Essex Street Art Center (6/14/1016)

Thursday, May 14, 2026

We continued towards Buffalo, with a planned visit to Draves Arboretum in Darien Center, NY. However, it was raining.

Lunch at My Saloon in Darien Center had plenty of
waffle fries with the Beef on Weck

The Royal sandwich had hamburger-size Italian sausage
patties and cappicola

In Buffalo we saw the Essex Street Art
Center that was founded by Larry Griffis, Jr
in 1969; ahead of its time, it provided studios
and living space for painters, sculptors,
musicians, photographers, filmmakers,
and also provided exhibition space

Simon Griffis was an art educator for whom
the student art studio was named; as the son
of Larry Griffis, Jr, Simon managed the
Ashford Hollow Foundation that operates
the Griffis Sculpture Park in East Otto, NY

Essex Street Art Center is located in a former ice
manufacturing plant

Station No 5 shows this was the fifth (and final)
ice house of the company (c 1910)

In 1907, Webster Ice and Citizens Ice
Companies merged to form the largest
ice distributor in the region 

Together with the photo below, you can
see the words "Manufactured Ice"

Although the Webster-Citizens Company had started by
cutting ice blocks from Lake Erie, Upper Cassadaga Lake,
and Lime Lake, by 1910 they dealt in manufactured ice
that was cheaper to produce and did not depend on weather

When household refrigerators became more common, the need for ice blocks declined.

Today the exhibition space is The Buffalo Institute for
Contemporary Art (2018), and the exhibit is
Emma Safir: Passionate Wretch, which includes
Among the Violets (2026), a tapestry assembled from
scraps from fifteen years of studio practice

The tapestry is edged with fabric yo-yos

The rest of Passionate Wretch is displayed on the surrounding walls, including "paintings, Gilded Lily's (sic), and Fairy Rings.

What the artist calls paintings are photos
printed on gauzy fabrics and layered over
sculptural forms: Veilchen Blau/Violet Blue
(2025) was one of the four paintings

Pinocchio Seedling Fashion (2025)

Two of the Gilded Lily's I-XIVVI that are photos
printed on aluminum, which she works using repoussé,
the drawing and hammering on the reverse side; 
the end result is a surface that catches light like
a mirror, but withholds reflections

Detail of the repoussé

Another Gilded Lily

A Gilded Lily with full repoussé

Gilded Lily detail

Fairy Ring is a string of glass beads with
pewter-cast grapes and rosehips

More Fairy Rings

Fairy Ring detail

Outside the Essex Street Art Center was a sculpture
like those we had seen at the Griffis Sculpture Park;
apparently sculptures are brought here for repair

Giant water drops on a garage door

The water drops are painted

This garage door has chicks

Statue (2021, by Gillie and Marc Schattner)
of Janet Mock, author and transgender rights
activist, is supposed to be on permanent
display at the Essex Street Art Center, but
did they mean to put her in the fenced
porte cochère of the former ice house?

These look like bird sculptures by Larry Griffis, Jr

After leaving the Essex Street Art Center,
we turned the corner onto Rhode Island Street
to see a sculpture titled Don't Drop a Dime on Me,
according to a man at the Essex Pub; it was
created in 2019 by welders Tyler Griffis
and Phil Cunningham from the Essex Street 
Art Center with pay phones collected by
"Big Mike" who used to service them

A garage on W Utica Street