Devoted Viewers, and loyal supporters of Neighborhood Arts,

Again, we at Arts Insight come forth to you and ask, you generous souls, if any one of you would be so kind as to possibly donate an air conditioner (preferably one of those nice high-tech floor models with the hose that hangs out the window) to our brand-new facility? Your tax-deductible contribution would be sincerely appreciated by both our volunteer staff and the guests who appear on our program.

Well, okay, fine. We'll dispense with the phony plea letter and tell you how our first taping in our new facility went. In the spirit of the Arts Insight cable show, we've come to discover that our new quarters will still be in need of tweaking. Just as our old bedroom television studio set was in a perpetual makeshift state of tweaking, we've come to learn the same is true in Nancy's basement...boiler noise,video and sound equipment failures, and camera angle adjustments that would make a contortionist envious were minor quibbles on our list. The most major complaint...the immense amount of HEAT generated by all of our lighting grids. Boy, I guess we weren't thinking about circulation when we installed the set in a basement. We were accustomed to the fact that Andrew's old bedroom had a 5000 BTU air conditioner precariously nailed to the window sill. Perhaps our ambition and lack of foresight got the best of us. For a debut guest in our new space, we didn't start off with a small comedy troupe of two, either. Nope -- in fact we opted for a metal band of five. Add four crew members into the mix and you get eight sweaty men and one woman packed in a basement taping headbanging tunes and waking up the neighborhood. What fun!!

We were actually glad we pushed the limits of the space. GODAMHATE, our very first metal band on Arts Insight, hailing from the Bronx, rocked the house (quite literally) that evening. The tattoo-laden quintuplet occupied every square inch of our new set, which is as always, (as a newspaper journalist reviewing our show best put it) "a stunning exercise in the maximization of living space, impressive even by New York’s extreme standards." The heavy beats, piercing chords, and screaming lyrics about passion, regret, and revenge really set the mood for an intense and productive taping. And even though we were a bunch of sweaty men that evening (with one accompanying cheerful Brit), we worked hard and by all accounts, shifted the foundation of Nancy's limestone rowhouse by about 3/8 of an inch. BUT, we didn't break any dishes. Hats off to our first guest in the new space that truly christened our studio facility, THANK YOU GODAMHATE!! And also, a big thank you to Arts Insight's new announcer and sidekick (and longtime troublemaking British friend of Andrews'), Laura Little. We always find the need to throw in a British accent somewhere.

 

Devoted Viewers, and loyal supporters of Neighborhood Arts,

We here at Arts Insight are pleased to announce, that after endless months in searching for a new facility and home to tape our cable show in, our very own volunteer staffer, artist and friend, Nancy Lunsford, has so graciously donated basement space in her own home to help continue and further Arts Insight's cause in promoting and supporting community arts.

You may recall, the future of Andrew's former bedroom television studio was in question around August of 2005 (located at 8th Avenue and 4th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn). Since we didn't have too many allies on the Co-Op board of 401 8th Avenue, as of then, we had to begin the painful process of scrambling for a space that we could build our studio set and production facility in. A section of Nancy's art studio basement couldn't have been a more perfect match. Our former cramped abode of 180 sq. ft. now gets a new lease on life in Nancy's basement, expanding our quarters to the tune of 225 sq. ft. (an addition of 45 sq. ft. -- not bad, eh?). Certainly, as it was in the last space (Andrew's bedroom), taping a cable show in a makeshift television studio isn't always an agile endeavour. Take for example our new basement facility. We've got a noisy boiler situated right next to Camera 1, leaky pipes, roaches, and standing water. Oh what fun! Just joking, Nancy!

Kidding aside, we're truly delighted to announce that our studio set and facility was resurrected on May 29th, 2006 to Andrew's same exacting specifications (pain-in-the-ass). As a result, Arts Insight will return to cablecast on Brooklyn Community Access TV (BCAT) on July 21st (at 2 PM and 10 PM, Channels 56/69) and Manhattan Neighborhood Network on July 26th (11:30 PM on Channels 56/17 and 84) respectively. From Nancy's new facility, we will be taping our 166th edition of Arts Insight. At the moment, we're not quite at liberty to divulge who our surprise guests are, but tune in, and you'll find out!

Thank YOU, all of you for your continued support of Arts Insight!!

Here are some pictures from past and present. The past ones are ones that we took of the initial construction of our new set in 2004, and the present photos are that of the very same new resurrected set and Arts Insight facility, now comfortably sitting in the confines of Nancy Lunsford's basement: