ReCap

6/13/2017

Warwick hosts Orange County Pride Parade

Despite the ninety-plus weather, this year’s Pride Parade was a rainbow-hued celebration. The theme of the day was family, and it showed. LGBTQ youth and adults, friends and allies, came out to strut their stuff. “Warwick is an open, inclusive village, and the Pride Parade was the only one in the county and drew hundreds of people --- many of them young -- from an even wider area,” says Bill Steinhaeur, board president of the Warwick Valley Community Center who hosted the event.

The party began at noon at the Center with plates of rainbow-colored bagels. Going with the color scheme, marchers brought tie-dyed T-shirts to screen print with this year’s logo. Advocate groups were on hand to talk about their locally supportive organizations, including The Orange County Youth Bureau, who helped fund this year’s parade. Food donations came from Shoprite and Price Chopper in Warwick, and from local volunteers.

Melissa Shaw-Smith, who coordinated the event with the Community Center and Danielle Barbour from Safe Space America, says, “We invited folks to come and put their own touches on the parade design, led by a talented team from Wickham Works.”

Student volunteers from the Center’s Youth Advisory Board, Acting Out Playhouse, and the Library’s Teen Advisory Board helped decorate the floats. Marchers painted their faces, and made signs to carry. Karen Decher from the Warwick Arts Festival was on hand with her stunning hats and puppets to add another layer of creativity to the parade.

Grand Marshals Danielle Barbour and her family, rode in the gaily-colored Pride Mobile, and as part of the Village of Warwick’s Sesquicentennial celebrations, Mayor Michael Newhard led the crowd. Afterwards, he stressed the importance to the assembled crowd of providing Safe Spaces in our community for all.

“Diversity is a top priority at the center,” says Bill Steinhaeur, “and under Executive Director Karen Thomas’ guidance, the Pride Parade and LGBTQ initiatives have been a reflection of that for several years. Especially in today’s political climate, we’re proud to give the LGBTQ community a voice.”

The Center has recently launched a support group, Outloud that offers a forum for the adult LGBTQ community, their friends, and allies to explore common concerns and share triumphs through social and educational events. Outloud is facilitated by Bonnie Schonfeld, a long time member of the WVCC family and an advocate for civil justice: "Advocating for social change that embraces and applauds gender diversity and human rights can only serve to promote balance and well-being for our community and our planet!" Outloud meets the second Monday of the month at the WVCC from 7PM-8PM. A similar group for youth is starting soon. For more information call 845-986-6422 xt 4.

TreeCycle ReCap

5/20/2017

Bottlecap tree design by Linda Mensch

TreeCycle 2017 was funded in part by the Orange County Arts Council's 10th Anniversary Community Partnership grant.

Check out the TreeCycle 2017 recap by Lon Tytell of the Warwick Dispatch.

MEET OUR TREE ARTISTS FOR TREECYCLE 2017

4/25/2017

The Orange County artists helping to facilitate TreeCycle sculptures are:

Amy Lewis Sweetman is the creator and founder of AGRISCULPTURE : Farm Equipment - Lovingly Rethought. She is an architect, artist and welder who turns used agricultural equipment into sculpture. Amy is a five time lecturer on AGRISCULPTURE at Cornell University, and this will be her third year creating Children and Families Workshops with AGRISCULPTURE for Storm King Art Center. Amy has had recent AGRISCULPTURE fountain and trellis commissions from the Orange Regional Medical Center of Middletown, and she is Curator of Outdoor Sculpture at the Albert Wisner Public Library. Recently, Amy has created the "Do You Love What You Do? AGRISCULPTURE Community Lecture Series" and this once a month program will be hosted at The Green Onion of Chester starting in May!
http://www.agrisculpture.com/

Heidi Lanino Bilezikian is an artist and teacher working on paper, canvas and ceramics. She is drawn to collaborative projects with students and community, with the goal of inspiring creativity and love of the arts. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad and is represented in numerous private collections.
http://heidilanino.com/

Femi Ford is a Printmaker and Surface Pattern Designer living in the countryside of New York. She incorporates her original relief linocuts and drawings into designs for textiles, home interiors, stationary, and wall art. She is also on the advisory committee for Family Central, an all-volunteer non-profit parenting support network for parents and caregivers from birth through adolescence in Warwick, NY.
http://www.femiford.com/blog/

Linda Mensch is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and jewelry artist. She founded the Moving Company Modern Dance Center in Warwick, NY. Her performance company, Menschwerks, has performed throughout the New York City metropolitan area, Boston and the UK. Recently she received a grant from the Warwick Foundation for Excellence in Learning to choreograph a movement/art program with K through 5th grade students in the PIE program at Sanfordville Elementary School.
http://movcodance.wixsite.com/movingcompany
https://www.lindamenschjewelry.com/

Raheli Harper is a fiber artist and homesteader. She is inspired by the materials she works with and always aims to treat them with love, whether they are fresh of the sheep or worn out & forgotten. She posts her work on Instagram as raheliharper.

