Jeffrey Biegel, affiliated with Steinway, playing one of the company's grand pianos.

An openminded classical musician who performs works from many different musical eras, Jeffrey Biegel is not your typical concert pianist. Classical masters Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi are among his favorites but Biegel assembles unique programs that also feature music like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and more recent 20th century works, sometimes within the same concert.

“As far back as 20 years ago, I was combining a popular piece with a classical piece and that was not the norm,” he said. “I don’t think there should be any stereotypes: I like to break down stereotypes.”

And over the course of his career, he has constantly helped to develop creative musical projects and new ways of reaching out to orchestras and the general public that seek to do just that.

His musical sensibility is on display on his newest album, “A Steinway Christmas Album,” which features an interesting mix of well known traditional Christmas songs, some from popular composers of the 1940′s and ’50s, some from the modern era, and also lesser known works from classical composers. The album begins with a stellar arrangement and performance of “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson then works its way through songs by Percy Grainger, Tchaikovsky, Holst, Liszt, and even David Foster, who wrote “Grown-Up Christmas List,” made famous by Amy Grant in the 1990′s. And that’s just to name a few: It is a perfect mix for a musician who is appreciative of all kinds of diverse musical eras.

As for the arrangements, he included some of his own, like that heard on “The Christmas Song,” but then embraced social media and decided to let his friends and followers on the internet have their say.

“I opened the door to social networking. I just said, anyone out there who has Christmas music or would like to write arrangements of well known Christmas carols, come forth,” he said. Several fan contributions made it onto the album including “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” arranged in the style of Beethoven and an arrangement of “Silent Night” that pairs the carol with “Away in a Manger.”

“I learn so much from other people sharing ideas,” said Biegel, who posted on Facebook to see what his fans thought about what arrangements to include.

But this is not the first, or the most groundbreaking, time that Biegel has embraced technology in his career. In 1997, he became the first performer in the world to broadcast live audio and video simultaneously over the Internet during a recital performance at Steinway Hall in New York City.

“I just thought it would be very interesting to expand the global audience for classical music by using modern technology,” he said. “It was exciting to play not knowing how many people were listening at the same time from anywhere in the world.”

Biegel was born on Long Island in 1961 with a serious health problem that would prove ironic for a future professional musician: He was partially deaf and could not hear or speak until the age of three. Not knowing what the exact problem was, his parents discovered the truth when Biegel’s doctor turned young Jeffrey toward a wall during a visit, called his name, and seeing no reaction, realized he could not hear.

“It was almost as though you would take your hands and cover your ears,” remembered Biegel. “You’re not totally in the black, but you could hear muffled sounds.” He was, as he likes to jokingly call himself, a “reverse Beethoven,” referring to the famous composer who became deaf later in life.

Not long after surgery corrected his hearing and brought full vibration to his ear drum, Biegel’s journey as a musician began. He started taking piano lessons when he was seven years old but was playing by ear for years earlier. When his oldest sister practiced for her piano lessons, Biegel would listen diligently, then later sit at the piano and try and imitate what she had played.

“I gravitated to the piano because it became a means of expression,” he said, of the time period before he could grasp language well.

“That was my first language, the sounds of music.”

He studied with renowned American pianist Mortin Estrin from age 10 to 16 then took lessons from Adele Marcus, a teacher at The Juilliard School in New York City, known for high demands and for being one of the best teachers anywhere in the world, according to Biegel.

“She was feared by many because she was very, very blunt. And she was tough,” he said, adding that Marcus instilled in him what it took to become a professional pianist and provided the right kind of repertoire he needed to succeed. “She had a very high standard.”

After graduating from Juilliard with a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in 1984, Biegel realized he loved performing works from composers that were still living. In 1992, he collaborated with Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin, famous in part for writing the “Mission: Impossible Theme,” and performed with the Honolulu Symphony his “Piano Concerto No. 2,” commemorating the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. He then recorded the world premiere of the concerto in 1996.

“After that I started to create projects, which had never been done before where not just one, two, or three orchestras would commission a new work by a living composer,” he said.

In 2000, he had composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, write a new work called “Millennium Fantasy” and arranged for 27 orchestras around the U.S. to perform the piece. But Biegel didn’t stop there. “As soon as I did the premier of that work, I enjoyed it so much I thought, okay, let’s do another!,” he said.

Biegel collaborated on other projects with composers such as Charles Strouse, the American musical theater composer, William Bolcom, Lowell Liebermann, and Richard Danielpour, among others. The chance to work with living composers like Zwilich and Bolcom is one of Biegel’s favorite career highlights. “These are such bright minds of music and of the world and I’m just so inspired by them. And to play their music and having them present, it’s just over the top. There are no words for that,” he said.

Other personal highlights include performing for musical legend Leonard Bernstein and comedienne Lucille Ball.

He co-composed with his son, Craig, “The World in Our Hands” in honor of the events of September 11, 2001, which has been performed in Africa, Ireland, and around the U.S. He has performed with famous orchestras all over the U.S. and the world, including in places like Tokyo, Singapore, Turkey, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and Paris.

