Works by Kathy Polenberg, above, and other local artists are showcased as part of the rejuvenated Red Bank Art Walk event on Friday.  

It looked for a while as if it might never regain its footing — but after sitting out the past couple of years, the Red Bank Art Walk makes its return this Friday, hot on the heels of the borough’s selection (by Smithsonian Magazine) as one of the top three Best Small Towns in the USA for culture and quality of life.

A three-hour, self-guided tour through the downtown Green and points west, the Art Walk is both rejuvenated and reconfigured in its 2012 incarnation, with a new cast of participants joined by several “non-traditional spaces” where Art Happens, from restaurants and retail stores to at least one transformed place of worship.

Going on between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, this first in a projected new series of events is being spearheaded by a relatively recent arrival to town — Gallery U and Boutique, the rather Unique and Unorthodox artspace that opened its doors at 80 Broad Street last year.

Jon Fried and Deena Shoshkes of  legendary NJ band The Cucumbers make a rare Red Bank appearance at Gallery U on May 11, during the Red Bank Art Walk.  

A companion to an existing Gallery U in Montclair, the Red Bank space is managed by Robert Langdon and operated by Livingston-based Universal Institute Medical Rehab Therapy Center, a facility specializing in the treatment of patients with brain and spinal cord injuries. UI established the two galleries as part of their vocational training program for adults with traumatic brain injuries, and quickly generated buzz that centered around the success of the program’s therapeutic aspects, as well as the high quality of the art featured in such well-received group shows as Awakenings — a recent exhibit that incorporated pieces created by the Institute’s disabled clients.

That show was curated by Ben Danzi of Rumson, and featured contributions from Eileen Kennedy of Red Bank, as well as Long Branch-based Kathy Polenberg — herself a former head injury patient, and a seemingly tireless creator of indoor/outdoor art, theatrical scenery, residential flourishes and other amazing stuff in evidence throughout the greater Green and beyond. The artist known as “Polekat” returns to Gallery U for Promenade, an event that boasts a live musical performance (and super-rare Red Bank appearance) by Deena Shoshkes and Jon Fried, co-founders of The Cucumbers — a reborn combo familiar to fans of the 1980s Hoboken scene, as well as listeners of the late and lamented WHTG-FM.

Also featured in Promenade are works by Alexandra Alger, Lisa Budd, Jill Caporlingua, Bill Cohen, Lauren Curtis, John Darvey, Karissa Harvey, Kathleen Heron, Jonathan Hernandez, Robert Langdon, Marci Shrewsbury Lopez, Adena Macri, Onix Mora, Marilyn Rose, Kristian Sacca, Randy Schaeffer, and Erik von Ploennes.

Elsewhere on the Art Walk, Bolivia-born “action painter” David Banegas offers live demonstrations of his specialty at his Banegas Fine Art Gallery (43 Broad Street), while Gallery 135 inside Monmouth Street’s Red Bank Community Church presents a first look at one of Red Bank’s best kept secrets: a newly rebranded exhibit space curated by associate pastor and contemporary artist Reverend Gerda Liebmann. Up at  McKay Imaging Gallery , an exhibit of “New and Unknown” works by Red Bank legend Evelyn Leavens is open for public perusal (see redbankgreen‘s feature on that ongoing installation, LEAVENS GETS LINEAR).

Also on the tour will be such long-established borough spaces as The Art Alliance of Monmouth County and Beacon Fine Arts Gallery on Monmouth Street, as well as Chetkin Gallery on Wharf Avenue. They’ll be joined for the Art Walk by such art-friendly restaurants as Front Street Trattoria, No Joe’s Cafe, Good Karma Cafe, and Jon Bon Jovi’s nonprofit JBJ Soul Kitchen. In fact, all participants in the Red Bank Art Walk are encouraged to contribute non-perishable food items to donation boxes set up at various venues on the Walk, with a collective donation being made to Foodbank of Monmouth & Ocean following the event.

Strolling art aficionados can pick up free street maps of Red Bank along the route, highlighting Art Walk locations, and, as an additional mark of distinction, each venue will also be displaying red balloons outside their doors.

