New Views/Old Pews – Proposals – North Fork Contemporary

Cliff Baldwin

Sala De Claridad

Medium Powder coated aluminum, polycarbonate and wood Size 144” x 240” x 192”

Sala de Claridad, or Room of Clarity, is designed for reflection, contemplation, and observing the natural world around us. A quiet, peaceful place to contain the Pews and provide accessibleviewing of the myriad flora and fauna on the North Fork. It mimics the form of a beehive with a cellular pattern cut out of aluminum and sandwiched with a clear polycarbonate sheet for weather protection. The clear roof allows full sunlight and complete shelter.

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Allan Wexler

I printed 48 images of the pew. I consciously forced myself to see the images as lines, colors, and shapes on a page rather than representations of a functional object. With pencil, knife, paper, and glue I dissected, wrinkled, sliced, cut, and collaged the images. Following these transformations, I looked at each from a different perspective and annotated each proposing functional/sculptural reconstructions of a pew. I then reduced these prompts to 11 proposals that I feel have most potential to create strong reconstructions of the actual pew. If I were to choose one proposal, I might select # 15 although I would like more time to deliberate. Proposal #15 cuts away wood from the original Pew without compromising its stability and structure to support people sitting. The cut outs would then be used to build a table and two chairs. This solution riffs on the concept of Spolia which is defined as architectural fragments taken out of their original context and reused in a different context.

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Allan Wexler

48 Versions of a Pew. – To see a 3 minute video from the artist, go to : https://vimeo.com/897914174

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Marta Baumiller

Holey (1): 2024

Wood, plastic bags, foam, Size variable, depending on pew size.

Holey both underlines and undermines the implicit symbolism of church pews and formal religion, poking holes in structures of faith. The solid oak pew is made lacey or transparent with a pattern of holes, cut through with a hole saw. The pew remains somewhat functional, though very fragile, making those who choose to sit a bit uneasy. The proposed sculpture comes with removable “Have A Nice Day” cushion. Upholstered in a textile made from recycled and melted plastic bags, this image foregrounds our consumerist society which some see as the last nail hammered into the coffin of organized religion.

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Marta Baumiller

Holey (2): 2024

Medium wood, plastic bags, foam, Size variable, depending on pew size.

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Marta Baumiller

Holey (3): 2024

Medium wood, plastic bags, foam, Size variable, depending on pew size.

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Hideaki Ariizumi

Pew-Cuts (10 drawings, 2 groups of five), 2023, Watercolor on paper, (sizes range from 4”x 6” to 7”x 10”)

Folding A Pew: Transforms the rigid and un-flexible PEW to an unexpected, less bulky object, which goes back to a Pew when unfolded. This was the first sketch made for this proposal: a simple, emotional reaction to the inflexible Pew. Cut and re-attach them together with hinges, which transforms it into an unknown object.

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Hideaki Ariizumi

Pew-Cuts (10 drawings, 2 groups of five), 2023, Watercolor on paper, (sizes range from 4”x 6” to 7”x 10”)

Pewuzzle: Pews will be cut in a jig-saw puzzle fashion. When separated, each is a small chair.

When attached to each other, you can make any length up to original Pew length.

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3. Made of PEW Variations series-rev1-1900px (1) copy

Hideaki Ariizumi

Pew-Cuts (10 drawings, 2 groups of five), 2023, Watercolor on paper, (sizes range from 4”x 6” to 7”x 10”)

Made of Pews Variations: Each Pew cut will be a unique chair by adding necessary character elements.

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Ariizumi – Pinned PEW-cuts series 1900px

Hideaki Ariizumi

Pew-Cuts (10 drawings, 2 groups of five), 2023, Watercolor on paper, (sizes range from 4”x 6” to 7”x 10”)

Pinned Pew-Cuts: Each Pew cut shall be installed with Pin and Pinhole, with which they can be connected and/or separated. This is like the PEWUZZLE. But this is more flexible, able to form different settings. This flexibility changes the one-directional Pew to a multi-directional, multi-focus place-making device.

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Ariizumi – Playing w: Curvatures of PEW series 1900px

Hideaki Ariizumi

Pew-Cuts (10 drawings, 2 groups of five), 2023, Watercolor on paper, (sizes range from 4”x 6” to 7”x 10”)

Playing with Curvatures of Pew: The backboard of the Pew has a slight bend. The seat board of a Pew has slight bow, following the backboard bend. The side boards of a Pew have a unique but typical Pew form. This trial tests how we can utilize these curvilinear/circular/bent forms in completely different images from a Pew.