Though he has a passion for helping to produce all kinds of new, creative scores, he favors evocative musical passages over the harsh sonic landscapes that can dominate modern classical compositions. Biegel considers himself a romantic at heart. “In the sense not of the period of romanticism only, but a romantic from the standpoint I feel music a certain way and I want to convey that feeling of the composer’s intentions in an emotional way,” he said.

And Biegel is willing to play whatever kind of composition that speaks to him and does not adhere to a rigid classical music philosophy for concert pianists. “I think we’ve almost painted ourselves into a corner by saying you have an image as a classical artist and you can do Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, but if you go and do Leroy Anderson or Gershwin, you’re disrupting that image,” he said. “I don’t believe in that. I think music is music.”

Concerning the future of classical music, Biegel is not worried about new generations and their interest level in the art form. And he believes the performing environment is getting better. “There are still many young students in conservatories everywhere,” he said, “there are more performances in smaller venues, and you just see and hear classical music happening in places that they wouldn’t have done it in 20, 30 years ago because it wasn’t a big concert hall.”

He currently teaches at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His latest venture is called Trio21, a collaboration with a violinist and cellist that is recording new piano trios by Kenneth Fuchs and Glen Roven, and they are scheduled to perform throughout the U.S. in 2012.

Actor and comedian Jake Green posing for the camera.

A British accent melts into a laid-back, California-raised tone as he tears through crumpled pages of a script he is studying for an upcoming audition. A friendly, welcoming demeanor matches his Mayberry-era freckled face and coarse red hair. All of that paired with a Jewish upbringing melds into the uniquely funny East Village-based comedian and actor, Jake Green, 27, who just likes to make people laugh.

“When I was little I used to hide behind a curtain and introduce myself by saying, ‘starring Jake Green!’” he said with a chuckle. “I would do anything it took to get attention.”

Green is still getting attention. With more comedy shows booked than ever before, his performance technique is keeping him a comedian-of-interest in New York. Before now, Green has worked regularly in the Big Apple’s competitive comedy club circuit. But he likes to balance his professional life between comedy and acting, two loves he’s had since childhood. He has performed at New York’s Eastville and Gotham comedy clubs among others throughout California and in Boston. His last major acting role was at the prestigious Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont this past summer in a production of “Noises Off,” the famed 1982 British play by playwright Michael Frayn. Despite the natural ebb and flow in his professional life, Green is hoping to send an immediate tidal wave of his talent through a city known for either making dreams come true or leaving those who tried broken on the sidelines.

“It’s a winding spiral staircase with plateaus, curves and dips,” Green said of being a performer. “When you’re not working, it’s really tough.”

When he’s not in front of an audience, Green holds down a part-time job as a server and bartender at DBGB Kitchen and Bar, famed chef Daniel Boulud’s sophisticated downtown tavern. Green admitted he’s lucky that his management has been flexible with his schedule so that he has time to audition and perform.

“I really hit the jackpot with them [DGBG],” he said. “They allow me the mental and physical flexibility to work on my art.”

His art was not always the first thing on Green’s mind. He admitted that as a child, he had used comedy and acting merely as an attention-getting escape from bullying. Green was frequently teased for his height, red hair and problems with acne, which eventually led to a struggle with depression.

“I was a four-foot-nine-inch ginger midget,” he joked, in a half-British, half-American accent. “Being funny helped me not get my ass kicked!”
Green recounted of a particular instance in middle school when a group of kids, supposed friends of his, left him sleeping on a school bus after a class field trip. He said the feeling of abandonment, by those he thought he could trust, left a permanent mark.

He asserted that the man the audience sees on stage is not always the man at home. “I am deeply introspective and hard on myself,” he said, likely an effect of being bullied.

But now, the art and process of his work has become Green’s focus — and it’s clear. The hours he is not serving others award-winning food are spent writing, conceptualizing and producing characters for his acts. Whether it’s a new set for his stand-up comedy routine or an accent for a character he’s never portrayed before, Green does what it takes to get it right. The hours he spends on his craft might cause a significant other to leave but that’s not the case for Green’s girlfriend, Abby Marsh.

Green and Marsh have been together for six years, having met at freshman orientation at Boston University where both were enrolled in its acting program. Marsh also works in entertainment, as a freelance writer for NBC, and knows first-hand how hard it is to make it.

“I support Jake 100 percent,” Marsh said as she took a break from writing promotional scripts for upcoming NBC projects. “I support his ambition and know that, out of all of us who graduated from the program, he has really stuck to it and not thrown in the towel.”

Marsh speaks with admiration and genuine care for her boyfriend. As she fiddled with her computer, she made it clear that the dreams she once had to be an actress have all but vanished. Still she respects the steadfast attitude Green has toward his goals.

Green’s mother, Susie, who lives in San Jose, Calif., where Green grew up as the middle child of three boys, shares the same respect. Susie raved about her entertainer son, her admiration of him evident in her voice.

“It was clear from the beginning that Jacob wasn’t meant for a nine-to-five job,” Susie said through a headset as she drove home from work in rush-hour traffic. “We [Susie and Green’s father Andy] decided from the beginning that we wanted to be there for our son and back him no matter what.”