This pencil-on-paper self portrait is among the “new and unknown” works by lifelong Red Banker Evelyn Leavens on display in a solo show that opens Friday evening at McKay Imaging Gallery.

During a 2010 visit to the Red Bank house that she’s lived in since before the Great Depression, Evelyn Leavens told redbankgreen: “I’m still painting; I’m always working… I wouldn’t give it up any more than I would move out of my home.”

That particular article (which can be read here in its entirety) advanced a solo show drawn from the remarkable artist’s 60-year career, a display that we viewed as not so much a retrospective, but “a chance for Leavens to pause for one moment — a moment in which the rest of us can struggle to catch up — before sprinting ahead to the next challenge.”

Sure enough, here in 2012 there’s still much that is new, even much that’s yet to be discovered, in the world of Evelyn Leavens. On Friday evening, April 27, McKay Imaging Gallery brings us up to speed on her recent endeavors, with the opening reception of an exhibit that the octogenarian artist has described as being her “last show” (although, as she told the Two River Times, she’s “never convinced about that”).

UNTITLED 4, a 16 x 20 watercolor on paper from the Evelyn Leavens show opening April 27. (Click to enlarge)

Entitled Linear Configurations: New and Unknown Works by Evelyn Leavens, the gallery installation assembles a collection of small watercolors that the painter, photographer and instructor created just within the past year — having put aside the larger oil paintings that she had done for decades in favor of a medium that “enabled me to strive for an ever-increasing looseness, fluidity and spontaneity, completely free of any preconceptions.”

“My first pencil marks, made when I was around two or three years old, were followed by pencil marks on absolutely everything, indiscriminately, from then on,” the artist states in her bio. “I still make these marks, still indiscriminately, on everything from canvas to paper.”

While Leavens has lived in the same Red Bank home since the age of five — on a street where, as she puts it, “fine memories remain” — the words “New and Unknown” make it clear that the artist resides very much in the present and future tenses, letting her passionately produced art take her where it will.

This Friday, her work will take her up the stairs at 12 Monmouth Street, to the second-story space maintained by photographers and curators Robert and Elisabeth McKay. Since presenting the first of their public installations in 2005, the McKays have spotlighted just as many painters and sculptors as they have shutterbugs, with talked-about shows centered around the works of multimedia maestro John Kochansky, Brookdale College professor Dan Schroll, spraypaint master Doug Z and many others.

“As some of you may have noticed, our last photography show was… well, a couple of years ago!” say the McKays in their gallery statement for the new show. “Frankly, we’ve been a bit distracted by the vast pool of local talent in other mediums, particularly painters.”

Bob and Liz also don’t mind sharing the fact that they were “floored” by the opportunity to host the first appearance of this new body of work by Leavens. Visiting the artist’s home studio frequently and watching the exhibit take shape over a few short months was “a lovely experience [with] an intense result,” they write.

Leavens, a self-taught artist who’s tutored generations of young creatives in Monmouth County (and who pooh-poohs the notion that she’s a “living legend”), simply states that “I go on producing work that pleases and inspires me and will continue to do so, here in my studio, for as long as time permits.”

The free opening reception at McKay Imaging’s walk-up gallery space — always an amazing place for a little wine, conversation and great views indoors and out — runs from 7 to 10 pm on April 27, with the exhibit continuing through May 17, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 7 pm or by appointment.

The magazine’s ranking is based on cultural offerings in towns of 25,000 or fewer residents.  (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Smithsonian Magazine calls Red Bank the third-best small town in America in its May issue.

On a list of 20 small towns towns rich in culture, the town came in behind only Great Barrington, Massachusetts and Taos, New Mexico, the magazine reported.

That gives Red Bank bragging rights over places like Princeton (number 12) and Key West, Florida (16) –not to mention the thousands that didn’t make the list.

