Here are the Best Park Slope Coffee Shops to Peddle Your Art

Artwork on display at Cafe Grumpy.

There is no shortage of coffee shops in Park Slope. Walk into just about any of them, and you'll find small reasonably-priced artwork adorning the walls. But despite the fact that coffee shops in this neighborhood cater to an audience that easily spends $6 on a Dirty Chai, the life of a starving artist in the hood is, well, a little hungry.

Click to read more ...

[FIPS Was There...] David Lynch Art Opening at Tilton Gallery

When I think of David Lynch films, I think of three scenes in particular:

#1: That scene in Blue Velvet where Dennis Hopper kneels on the floor before Isabella Rossellini’s crotch, huffing amyl nitrate & screaming things like "Baby wants to fuck!"

#2: In Eraserhead, the dinner scene, where a mother orgasms on one side of the dinner table while a tiny roasted chicken oozes dark liquids from between its legs onto the serving tray.

#3: The opening scene of Wild at Heart, where Laura Dern screams as Nicolas Cage brutally murders a man by smashing his head against a stairwell railing, tossing him down a flight of stairs, repeatedly bashing his skull into the floor & then picking him up with a brain & blood SLURP off the floor & throwing him against a wall for good measure.

Click to read more ...

Cool or Not Cool: The Smithsonian Selling Your Art Without Permission?

Andrew Theodorakis for the New York Daily News

That's just what happened to Park Slope artist Margaret Bowland, whose oil painting was featured at a Smithsonian exhibition from March 2009-August 2010. The painting, titled "Kenyetta and Brianna," was given a People's Choice Award. At the end of the exhibit, the Smithsonian had difficulty contacting Bowland to let her know that she could retrieve her art. The New York Daily News explains:

"In the final weeks of the show, the Smithsonian sent two emails to Bowland about returning the painting, but the messages were sent to an old email address, according to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court." 

When the museum couldn't get a hold of Bowland, they contacted the Klaudia Marr Gallery in New Mexico, where the Smithsonian initially discovered the painting. The gallery told the Smithsonian to ship the painting directly to David Naylor, an interior designer who paid $40,000 for the work. According to Bowland and her lawyer, the New Mexico gallery had no right to sell the painting, and the Smithsonian no right to ship it without her knowledge.

Click to read more ...

Watch Out For Those Artful Nip Slips At Tea Lounge

Image by Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

These days The Wall Street Journal has decided to focus less on economic reportage and more on daring exposés about artistic censorship at Park Slope's own Tea Lounge. Here at FiPS, that news is OUR organic meat and potatoes. We relish nothing more than a good story about bare burgers and bare breasts, and this one falls into the latter. According to the house that the Dow Jones built, some Park Slopers were recently offended by Tea Lounge's forcible acts of artistic modesty.

The Tea Lounge on Union Street, if you didn't already know, is a hot spot for tea, coffee, snacks, mix'n match old furniture and child rearing in all its many forms. Whether you're a mommy, a daddy, a nanny or a manny, you and your child are welcome at Tea Lounge. Want to breast feed your kid child over a latte? Go for it. Want to hang up art depicting the nude human form? Ahhh, sorry. Not so much. 

Click to read more ...

Mother + Daughter Lingerie Spread...Hot Or Absolutely Disgusting?

Image Via the Lake & Stars

The Lake and Stars, a New York-based lingerie company owned by fellow Brooklynite Maavan Zilberman, was apparently inspired by a neighborhood mother and daughter pair -- who Zilberman notes were, "always so loving and tender toward each other" -- for their most recent ad campaign. 

Not much shocks me anymore, people. I mean, on my 3 block walk from the subway to my workplace, I'm greeted (pre-coffee) by 3'x 3' cotton underwear-laden crotches of the American Eagle advertising. Then I stare up at sweaty, yet nonchalant shirtless Guess models in mid-hump on the other side of the street. As New Yorkers, we just get used to it. 

But I'll tell you...this ad kinda' grosses me the fuck out.

Click to read more ...