Supporting her son is old hat for Green’s mother. She championed him when he graduated from high school and moved to Canada to pursue his love of hockey. There, Green played for various semi-pro teams before returning to California and applying to Boston University.

Susie spoke candidly of Green’s senior thesis, a personal self-written, produced and acted performance given at Boston University before graduation. “His silent physical piece brought me to tears and brings me to tears now,” she whispered with a tremor in her voice. After pausing for a moment she said, “It was just him and it was amazing.”

Like many Americans, Green’s parents have been affected by the current economic downturn and have not been able to afford the travel expenses incurred to visit New York to see his recent performances. But, Susie said through a laugh, “If he gets on Broadway, I will walk there.”

“She has really been there,” Green said of his mother’s support. “She used to drive me into San Francisco, over an hour away, to get head shots and audition for commercials.”

Though Green is starting to see more success and to be noticed in the arts community, he said there is always a gnawing feeling that things might not work out.

“It’s scary as shit to think that you might not make it,” he said.

No matter how tough the journey and no mater how many times he is told no, Green’s determination is palpable. He admitted that it would be nice to eventually make it into films and get the recognition that often brings fame and financial comfort. But, at the end of the day, Green said he is happy as long as he is working.

“The joy I get when doing what I love is immeasurable,” he said.

Bill Larkin and his wife Maureen Walker in their home in Natick, Mass. in December 2011.

By Lorena Galliot

The Rev. William Larkin III was never quite your ordinary Catholic priest.

In the late 1980s, he caused a stir when he agreed to marry a couple sick with AIDS in New York’s Roosevelt Hospital, at a time when many still treated those affected by the virus as pariahs. In 1993, he was publicly rebuked by church leaders when they found out that he had been performing “gender neutral” baptisms, replacing the traditional sacrament, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” with his preferred wording, “In the name of God our Creator, through Jesus the Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Shortly afterward, the outspoken Paulist father broke his final rule as a priest: He fell in love.

His story rings as a cautionary tale to the Catholic Church, which is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit young clergymen and is seeing attendance in parishes across the country grow steadily thinner, down from 75 percent of those who call themselves Catholics in 1955 to 45 percent in 2005.

Larkin, 59, is one of the many who no longer finds himself inside of a church most Sunday mornings. A tall, wiry man with thinning silver hair and a warm, gap-toothed smile, he defines himself as one of those Catholics who “shops around” for a parish willing to embrace his progressive views. Two decades ago, the former priest could never have foreseen this would be the case. Neither could he have guessed that he would own a successful home painting business, live in a comfortable house in Natick, Mass., and be a happily married grandfather of four.

Larkin was leading a workshop on racial reconciliation in Boston’s Paulist Center in the early 1990s when he first met Maureen Walker, a psychologist at the Harvard Business School. She was a year older than he was, and as passionate and straight-talking.

“The first thing that I remember about Maureen are her eyes. I was drawn to her eyes,” said Larkin, recalling their first encounter.

Walker remembers seeing Larkin one time before, during a mass he was officiating. She said she knew straight away that he was an “extraordinary” priest. “When you heard him preaching – it was sort of like he broke the rules. He had a freedom behind the staid altar, in a staid New England culture where so much goes unsaid,” she described.

As the two grew gradually closer, the priest became tangled in an inextricable dilemma: He could either ignore his feelings and remain true to his role as a minister, or follow his heart. Although he knew that some priests led a double life – the idea was even indirectly suggested to him by a colleague that he had turned to for advice – for Larkin that was always out of the question. “It would have been too painful, too destructive,” he said.

In 1996, Larkin resigned from the priesthood. He had come to the conclusion that as much as he loved his work in the ministry and felt committed to some of his mentors within the church, he wasn’t completely happy living in the community of Paulist fathers.

“I believe there are some men – very few! – who really are called to a celibate life. I respect that, but it was never my case. I always felt incomplete in my time with the Paulist fathers, and I feel healthier and more honest now,” he explained.

The decision marked the start of a difficult transition for the newly laicized priest. He had joined the Paulist order at 23, just out of college, and suddenly, 20 years later, found himself with no job, no savings, no retirement and no health insurance.

Larkin teaches a catechism class at the church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City in the 1970s.

“I left with my bed and nothing else,” said Larkin, who rented a room in downtown Boston from a high school friend for several months while he figured out what to do next. Another ex-Paulist suggested he try working as a painter.

“He asked me, ‘What did you like doing before you were a priest?’ And I remembered I always liked to paint my room. So I applied for a job as a painter for $10 an hour and was hired,” said Larkin.

Yet the financial transition wasn’t the only hard part of Larkin’s decision. The emotional price was also high. Many of Larkin’s former friends within the church turned their backs on him, and his family also took it badly.

“My parents are devout, traditional New England Catholics. In their mind, there was no higher honor, no higher achievement than to have a son who was a priest,” said Larkin, who has eight brothers and sisters. His mother, whom Larkin describes as “incredibly intelligent and talented but emotionally crippled,” especially could not accept the fall from status at first. When Larkin married Walker in 1997, his brothers had to persuade his parents to attend. Larkin remembers the event as “part happy, part sad.”