John F. Simon, Jr. is a visual artist and author of “Drawing Your Own Path” (Parallax Press, 2016) As one of the pioneers in the development of Software Art, his seminal work "Every Icon" was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial and his ‘art appliances’ can be found in the permanent collections of The ‪Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The ‪San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and ‪The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others. He and his family live in Sugar Loaf, NY.
http://www.drawingyourownpath.com/

Paul Ellis is a festival producer, theatre director, and playwright with numerous productions to his credit. He has developed community arts programs throughout the region. He teaches acting workshops, heads the Actors Workshop Ensemble, a professional acting company in Warwick, and is currently working on Confabulation, a community based performance scheduled for production in August of 2017.
http://www.airpirateradio.com/

This project is made possible with funds from the Orange County Arts Council’s Ten Year Anniversary Community Arts Grants program.

Crafts for Treecycle 2017

4/6/2017

Here are instructions for several fun and easy crafts to make at home using items from your recycling bin. When finished you can bring them into your classroom for collection no later than Friday April 28th. They will be included in the Tree Sculptures. Or better yet, bring them to the event on Saturday 29th or Sunday 30th and hang them on the trees yourself!

Pie Plate Ornament

The Plastic Bag Dragon will be making an appearance at Treecycle, but luckily, so will
The Green Man! Come and help defeat the dragon with your own Dragon's Breath. Dragon's Breath instructions.

Spring 2017 Update

3/9/2017

A lot of you have asked how the plans are coming along – how much closer we are to our stated mission: To enrich our community by providing a workspace and materials exchange where new and experienced makers can learn, collaborate, offer workshops, and spark new business opportunities.

While we are still striving to find a physical space to call our own – more on that later - you can find us collaborating with makers in many parts of the community.

We are delighted to have been awarded a Community Arts Grant from the Orange County Arts Council to support our 2nd Annual Treecycle on April 29th & 30th, a community-wide art project. We have seven artists and nine local groups who will facilitate the creation of this year’s trees from upcycled material. The trees will be displayed at multiple venues around town and will be included in the Warwick Summer Arts Festival parade and as part of Dusklit.

Our first Maker’s Market at Thanksgiving successfully provided a venue for local makers to not only sell their wares, but also connect with others to share resources and ideas. As a result of this a small market is now happening on the 2nd Sunday of each month at Janice Brigante Studio at 4 West Street in Warwick with a varying roster of vendors. The next Wickham Works Spring Maker’s Market will be held on April 29th and 30th at Wickham Woodlands Manor. And we continue to identify other market opportunities and provide information on them to local makers.

We’ve been playing to our strengths, supporting other grassroots organizations and building community partnerships, offering creative ideas, hands-on making, demonstrations, entertainment, and shared materials. In addition to the many local makers, here are a some of the organizations and groups that we are currently partnering with: the Warwick Valley Community Center, the Historical Society, the Albert Wisner Public Library, office of the Mayor and their Sesquicentennial committee, the Summer Arts Festival, Sanfordville Elementary PIE program and Green Team, student volunteers at the Warwick high school, the Board of Education Community Partnership Program, Sustainable Warwick, Family Central, the Green Onion, Milkweed, and the Orange County Arts Council.

The new season of Doc:Fry Music + Making Sessions has started at the Warwick Valley Community Center. We now have six band promoters booking shows for us with a combination of local and touring bands. We continue to encourage new makers to get involved with screen printing and button making during the shows, and designing and building sets for each month’s theme. We’re currently working on partnering with the WVCC to establish a year-round School of Rock aimed at middle and high school students.

Wickham Works is moving ahead with actively looking for space to rent in order to start implementing our business plan. This will include a shared workspace that acts as an incubator for small artisan businesses by providing a comprehensive network of support. This will be in the form of business skill workshops designed to foster growth and result in increased income, and shared tools, resources, and materials. In the near future we will be putting out a call for makers who wish to participate in this exciting opportunity.
As always, we welcome anyone who wishes to become actively involved. Please sign up for our mailing list, and send us a message!
Happy making!

Meet Your Maker - Thanksgiving 2016

10/26/2016

Wickham Works is a local non-profit organization committed to creating a Makerspace for the benefit of our community. To that end, we are hosting Meet Your Maker, a holiday gift market that highlights the talented makers in our midst and introduces them to the community.

The Meet Your Maker Holiday Market is the place to find a unique gift, a handcrafted item that will last a lifetime, or a chance to learn about a range of exciting, hands-on workshops offered in our area. In addition to our vendor booths and shop, there will be live maker demos, music, children’s craft activities, food and a raffle – something for all ages, so bring the family!

Meet Your Maker takes place at Wickham Woodlands Manor, 255 State School Rd, Warwick, NY 10990. The Market Opens on Friday, November 25, 4-7 with a welcome reception, and on Saturday 26, Sunday 27, 10-5.