Here’s the magazine’s entry on Red Bank, by reporter Susan Spano:

William Count Basie grew up and got his musical chops on Mechanic Street in Red Bank. In the early 1920s he moved to Harlem and the rest is jazz history, to the tune of the “One O’Clock Jump.” His hometown on the south bank of the Navesink River about 25 miles south of Manhattan went through some lean, mean times after that, but has since made an astonishing cultural and economic comeback, linchpinned by the refurbishment of the 1926 Carlton Theater, now the Count Basie performing arts center, a venue for ballet to rock to Willie Nelson. Cafés, galleries, clubs and shops followed, along with farmers markets and street fairs, attracting people from well-heeled Monmouth County and the Jersey Shore. Town folk (pop. 12,200) went to work on neglected old homes with good bones, the landmark Victorian train depot was restored and the silver was polished at the Molly Pitcher Inn, named for a Revolutionary War heroine who is said to have brought water to thirsty soldiers serving under George Washington during the Battle of Monmouth County. The Navesink got a spiffy waterfront park, the setting for jazz concerts in the summer and iceboating when the river freezes; string quartets and youth choruses perform at the Monmouth Conservatory of Music, while the Two River Theater Company stages new plays and musicals. It all adds up to a model for small-town renewal.

And here’s its explainer on the methodology:

To help create our list, we asked the geographic information systems company Esri to search its data bases for high concentrations of museums, historic sites, botanic gardens, resident orchestras, art galleries and other cultural assets common to big cities. But we focused on towns with populations less than 25,000, so travelers could experience what might be called enlightened good times in an unhurried, charming setting. We also tried to select towns ranging across the lower 48.

Nancy Adams, who heads up the downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, tells redbankgreen she was “pleased, but not surprised” to find the town rated so highly, in part because the magazine had previously singled out Red Bank seven or eight years ago, “so I knew we were on their radar.”

And because she doesn’t live in town, the Maplewood resident said she is frequently exposed to the outsider’s view of Red Bank “as a great place to have dinner or see a show or just hang out. But when you’re here all the time, you may not get that.”

Adams said she expects to begin working the designation into marketing materials for the special improvement district she oversees.

Dan Mancuso, a 22-year borough resident and real estate broker who serves on the planning board, said he’s not surprised by the ranking, given the town’s shopping, dining and entertainment offerings. “I easily see myself being a Red Bank resident for the rest of my life,” he said.

Here’s the full list:

1. Great Barrington, Massachusetts

2. Taos, New Mexico

3. RED BANK

4. Mill Valley, California

5. Gig Harbor, Washington

6. Durango, Colorado

7. Butler, Pennsylvania

8. Marfa, Texas

9. Naples, Florida

10. Staunton, West Virginia

11. Brattleboro, Vermont

12. Princeton, New Jersey

13. Brunswick, Maine

14. Siloam Springs, Arkansas

15. Menomonie, Wisconsin

16. Key West, Florida

17. Laguna Beach, California

18. Ashland, Oregon

19. Beckley City, West Virginia

20. Oxford, Mississippi

The $20,000 raised will help cover the cost of a daylong celebration on Saturday, June 16 that will feature a parade, a community picnic and a fireworks show at Fair Haven Fields. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)

A slideshow capturing the creation of the above 24-foot-long painting, titled “Low Places,” is here. (Click to enlarge)

Jennifer Lukowiak demonstrates the potter’s craft during last year’s Artists Weekend at Sickles Market, to which she and 19 other creators return this weekend.

Art happens, as it’s wont to do, often in the most unlikely of places — and any number of art aficionados can tell you that it doesn’t require a formal gallery setting to showcase some pretty awesome stuff. If you’re “art and about” the greater Green this weekend, you’re just as likely to encounter this awesomeness at a gourmet market and garden center — or, in Friday evening’s instance, at two of Red Bank’s most dynamic hair salons.

Last we looked in on Glen Goldbaum, the superstar Manhattan stylist turned catalyst for a creative new vision on Red Bank’s West Side was hosting an event branded as Bewitched, a “magical evening of fantasy, hair, art and more” that transformed his two neighboring Bridge Avenue salons (Glen Goldbaum 72 and Lambs & Wolves Den of Beauty) into an environment populated by winged fantasy characters, live mannequins and guest conceptualizers from Asbury Park’s Cookman Avenue “Arts Bloc.”