“A friend told us that during the ceremony, half of the guests looked as though they were attending a wedding, and the other half a funeral,” laughed Larkin ruefully. Although his family eventually came around, he remains hurt by their initial lack of support. He wrote his father a long letter for Father’s Day in 2002. “I was essentially reaching out, asking for his love and approbation. He never responded,” Larkin recalled sadly.

Larkin’s wife Maureen agrees that the social transition was a difficult one. “It was painful for me, watching you behave as if you were still a priest, when you were wearing painter’s garb, and I knew people didn’t see you in the same way,” she told him.

“As a priest, I was used to people listening respectfully to what I had to say. But now, why should they?” laughed Larkin.

But Larkin also remembers a handful of people whose accepting attitude came as precious help in that difficult time. There was the Protestant pastor who agreed to marry him and Walker in his church, because as a former priest, Larkin could not be wed in a Catholic one. There was the paint merchant who first agreed to give Larkin credit when he decided to start his own business, even if he couldn’t pass a background check. Most of all, there was the Catholic priest who welcomed him and Walker into his parish near Boston, the Rev. Walter Cunin.

The couple regularly attended the parish, Our Lady Help of Christians, for several years, until the sex abuse scandal broke out in 2002. “Boston was the epicenter of the sex-abuse scandal, and Walter was outspoken in his criticism of the attitude of the conservative clergy towards the abuse, which was essentially to cover it up,” said Larkin. He believes Cunin became a thorn in the side of his leaders, who then disciplined him on “trumped up” charges of misusing the parish car. Cunin was stripped of his title of pastor and is now a chaplain in a Jewish college.

The usually gentle Larkin could not stop his voice from rising in anger when he recalled the episode. He is increasingly bitter against the church as an institution.

“I love the Catholic theology, especially the [book of] Revelation. The Catholic social teachings are brilliant, they’re one of the world’s best kept secrets,” Larkin said. “But the recruitment and formation process of the Catholic clergy is inherently flawed,” he said, adding that he was “not at all surprised” when reports of sexual abuse began emerging.

“If the church does not change its culture of secrecy, if it doesn’t evolve with the times, it’s going to lose many of its followers,” said Larkin.

Despite his criticism of the church, Larkin misses his work in the ministry and believes priests can bring great things to their communities. Yet he won’t, as some of his former colleagues have, convert to Protestantism, where pastors can be married. “There’s something about being a Catholic that is too much in my blood,” he explained.

Larkin and employee Tasso Filhio Da Silva at a paint job site in the Boston area in December 2011.

Meanwhile, the pastor-turned business owner has developed a successful painting company, which employs six full-time painters, a part-time office manager and a dozen subcontractors. All speak warmly of Larkin as a fair and respectful employer. “Bill has created a really unique company. Bill is unique. I feel like his priorities are in order,” said Christine Nelson, 24, a painter at Larkin’s company.

Walker believes her husband’s human qualities in business are a direct result of his former work as a priest. “I think your first instinct when you meet people is to treat them as if they were parishioners,” she told Larkin. “You go in there with a lot of trust, a lot of ‘how can I help you.’ There’s nothing adversarial about it.”

Although Larkin sometimes yearns for more spiritual work, he does not regret leaving the priesthood. Walker had two children from a previous marriage, and she and Larkin are now the proud grandparents of four children, aged 2 to 10. Larkin said this is one of the happiest parts of his new life.

“You know I really truly feel that these kids are – that I am their grandfather. They know me, and I know them…it’s one of those things.” He broke off thoughtfully, propping his hands on his head. “It just is.”

One of Bradley Poster's Model Recruitment Websites, Model Talent Network

Manhattan (Dec. 21, 2011) — After nearly 10 years of running fake modeling agencies, owner Bradley Poster is ready for his close-up.

A New York judge fined Poster, owner of WMT Model Talent and Network Development, $908,400 in early November for illegally advertising services the business did not provide, charging models for headshots it never promoted and operating as an unlicensed agency. The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs brought the charges against the agency after receiving 84 complaints from prospective models and actors between March 2005 and February 2011.

Aspiring Queens voice over actress Katerina Manos found herself in Poster’s office in 2009 after responding to a Craigslist ad looking for extras to star in various restaurant scenes. Having just entered the office, she was already feeling apprehensive. But before she had time to calm her nerves, Poster sat her down to deliver his crafty sales pitch.

“I felt like I was meeting with a combination of a psychic who feeds off of your every word to tell you what you wanted to hear,” she said, “and a rapist who just couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

The judge’s ruling comes at a time when more fake agencies are operating that ever before. The rise of social media and Internet advertising has given a large platform to scam artists looking to take advantage of those looking for work in a difficult economic climate, according to Linda Finnegan, a contributor to the blog Crimes Against Models.

