In addition to our monthly exhibitions, on Sundays, we will establish the “Church of Monika” with the intention of communicating and demonstrating the role art can and should have on community. Our experiences with the Soap Box Derby Camp and subsequent race, as well as our annual Soup Kitchen in December, have validated our desire to move forward in this direction. We are located in a Brooklyn neighborhood underserved by the arts and we hope to remedy the situation in whatever small way we can.

The “Church” will be a moderated town hall type of meeting rather than a sermon with topics varying each week. Snacks and coffee will be served, doubling the event’s function as it becomes an alternative to brunch with bloody marys. Without doubt, Park Slope has an abudance of writers, including our friends at the Brooklyn Writers Space. Readings will be included on a regular basis. On the September 17th Brain Lehrer Show on WNYC, Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq were guests. Inspired by their Ramadan journey through NYC’s Muslim Community ( http://30mosques.tumblr.com ), we have contacted them with the hopes that they might want to join us one Sunday. A neighbor and fellow artist friend of ours sings weekly in her church choir and we have invited them to perform in our gallery. Of course, this is an art gallery and that will be the general focus, but we are open to performers and thinkers of any ilk. The schedule is yet to be completed but these are some initial ideas.

The origin of our concept stems from our mutual admiration of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. This profound monument to the freedom and pursuit of self-reflection is a model of art as a surrogate for religion. We take a non-denominational and tolerant attitude in our journey through life and our hope is to build an alliance with people of all faiths and world-views. We suffer no delusions of grandeur, we only seek to inspire and be inspired by the art of life and community.

Rebecca Aidlin invites you to her studio at the MADARTS building located at 255 18th Street, Brooklyn NY 11215 to build beautiful Mobiles. Bring small things of your own to make your mobiles with if you want.
Rebecca Aidlin’s recent works are mainly lightweight hanging sculptures made of wire and plaster. They are abstract meditations on natural forms and ideas that develop improvisationally from working with the materials. They reflect elements that are found in music, dance, and calligraphic forms. Movement is important to the sculptures, both in the gesture of shapes and in the actual movement that occurs as the pieces are touched by air. They have a theatrical quality, as the lighting and shadows created transform the pieces and their surrounding space.

Location: KORZO: 667 5th Avenue, between 19th and 20th

Ethan Crenson presents another look at the impact of Cold War politics on American pop music with records from his personal collection. His sermon on Sunday December 12th will look at Nikita Khrushchev as he was portrayed in rock and pop songs from the late 50s and early 60s. From his role filling the void of America’s official enemy after Stalin’s death, to his shoe banging at the United Nations, to his role in the Gary Powers incident and Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev cut a very unique figure in the American imagination that played out in some distinctly goofy songs. Hear some of them Sunday the 12th at cHURCH OF MONIKA.

Flash Fiction/ Non-fiction

You are invited to the “Church of Monika” to read any story that’s approximately 600 words or less. Storytellers will read their short pieces of Fiction and/or Non-fiction.

Due to Fire damage at the gallery, this will take place at KORZO
located in Brooklyn at 667 5th Avenue (between 19th and 20th st.)

*If you are interested in reading, please contact Lily White(718) 788-4755

Please come and celebrate our new non-for-profit status w/ bloody maries!

I would like to share my work in progress, a children’s book that recognizes propaganda and allows the child to toggle between multiple types of propaganda/perspectives/realities. I’m developing this as an iPad application. I use the children’s book as a medium for my artistic projects.

Raghava KK gave an inspiring talk at a recent TED conference.

“Inside the museum it was hot, and inside the butterfly conservatory – a kind of internal greenhouse – hotter still, tropical hot, the glass panels steamed with condensation. We took off our winter coats and carried them bundled in our arms. Around us, in artificial yellow light, organisms were bursting into terrible life. Jagged leaves, spiky fronds, cracking chrysalises. It was fantastic and also strangely macabre, to see such growth and greenery in the middle of this winter city.
The butterflies were not as abundant as I had hoped, though. From the description on the museum’s website, I’d pictured the air thick with them, a swath of brilliant wings on every surface. Instead they floated, in their haphazard, jerky way, over the leaves and flowers, and clustered around feeding stations, unrolling their obscenely long tongues to drink the man-made nectar. Butterfly, of the order Lepidoptera, from the Greek words for “scale” and “wing.” Known for their unusual life cycle, their many metamorphoses: Egg, larva, pupa, adult.”

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT:
The Expression of My Emotion: A Darwin’s Quest for Her Evolution is a genealogical mystery tour into my lineage – my quest to discover the men and women who made me, and the worlds in which they lived. It’s a way of honoring the legacy of my great-great-great grandfather, Charles Darwin, by actually countering his fame and influence. After all, everyone has sixteen sets of great-great-great grandparents. What of “the fifteen others” – my antecedents who, while they may not have come up with a world-changing scientific idea, contributed to my existence and physical being just as much as Darwin? The heart of the book is an inquiry into self: how did I get here, and what ideas, physical traits, and cultural values have been passed down to me from my forefathers? Using my genealogy and Darwin’s theories as a framework, I weave in and out of family lore and history, using my own childhood memories and present day experiences as a way of accessing the rich stories of the past.