Artist Holly Suzanne Rader displays her unique miniature paper dresses at Glen Goldbaum’s two Bridge Avenue salons Friday night. (Photo by Suzy Graham)

On February 10, Saturday, February 11, the “Left Bank” block opposite the NJ Transit station stop will be the scene for GLAMit, a solo art installation (keyed to New York Fashion Week 2012) that celebrates “old Hollywood glam with a modern feminine edge” through the paintings and three-dimensional work of Holly Suzanne Rader. The Tennessee-bred artist will be on hand for a reception that spotlights her unique miniature paper dresses (composed of paper mache, vintage book pages, clip art and assorted items) as well as her Glamour Girls paintings — a series of homages to “retro bombshells, lusty pin-ups and the timeless Hollywood divine” that are “candy coated” with the artist’s engagingly repurposed found objects.

The free, open-to-the-public reception runs from 7 to 10 pm at both Glen Goldbaum storefronts, with Rader’s art remaining on display through February and March — and those whose art appetites have been whetted can sample a stylistic smorgasbord on Saturday and Sunday.

In the words of  Sickles Market publicist Karen Irvine, the gourmet grocer and garden center is “practically a mini-community center,” given over as it is to such eagerly anticipated annual public events as the summertime Butterfly Day (in which some 100 Monarch and Painted Lady butterflies are released into the wild). This Saturday and Sunday, it’s the artists’ turn to be set loose at the Little Silver landmark.

Going on between the hours of 11:30 am and 3 pm both days, Artists Weekend brings together 20 Monmouth County painters, sculptors, photographers and crafters — a different lineup for each day — with the creative folk doing their thing around the Sickles greenhouse in a welcome foreshadowing of springtime’s plein-air pleasures. It’s an event for which all art sale proceeds go directly to the artists — and an event about which Bob Sickles says, “We are lucky to have so many talented local artists dedicating their lives to creating works of art,” adding that “This is a great time of year to enjoy our greenhouse…the natural light is perfect for displaying art.”

Artists on hand for Saturday, February 11 include the internationally renowned Red Bank graphic artist and book illustrator Mike Quon (whose work is currently on view at No Joe’s), as well as Little Silver’s own Kim Levin, pet portraitist supreme and creator of such books as PhoDOGraphy and Cattitude. A trio of Red Bank Regional High School students (Amber Czesnolowicz, Kelly McAdam, Terrill Warrenburg) join a lineup that further features Doreen Catena (chairs, coasters), Leslie Eaton (jewelry), Francine Girmonte (jewelry), Ken Klohn (drawings), and Ayala Naphtali (jewelry).

On Sunday, February 12 the roster of participants will include the muti-talented RBR grad Becky Polenberg (sculpture, painting) and clay pottery artisan Jennifer Lukowiak, in addition to Lola Adolf (local scenery paintings and greeting cards), Mary Christensen (pastel paintings), Laura McHugh (vintage jewelry), Laurel Lee (jewelry), Laurie Olefson (jewelry), Demetrius Patterson (paintings), Bruce Perlmutter (woodturning), and Viki Reed (photgraphy).

By JOHN T. WARD

It’s not without its terrors, shutting down a business in order to move it, Andrew Gennusa will tell you.

And when the reopening takes months longer than expected, as has been the case with Gennusa’s Zebu Forno coffee house in downtown Red Bank, life can get truly white-knuckle.

But one thing that Gennusa says has kept up his spirits is his occasional visit to the Starbucks just down Broad Street. It’s there that, along with a cup of joe he happens to like, he’s sure to get a dose of love from his own customers, who tell him they can’t wait for his restaurant to reopen.

“That’s been the most encouraging thing,” he tells redbankgreen. “You and I can go in there right now, and no less than two people will ask me when I’m reopening. I have strangers stopping me on the street to ask.”

In a jolt to schmoozers, loiterers and actual customers from far and wide, Gennusa shut his eatery at 20 Broad in mid-September as part of a settlement of a rent dispute. At the time, he hoped to reopen within six weeks at his new address, 12 Broad.

But delays in obtaining borough permits and scheduling of contractors has turned that six weeks into nearly five nerve-scraping months. Media types, dealmakers from nearby offices and occasional customers have been cast adrift as though they’ve lost their polestar.

Now, Gennusa says, he’s nearing completion, and shooting to reopen the week of February 20.

Comparable in size and layout to the last store, the new one will feature two seating areas totaling about 80 chairs.