“The shark,” as Manos calls him, “began to drill me on what acting experience I had, and what I would be interested in, and how he has several clients he knows I would be a perfect match for.” When Manos mentioned that her acting experience came primarily from voice-overs, Poster said that with a face like hers, it needed to be seen. Poster then relentlessly pressed Manos to pay $100 to have her picture taken for his website’s database so that he could connect her to his clients.

“Exhausted with the meeting and just wanting to leave, I realized the only way out was to sign the release form and pay my fee,” she said. Manos was then taken to a small room where her portrait was shot and escorted out the door by Poster’s employees.

“Anytime I asked questions about the process, I just got run-around answers,” she said. The photos she took never appeared on the website. “For weeks, I checked and found nothing, and had trouble even entering the site,” she added.

“Any employment agency that takes advantage of job seekers, especially during these tough economic times, will answer to us,” said Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz in a press release. WMT Model and Talent Network Development placed more than 910 advertisements in newspapers and on websites offering employment to aspiring models and actors. Poster charged clients for headshots and to post their profiles on his website, but he did nothing to help them find jobs. The judge also ordered Poster to close his business and barred him from holding any Department of Consumer Affairs licenses, a requirement to run a legal employment agency.

“Mr. Poster personally resorted to the classic scam in modeling agencies: bait and switch,” said Mintz in the press release. “By purposefully preying on consumers looking for legitimate employment, he instead sold them unnecessary and unrequested photography services.”

This is not the first time Poster has been criminally charged. The Consumer Affairs Department brought charges in 2005 against his previous business, Look International, for operating as an unlicensed employment agency. He was ordered to pay almost $27,000 in public fines and to stop portraying the business as an employment agency in his advertising. But just two days after signing that agreement, Poster reincorporated his business under the name WMT Model and Talent Network Development and resumed its practices. The agency advertised under other names as well and Poster used aliases during the last several years, including Brad West, Mark West and Max Holden.

But Poster is just one of the many scam artists preying on those looking for employment opportunities in tough economic times. According to Linda Finnegan, contributor for the blog Crimes Against Models, the number of fake modeling agencies has been on the rise. “I think social media and the Internet in general has made it possible for fake agencies to multiply like bunnies,” she said. “All they have to do is operate under a name or two, and when someone starts catching up to them, they open up another company name.”

Because of this, convicted criminals like Poster can prove elusive to fine. “It seems that a lot of people have to be affected and make complaints before the state takes action, and even then the state is slow to act,” said Finnegan. Poster advertised extensively on the Internet and prospective models and actors should be wary of any kind of online opportunity promising these kinds of jobs, according to Finnegan. “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.”

While the Department of Consumer Affairs licenses more than 350 employment agencies, it relies on consumers to file complaints about suspicious, non-licensed agencies. After receiving complaints about the WMT Model and Talent agency, they began monitoring its tactics and issued a subpoena to determine the full extent of its false advertising, according to a spokesman for the department.

“This is a total scam,” wrote one client, Marina G., on a review about the agency on Yelp, a website on which users post reviews of restaurants, stores and other businesses. “An agency should not charge you,” she said, describing how she was pressed repeatedly by Poster to pay $99 for a photo shoot and registration for his website. “They should have confidence in you, and they get paid for you being hired anyway, so don’t fall for it,” Marina G. wrote.

Poster boasted to clients about his industry contacts in the world of modeling and entertainment, keeping lists of supposedly available jobs in binders in his office, according to the Department of Consumer Affairs. “In the end, the website they said you will be registered for is not real,” said a second reviewer Jeff L. on Yelp. “[T]hey do not do anything but take your pictures and provide no service that they promise you when they take your payment.”

Consumers reported that their photo shoot receipts did not name WMT Model and Talent Network but cited a different business, Photographers R Us, which was another phony name Poster used. Reviewer Irene F. wrote, “When you come in, they basically try to hustle you out of $200 for headshots. And when I asked when the photos would be taken, I was told right away,” she said. “When I was hesitant about it, the guy basically threw me out.”

Like many of these fake agencies, it is unclear whether Poster will actually stop his practices, even after legal action and a hefty fine. As of publication, WMT Model Talent and Network Development’s website is still up and running, inviting prospective models and actors to create a profile by uploading photos and providing their personal information.

She hovered over the house plant and watched the ants crawl. This is what Mi Ju, 27, a Korean-born painter, installation artist and master’s of fine arts student at the Pratt Institute, does, to gather inspiration for her art.

“She’s manically obsessed over nature,” teased Hiba Schahbaz, Ju’s studio neighbor.

Ju lives and breathes art, citing indigenous cultures, sciences and the places she’s traveled to as inspiration. She works on the mandate of combining space, art and vivid colors. Hidden surprises show up in her paintings when she combines fine paint strokes with paper cut outs to create a three dimensional feel.

On Dec. 9, Pratt held its annual “Open Studio Day” in Brooklyn during which master’s students showcased their work in private art studios provided by the school and opened to the public. For Ju, who will be hosting her first solo gallery show in September 2012, the day was like a dress rehearsal.

Ju usually spends more than 12 hours each day working at her studio, leaving just a little before midnight and returning the following morning to repeat it again. For down time, Ju goes to Prospect Park is where she catalogues shapes she sees in nature as sources for her next project.

