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Between 1981 and 1994, the photographer Meryl Meisler worked as an art teacher in Bushwick, Brooklyn, at Roland Hayes Intermediate School 291. In a new book, âNew York: PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco,â out in June, she collects photos that she took of her students and colleagues during those yearsâthe Menudo fans, the puppy love, the cafeteria jousting, the sneaker style, and a bit of teacher trash-talking. âThe students were on the pulse of popular culture, exuded youthful pride, and could challenge oneâs wits,â she said recently. Meisler (whoâd previously photographed the disco scene and her own family on Long Island) eventually moved to a school in Manhattan, where she continued to teachâand take picturesâuntil 2010. Her photography from three decades inside the cityâs public schools is her largest unseen body of work. âI still get teacher nightmares,â she said.
Should Botticelli Be Part of Your Beauty Regimen? Fiorella Valdesolo
The ubiquitous Calgon commercials from the 1980s all followed the same formula: Exasperated woman rattles off her woes (The boss! The baby!) before crying out,“Calgon, take me away!” and being immediately transported to the blissful solitude of a bubbly bathtub. Over the course of this past year, my version of that Calgon bath wasn’t a bath at all but looking at art; scrolling through a museum’s neatly archived online collections teleported me to a similarly euphoric place. The soothing palettes of Etel Adnan; Jacqueline Marval’s pastoral scenes of women lounging around in beautiful frocks; Edward Hopper’s lovely depictions of solitude; and countless images of New York especially photos chronicling its nightlife and street life by Meryl Meisler and Robert Herman to remind me of my home’s pre-pandemic spirit.
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The Beauty of Looking at Beauty
Science tells us that gazing upon beautiful things is a form of self-care. Can it also be making us more beautiful?
By Fiorella Valdesolo Sarah Anne Johnson
The ubiquitous Calgon commercials from the 1980s all followed the same formula: Exasperated woman rattles off her woes (The boss! The baby!) before crying out, “Calgon, take me away!” and being immediately transported to the blissful solitude of a bubbly bathtub. Over the course of this past year, my version of that Calgon bath wasn’t a bath at all but looking at art; scrolling through a museum’s neatly archived online collections teleported me to a similarly euphoric place. The soothing palettes of Etel Adnan; Jacqueline Marval’s pastoral scenes of women lounging around in beautiful frocks; Edward Hopper’s lovely depi
Meryl Meisler documents the collision of 2 NYC worlds in Light Work exhibit
Wendy Wang | Staff Photographer
A compilation of Meryl Meisler’s photographs from her book “A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick” is on display at Light Work until July.
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Despite being assigned the novel multiple times as a young teenager, Meryl Meisler never fully finished “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. She hadn’t even read it all the way through until she named her first book after it.
“A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick,” published in 2014, showcases Meisler’s collection of street photography from her time as a public school teacher in Brooklyn and the wild nightlife images of New York City in the 1970s. An exhibition of archives from Meisler’s first book, titled “Meryl Meisler: Best of Times, Worst of Times,” went on display at Light Work on March 22 and will run until late July.
Don Wilkinson
Brandon Cabral describes photography as being such an integral element of his life that he always ensures that he has his camera with him as much as he would his keys, wallet and phone.
“There’ll be times when I can’t remember where I put my phone but I always know where my camera are….I’ve been able to capture moments from Fort Taber to Frenchman Street in New Orleans, from Bay Village to Brava, Cape Verde,” says Cabral.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Raised in every “End” of New Bedford - the West, the North and the South, and as residentially east as one can get, a block away from the fishing docks, he was raised by a young single mother, with much help from a grandmother and a multitude of aunties and uncles.