It will also show off some of the distinctive visual elements that give Zebu its Algonquin Roundtable vibe as a place for creative types to open up their laptops for extended stays. Most prominent among those are two vast murals of famous painters throughout history, executed by artist Gregg Hinlicky.

Gennusa plans to be onsite full-time as usual, and the store will be managed by longtime former server Danielle DeAngelis, who’s returning to replace Ryan Timmons. (Timmons resigned last week to take a new job as general manager of JBJ Foundation Soul Kitchen, the pay-what-you-can-or-work-it-off restaurant opened by pop star Jon Bon Jovi on Monmouth Street.)

By JOHN T. WARD

The start of each New Year brings another round of retail culling to downtown Red Bank.

True to form, 2012 begins with two longtime Broad Street tenants closing their doors: furniture retailer Primas Home Café and Red Bank Art Gallery, which specializes in mass-produced wall decorations.

Signs at Red Bank Art Gallery signal the end of its run on Broad Street.  (Click to enlarge)

Two months after the building that houses Primas, at 28 Broad, hit the market – and found an immediate buyer – the furnishings store has closed.

Repeated attempts to reach owner Valeria Robero were unsuccessful, mostly because she was traveling between Red Bank and Brazil, where she lives and has other businesses, they said.

But employees told redbankgreen that the decision to consolidate the store’s inventory in Brazil was not prompted by any issues related to the change in ownership of the building, which sold to a partnership involving Rich Stavola of Middletown.

The parting was “amicable,” an employee said.

Contrary to rumors that he is planning a jazz-themed restaurant there, Stavola tells redbankgreen that he has “lots of ideas,” but no tenants lined up.

The building, at 28 Broad, was the longtime home of Carroll’s Stationers and, before that, the Merchants Trust Company bank. The interior features a gorgeous vaulted ceiling and expansive loft.

The Red Bank Art Gallery, at the corner of Wallace Street, is also closing, according to signs in the window.

Attempts to find out when the store is closing and why were unsuccessful because the owner barely speaks English and an intermediary did not respond to a request for comment.

The building that houses it, 65 Broad, is owned by B&M Realty Management.

Clockwise from top left: Rachael Ray, NY Giants RB Ahmad Bradshaw, Queen Latifah and Ralph Nader have all decorated chairs in years past for the Monmouth Museum’s CHAIRISH THE MUSEUM promotion, the 2012 edition of which commences  Saturday in Lincroft.

Are you sitting down? If proximity to famous folk causes you to be a bit unsteady on your feet, be advised to exercise caution when parking your carcass at the Monmouth Museum this weekend — you might just be parking it on one of their objets d’art.

While the staff isn’t precisely promising a star-studded gala on Saturday afternoon, the Museum has traditionally used the generally dreary midsection of January to bring out the colorfully creative side of a wide range of people — including  occasional armchair artists from the worlds of sports, entertainment, broadcasting or politics.

The occasion is the 33rd annual appearance of the Museum’s Juried Exhibition, a who’s-who of regional painters, sculptors, photographers, illustrators and crafters that kicks off with a free opening reception between 4 and 6 p.m. on January 14 — and continues during regular hours throughout the gallery areas of the Museum (on the Lincroft campus of Brookdale Community College) through February 26.

Concurrent with the debut of the exhibition — judged this year by noted art dealer Island Weiss (of Manhattan’s Island Weiss Gallery) — is the sixth annual roll-out of Chairish The Museum, a fundraising vehicle in which dozens of artists and artisans are invited to design, decorate (or, in the case of some of the participating celebs, happily autograph) a chair, to be displayed both at the museum and at numerous other Monmouth County shops and galleries through February 8.

The whimsical, wild and wacky chairs — all of them offered for sale as way of furnishing revenue for the ongoing programs at the museum — will be moved to Lincroft on Saturday, February 10 for a silent auction that begins at 6 p.m. (and for which the $10 admission price can be applied to any chair purchase).

Additional info on the Chairish promotion, the auction event or the ongoing Juried Exhibition can be had by calling (732) 747-2266.

Admission is free to the nonprofit gallery, at 33 Monmouth Street in Red Bank. Exhibit hours are noon to 4 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays.  (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)