“This is the most I like,” said Ju, whose first language isn’t English. “And it’s honest. I’m curious of what I’m going to make every time.”

For as long as Ju can remember, she has been an art lover. Her parents enrolled her in various extracurricular classes as a youngster, but art was the subject that sparked a passion inside of her.

Visitors admiring Ju's paintings

Recently, Ju started to pair each painting, which has gotten larger in size, with a 3D installation piece. The installations, mostly made from scrap material Ju finds, are a different type of artistic expression for her.

“Installations help me understand space,” Ju explained. While paintings are traditionally hung flat against the wall, Ju displays her canvases at a forward leaning angle, hanging them on thick twine to “represent the power of nature.”

“I don’t think I can go back to smaller paintings,” Ju said, after Schahbaz pointed out that Ju had to stand on spools of yarn to reach the top portion of the painting she had just completed.

Ju’s studio is divided into two parts by a single French door. The door’s glass panel is covered with sample paint cards in a rainbow mosaic pattern. The large space is for painting while the smaller space is dedicated to installation pieces.

The smaller room, dorm-like in layout and function, is where Ju’s desk, storage cabinets, reference books, microwave and kettle are. Next to a calendar and painting, a stalk of tomato vine is taped to the wall. The vine, dry and brittle, looks like a painting itself.

The larger space, or painting studio, is bright, with extra spot lights that Ju installed herself. Along the wooden baseboards are several plastic bowls filled with acrylic paint tubes. Three mini cacti plants sit equidistant apart on the window sill that looks onto Pratt’s campus common.

For Ju, painting is cathartic. When she taught high school art in Korea after graduating from Yeungnam University with her bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate, life became mundane.

“I just wanted to do something more. I thought artist should make money and make more art. But every day, repeating the same thing. I just want to have more time to paint,” Ju said about her teaching days before she ended up at the San Francisco Art Institute for her second bachelor’s of fine art.

Dressed in black jeans and an acid-wash denim, long-sleeve shirt, Ju prepared to entertain visitors. Most other days, she is draped in her beloved, paint-speckled navy T-shirt that has the capital letter “M” embossed in the middle. She pairs it with blue tights and goes bare foot, because “it’s just like home.” Several tightly plaited braids from the long hairs at the nape of Ju’s neck lay flat against her collarbone. The rest fall smoothly down her back. Her wispy fringe is just long enough to cover her eyebrows.

A small counter-top is stocked with snacks for Ju’s guests. A bowl of clementines neatly snuggles beside her snack of choice, Campari tomatoes. Almonds, Oreos and rainbow colored Twizzlers cleverly tied into a knot by Ju “because they are sticky to get” are also set out. Small boxes of Mott’s apple juice are neatly stacked like an immaculate supermarket shelf.

Unlike artists who go through multiple sketches before actually painting, Ju depends on research, organization and serendipity. She feels that drawing beforehand restricts the painting’s possibility since the painter would be mimicking the pencil lines.

“I make fantasy,” Ju said as she explained the process of her work from blank canvas to completion. “I’m an organic painter. I never plan. But I’m organized.”

Above Ju’s desk is a wall covered in handwritten research notes and sample images. Various objects she’s found in the trash are hung with clothes pins on a red yarn line. Art and science reference books fill the shelves.

A saying on the wall reads, “Gaia Hypothesis: Gaia Hypothesis proposes that all organism and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex-system.” Another set of cue cards written in blue highlighter read: “mutation, anthropomorphism, drama and humor.”

Ju writes out her research notes because English words help her create images. “I imagine things when I read the word,” she explained. “It’s not what everyone else sees because English is not easy for me. The things I see don’t really mean what the word means, you know?” Ju’s experimented with using Korean for her research notes, but found the familiar language didn’t illicit any images for her since she “didn’t have the use the brain.”

Visitors walked through Ju’s studio, admiring her paintings and complementing her on them.

“You don’t need to know where Mi’s from or where she went to school,” said fellow classmate and previous studio neighbor DJ Perera. “Her art is just so vivid and lustful.”

Welterweight fighter Jose Javier Calderon jabs a bag at John’s Boxing Gym in the Bronx. His trainer is conditioning him for a Nov. 12 fight. (Photo: Laura J. Keller/NY City Lens)

By Laura J. Keller

Bronx (Oct. 12, 2011) — Walk less than a block from the chaotic pace of one of the South Bronx’s most knotted intersections and its frenzy gives way to a different rhythm, this one a percussion of uniform jab, jab, jabs and skilled duck, duck, hits.

Fighters dance in one of two boxing rings, at the command of their trainers. Men and a few women jump rope in front of large mirrors, counting their repetitions. Scrappy old fighters line the rings, chatting a little to men at their lockers.

The sounds are coming from John’s Boxing Gym at 436 Westchester Ave., a gym that prides itself on being home to present and past boxing champions. Slung on the wall, under a banner that proclaims the gym “Home of Champions,” is a picture of Joseph Agbeko, a wiley 31-year-old bantamweight.