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Sean Elwood

All the Pews Should be Used for Viewing, 2023

Pencil on tracing paper. Size variable, but approximately 132’ long.

The pews would be lined up in single file somewhere along the coast. If you sat on one side, you could view the water. If you sat on the other side, you could contemplate the land. Looking up you would see the sky, and if you looked down, you would see yourself.

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Marianne Weil

Pewter Pew- The model for Pewter Pew is constructed from burnished wood with inlaid cast pewter fragments. The lead-free pewter’s alloy composition=98% tin, 1.5% bismuth, and .5% copper. Fragments are cast from contemporary industrial textures. When enlarged, added inclusions of copper and aluminum wire (some visible to the viewer) will secure the pewter to the pew’s wood body.

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Marianne Weil

Pewter Pew

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

“My wooden sketch was a response to a fourth envisioning of a solution to the design problem that arose in conversation with Glynis and Hideaki after the Kabakov (film) screening. Experience teaches that the reward for responding to vision is more vision. The geometric problems seemed worthy of attention. . .”

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

Spin on a Pew

12 foot pew plus additional wood for additional wedges.

This project continues explorations of helical form that has been the focus of my recent sculpture.

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

Spin on a Pew

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

Spin on a Pew

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn –

Spin on a Pew (2)

12 foot pew plus additional wood for additional wedges.

This project again continues explorations of helical form that has been the focus of my recent sculpture.

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

Spin on a Pew (2) (B)

12 foot pew plus additional wood for additional wedges.

This project again continues explorations of helical form that has been the focus of my recent sculpture.

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

Spin on a Pew (2) (C)

12 foot pew plus additional wood for additional wedges.

This project again continues explorations of helical form that has been the focus of my recent sculpture.

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Bennett Sykes Blackburn

Spin on a Pew (2) (D)

12 foot pew plus additional wood for additional wedges.

This project again continues explorations of helical form that has been the focus of my recent sculpture.

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Ellen Wexler

The Eyes Can’t See If the Feet Are Tired

Quote painted on Pews and installed in galleries – Close looking takes time. Feeling what the artwork offers you, and pondering the questions an artwork provokes, takes time. A gallery visitor can’t have an intimate experience with an artwork if their feet are tired. Church pews are uniquely suited for sitting and looking . They are a place for quiet reflection, and other worldly moments. Pews, installed within art galleries, facilitate close looking. Art worshippers, three together, looking.

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Ellen Wexler

The Eyes Can’t See If the Feet Are Tired

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Ellen Wexler

The Eyes Can’t See If the Feet Are Tired

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Ellen Wexler

The Eyes Can’t See If the Feet Are Tired

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Verona Peñalba

Blue and White

Cyanotype on wood

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Joyce Orrigo

Grounded
(Watercolor on paper with tile border on board)

The two sides of the pew have been removed, decorated with mosaic tiles and placed symmetrically opposed to suggest wings. The use of mosaic art, along with the designs and colors gleaned from symbolism found in major religions, nods at the original purpose of the pews – providing a place to contemplate a better world. CAST does the work of providing a better world.

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Glynis Berry

Proposal 1

Paint Pews White / Reflective Paint / Only readable at night

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Glynis Berry

Proposal 2

Paint Pews with Blackboard Paint / Write Words with Chalk

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Brad Ascalon & Will Paulson

Perspective

Perspective is symbolic of the connection between Heaven and Earth, between humanity and God. It can be argued that in a more concrete manner, the church pew functions in the very same way. In converting an old church pew into something meaningful, no object seems more fitting than a ladder stretching to the heavens. While this of course is not possible, we could use forced perspective to create that illusion of the nearly infinite.

Brad Ascalon & Will Paulson

Perspective (2)

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Brad Ascalon & Will Paulson

Perspective (3)

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Christian Demchak

Reincarnation

Wood

When I discovered this project, I immediately envisioned a new life for the pew as a working desk. As an architecture student, I appreciate the need for adaptive reuse in society and breathing new life into historic structures. This idea encompasses my architectural background as I reimagined the ornate church pew into a functional

workspace.

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Kristen Mullen

Garden Bench

Church Pew, Mosaic Tiles, Spackle

The church pew will be turned into a garden bench. The pew will remain the same size, but refurbished by being covered with white and blue mosaic tiles and white spackle. There will be random tiles with flowers painted that are native to the North Fork. The pew will become a rebirth of itself going back to being used outdoors, noting the cycle of life the wood used to create the pew has gone through. It will be sustainable to withstand outdoor weather.