Trainers at the gym say Agbeko will fight in a December rematch for his division championship in Atlantic City. He is among the gym’s current crop of champs, which includes welterweight Joshua Clottey and boxers who have won acclaim in the Showtime Championship and the state’s Golden Glove fights since the gym’s owner, Gjin Gjini, remodeled it in 2004.

Before Gjini (know better as “Jimmy”), the gym, then called Jerome Boxing Club, served up-and-coming champions. Its entryway walls, plastered with posters of boxers in their ring regalia, and gilded frames overtaking all of the office walls pay homage to some marquee names from those days: Alex Ramos and Chris Eubank.

Despite being well known in boxing circles, the aging facilities leave no doubt the gym is a relic of a past boxing age. Its interior is a little gritty and smells of lingering sweat. Save for the showers off to the side, the gym is a single room lit rather dimly with a dozen oversized ceiling fluorescents. Two rings, their floors a faded blue and rubbed nude in some spots, pervade one corner of the room, leaving an open L-shaped space where heavy bags and speed bags hang incongruously from the ceiling wherever there is enough room.

The lights cast shadows that help cover up some of the gym’s imperfections, hiding the brick walls’ chipped paint and the radiators’ rust. The chairs placed around the rings don’t match. Some are on wheels, decorated with patches of dirt, while others offer ripped cushions. Mat corners are worn bare, and the azure blue paneling is spewed with dark spots. The thin boards of the hardwood floor are frail with age.

But the condition of the gym isn’t what attracts the 35 men and two women here this Wednesday night. “This is real right here. It don’t get real-er than this,” says Randy Blyden, who aspires to become a professional boxer. He’s watching the 19-year-old fighter that Luis Casablanca, 50, is training to jab at the double-edged speed bag.

Blyden, a 20-year-old from Brooklyn studying to finish high school at the Bronx Leadership Academy, says he stops by every day of the week to learn from fighters and trainers at the gym. He’s come today wearing not the workout clothes he puts on three days a week but the wide ribbed gray sweater and jeans he had from his part-time job at a Queens Kmart.

“To me, it’s home. It’s the dents in the floor, the missing ceiling,” he says. “It’s a little run-down, but it’s home.”

Besides, everyone get to know each other well, Blyden says. From the front office, gym manager Pashk Gjini, 17, greets each patron walking in with a firm nod and “Hey, man, how are you?”

Well known in boxing circles, the gym prides itself on having hosted former and current boxing champions. (Photo: Laura J. Keller/NY City Lens)

But Joe’s gym, where membership costs $50 per month or $300 a year, is not just for casual boxers. It is a place where aspiring fighters can train with boxers who have already attained championship status or others who have interest in managing.

Most of the serious patrons have a trainer, who they meet with several times a week. , Trainer Casablanca says, trainers are territorial over their fighters. They take exclusive control of their fighters’ workout sessions and don’t welcome comments from other trainers about the training techniques they are using.

The trainers, Casablanca explains, concentrate on conditioning fighters so that they can instinctively perform well in the ring. “He doesn’t have to be like Speedy Gonzales, but he has to be smooth,” he says. The trainers are assessing their fighters’ performances, keen to create a signature fighting style.

“There’s a lot of competition,” says Edwin Viruet, 61, in a low voice. He is a former World Lightweight Title from Manhattan who eagerly teaches his “stick and move” style to young teens at the gym.

Viruet has aged, and, he says, put on weight since retiring from professional fighting in 1983. He points to photos and copies of newspaper articles he has cut out from the 1970s and laminated on a table jammed against one of the gym’s fighting rings.

“If you look around, I’m the only one with 15 rounds,” Viruet boasts. Now, boxers fight 12-round matches. “That’s why people look at me and say, ‘Oh, that guy’s gold,’” he says.

Viruet learned to spar and jab in this gym. He’s returned to teach others how they might become the gym’s next boxing champions.

Police approach a male suspect on the street in Harlem (Photo: Euna Lee/NY City Lens)

A week before Thanksgiving, the jurors in a criminal courtroom at the New York State Supreme Court found a teen-ager guilty of second-degree murder.  The young man, Mark Acevedo, 17, faces a sentence of 25 years to life; he will be in his forties before he’s eligible for parole.

Acevedo’s gang-related case is not unique. Teenage violence is the second leading cause of death for teenagers in the United States and increased poverty levels have triggered a rise in violence in certain parts of New York City. A recent U.S. Department of Justice study shows the rate of youth gang activity increased to 34.5 percent in 2009 from 32.4 percent in 2008. And the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice shows the biggest number of youth in detention in New York City come from the city’s poorest neighborhoods; East Harlem, St. George, South Jamaica, South Bronx, etc.

“Violent crime is largely a function of poverty. You won’t see many violent crimes on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,” said defense attorney Eric Sears, Acevedo’s lawyer.  “Those are people who have difficulties [living in projects] that they have to deal with where people in wealthy neighborhoods don’t have.”