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Anonymous

. . . making a pew chair with nesting stools beneath.

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Bill Albertini

Pipe Dream System (CAST Pew Extension)

Dye Sublimation Print on Aluminum, 10″ x 10″

This new component for my ongoing series of “Pipe Dream System” sculptures is an extrusion based on the profile of the CAST pew upright ends. There will ultimately be a set of components based on this profile which can then be assembled to create a tree like structure growing from one of the pews (or a section thereof).

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Scott Bluedorn

HarPew

Graphite on paper, 10” x 8”

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Jay Hodges

Sit with Me

Paint
A May 2023 NPR segment about the loneliness epidemic reported that people in all age groups are spending less in-person time with others than two decades ago. Social connection apps are abundant on the very technology that helped isolate so many of us. The Sit with Me pew will encourage spontaneous in-person interaction among strangers. The phrase will be painted three times (depending on length of the pew) in an inviting light blue and spaced on the seat backboard so that someone could sit between the phrases. Cursive lettering will evoke the more personal written communication of a few decades ago, before email and social media. The phrase will serve as an invitation to passersby to join another/others on the pew and engage in conversation, to have an in-person human-to-human interaction on an object that is culturally associated with fellowship.

The Sit with Me pew is in collaboration with Larissa Killough’s I’m Here for You pew to encourage better mental health through interacting with others. The weather-proofed pews would stand outdoors in a public setting in close physical proximity to each other but distant enough so that conversations remain private. The physical proximity will amplify the conceptual proximity of the pews: Like people, they are similar and related yet individual and distinct.

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Wendy Prellwitz

Dual Dreaming

watercolor & ink on arches paper

In honor of the pews past life, where people sat in prayer, I imagine two pews as places to contemplate and muse, much like dreaming while awake. The use of TWO implies the dualities of our lives and nature – awake / asleep, day/night, contentment/ anxiety, solid / liquid, hard /soft, mankind / nature. The use of two creates a PLACE, like a dialogue, to foster interaction or not, based on configuration, such as: Each pew has two distinct sides that interact in pairs, either in 1) an interior public /private place or 2) an outdoor community spaces.

IDEA #1 – I envision the front as NIGHT, with a CUSHION FOR DREAMING, that creates a comfortable place to pause and reflect. The soft cushions are made from indigo canvas or linen, silk screened with two-toned water patterns, inspired by watery places on the North Fork. The back hymnal shelves could either be removed, or one left on each pew, to hold people’s thoughts, prayers, flowers or printed texts, like poems, essays, and quotes for contemplation, such as “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” – Eleanor Roosevelt, “What you seek is seeking you” – Rumi, “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake” – Henry Thoreau

IDEA #2 – For exterior short-term installations in community spaces, moving from place to place, groups of 2 to 4 pews would be painted and coated with exterior grade finishes. The pews could be funded to both re-finish & install the pews and contribute to CAST. As above I envision the creation of places to pause and reflect: The front as NIGHT, silk screened and/or painted with indigo & cream two-toned water patterns, inspired by watery places on the North Fork. The back as DAY with water patterns to contemplate, Indigo water / sand ripple patterns painted on a sand-colored painted background. The back hymnal shelf could hold a weather-tight Plexiglas vitrine, to hold people’s thoughts, prayers, texts, flowers or meaningful objects.

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Larissa Killough

I’M HERE FOR YOU

Twine
Size: Pew size
In 2023, six out of ten firearm deaths were by suicide. The I’M HERE FOR YOU pew will serve as a memorial to those lost to suicide by any means with an underlying focus on gun violence, the primary method among the three most at-risk groups: veterans, Black youth, and the elderly. Holes drilled through the back of the pew will be connected with a continuous piece of fabric to spell out “I’M HERE FOR YOU.” The drilled apertures will evoke bullet holes and the connecting thread – the shared loss of suicide survivors. The pew will also serve as a place to grieve and reflect on the factors that enable this escalating tragedy.

The I’M HERE FOR YOU pew is in collaboration with the Sit with Me pew to encourage better mental health through interacting with others. The weather-proofed pews would stand outdoors in a public setting in close physical proximity to each other but distant enough so that conversations remain private. The physical proximity will amplify the conceptual proximity of the pews: Like people, they are similar and related yet individual and distinct.

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