Acevedo’s journey to court follows that pattern. It began in July 2010. In the afternoon on a sunlit, hot, humid day, 911 received more than a dozen calls from people near the Lincoln Projects in Harlem. One of the callers told 911 a young man fled from the scene. “He was young; maybe 20-something.”  The sense of urgency penetrated from the voice.

Paramedics responded to the calls first and then police arrived on the scene at East 132nd Street and 5th Avenue. They saw a puddle of blood on the street and found a tall, heavyset black man slumped over in the passenger seat of a blue GMC Yukon. They transported the man to Lincoln Hospital, the nearby hospital, but he was later pronounced dead on arrival.  The man was identified as Derek Nelson, 34.

Two days later, police arrested a suspect, Mark Acevedo.

Fifteen months after Nelson’s death, Acevedo sat alone in a Manhattan courtroom with his defense lawyer Sears. As Acevedo faced criminal charges in court, the prosecution, as part of its case, played 14 of the 911 calls received on that fatal day to re-create the chaos of the scene of Nelson’s death. Assistant District Attorney David Veiga at the New York State Supreme Court laid out what he argued is a gang related case: A youth gang member, Acevedo, had a dispute with a rival drug dealer for a territorial battle and drug distribution. Veiga argued that Acevedo received a gun from an older member to kill Nelson.

Acevedo’s trial went on for nearly three weeks and none of Acevedo’s family members attended. Acevedo’s past history, as Sears relays it, gives credence to the attorney’s view of teenage crime. Acevedo had been in and out of foster homes after his biological parents left him. A half brother, he grew up with in a foster home is his closest family member but he was never seen in the courtroom.

Teens hanging out after school near Madison Ave in Harlem (Photo: Euna Lee/NY City Lens)

“These kids don’t go to school and are out all night. These boys gangbanging one street to the next, selling drugs,” she said. “Guns are packed in their book bags. Their parents have no control over them.”

The increase in violence here is evident by looking at how business at local funeral homes is doing. Marison A. Daniels Funeral Home, one of more than a dozen funeral homes in Harlem, has performed more than 20 young people’s funerals so far this year. Most of them are from violence related deaths. The number of youth funerals has been slowly going up for the past 10 years. And Daniels has seen a big change in the cause of the young people’s death over 50 years.

“Going way back, pneumonia was a big factor [in teenage death]”, said Theodore Daniels, the owner of the Marison A. Daniels Funeral Home. “Now, it’s between violence and drugs.”

What makes teenagers so violent? Acevedo’s defense lawyer, Sears believes the environment is an important factor.

“People who appear to be a success in the neighborhoods are people who succeed on the street as opposed to [getting it from] school or careers,” said Sears. “Because of this poverty, there is less perception that they have future.”

Over the past 20 years, Sears has defended various teens accused of violent crimes; many of them raised in abusive homes. He remembers many of his young clients, who like Acevedo, would sit alone in the courtroom without any family members to support them. Sears remembers a particular defendant from nearly 20 years ago.

“A 13-year-old girl killed a taxi driver. She had been in and out of a foster home, physically and sexually abused all through her 13 years. She even had various psychiatric hospitalizations. It was predictable even in her medical record,” Sears said. “The doctor said this kid needs help. You can’t just put her back to the street. And one day it just blew up.” Sears said she is still serving her sentence.

Sears, an experienced lawyer knows well that a teenager’s bad upbringing can’t be an excuse in the court. But in many cases, Sears believes some explanation exists as to why a 13-year-old or a 16-year-old would shoot and kill someone.

But to a victim’s family, no explanation excuses the crime. “I feel sorry for the kid [Acevedo],” said Nelson’s grandmother, Annie D. Nelson, fighting back tears as she walked out of an elevator door of the courthouse. But for her, it’s all about the grandson she lost, the grandson she raised.

Others, like the Harlem resident who refused to give her name, don’t excuse Acevedo for his crime, but they understand what probably drove him to do it.

“He was stupid to kill my friend,” she said. “But they need to lock up the guy who gave him the gun.”

Attorney Sears denies Acevedo had a gun at all.

“It’s more than just lip service,” Sears said.  “Acevedo says, so I say, he did not kill Nelson. So nobody handed a gun to him.”

The only friend Acevedo seems to have is his long time friend Patricia Luna, 18. Acevedo made two calls from jail to her, Luna said

“He was very upset but tries to keep his head up,” Luna said outside of the courthouse. “Mark was like any teenage boy.”

Luna believes Acevedo did not kill Nelson, but is covering for someone.  “He was always less violent than any of his friends.  It’s very upsetting.  If he didn’t do it, he will serve a lot of time,” she said.

For Sears, it’s the end to yet one more teenager’s tragic story.

“He was 16 and now is 17.  He’s going to jail for a big chunk of his life.  How is a 17- year-old to do the first day of a 25 year sentence,” Sears said.

The Occupy Wall Street movement hopes to teach the world of capitalism a lesson. But next year the tables will be turned. A course on the protest movement is to be taught at New York University.

On Sunday, Dec. 4, shocking footage of a carriage horse collapsing in Central Park went around the world. It was the third such occurrence in six weeks. Now animal rights protesters are renewing calls to ban the trade. Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani reports.