Grand Street communityARTS invites youto celebrate the
completion of the BoardedUP community art project.

BoardedUP is a 6 month, street-level showcase featuring
the new works of 40 area artists.

All works will be on display and up for auction.

Support communityARTS!

Friday September 12, 6pm
64 Grand Street, Albany

More information on the artists of BoardedUP is below (click "read more" to see the full list)

· alisa sikeleanos

· ally kirby

· barbara shema

July boardedUP is now up and looks incredible. We will probably keep it up into august a little as this will be the last month of boardedUP!

This show has really exceeded our expectations and has been an amazing way to open a dialog about communityART with neighborhood residents and regulars. We will have a big closing event and art auction September 12th so save the date.

Thank You to all of you that came to see the show, that stopped to look and talk about the art.

Thank you to all of the participating artists-
alisa sikeleanos, ally kirby, barbara shema, benj gleeksman, burnest cashu FOE, cookie, demetrius dickerson, derek revella, dwell, dylan boyce, eileen cheong, g.g. roberts, gabrielle becker, issie, james van duyn, jamie courcelle, kat peters, laura travison, lauren jacobs, liberation please, m.s., marcus kwame anderson, mark gregory, mc3, melissa marceau, michelle legget, nicole martin, pasquale littlejohn, peter amorosa & leigh cummings, r. iannacone, radical, rebecca schoonmaker, scout + stain, slack, steven rolf kroeger, tashi palden, uneek, and warren macmillan

A set of 8 new works is up for May. This is the third month of boardedUP! and we have received a lot of positive feedback from the first two months. Madison avenue gets a lot of foot traffic and people have really come forward to tell us they enjoy the show. We've had conversations with people about what they like about some of the work, some people have shared stories about art they used to make. In fact one of the artists featured this months comes from some one who stopped to talk to us about the show and lives right across the street. We hope to extend the show for another month or two! This show is up for the month of May please come by to see before it's gone.

St. Savior
A former Catholic church unites the Mansion neighborhood as an arts center

By DANIELLE FURFARO, Staff writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Sunday, April 13, 2008

ALBANY - Eileen Cheong thinks the Mansion neighborhood has found its patron saint.

"Who is the guardian of this community?" said Cheong, a neighborhood resident and artist. "Who does the community look to for support?"

For Cheong, that patron saint bears the name of Saint Anthony, which is the name of the old, abandoned church that is now home to Grand Street Community Arts.

Many of the residents of the Mansion neighborhood, the area east and south of the Executive Mansion, see Grand Street Community Arts and its ongoing transformation of the dilapidated St. Anthony's Church into an arts and cultural center as a savior of the neighborhood.

Grand Street Community Arts' new "Boarded Up" project is the most public display of that transformation thus far.

"It's a good idea of what to do with something so dismal," said artist Alisa Sikelianos, who contributed one of this month's window paintings. "They are taking boarded up windows and turning them into art."

Our first month of boarded up! was amazing & we've people passing by have been very impressed and excited abot the art and aren't shy about letting us know about it.

April's rotation went up last week and is continnuing the momentum.  More and more people are finding out about the show and many are interested in getting invovled.

Come by and see April's exhibition before it's gone.

More to come in May. . .

Also, if you know anyone who might be interested in submitting a proposal for boarded up! We are still taking submissions here.

Visit GSCA's flickr site.

March rotation of BOARDED UP will be coming down April 1st and replaced with new works for April. If you haven't come by to see yet, now is the time!

COME SEE GSCA's boarded up!

Boarded up! is an ongoing show featuring the work of artists on 9 boarded up windows on the exterior wall of GSCA's Artspace (former St. Anthony's church).

Come down to Madison Ave @ Grand Street to take a look,

The 1st monthly rotation of Boarded Up is on display now. We had some really amazing submissions, made some difficult decisions, and are very pleased with the work that we selected. We will have a brand new rotation in april, may, and possibly beyond.

More photos after the jump (click read more below).

Grand Street Community Arts (GSCA) presents “Boarded Up”.

Boarded Up! seeks visual artists to produce artwork on plywood panels to be displayed on the exterior of the church building on the boarded up basement windows of south (Madison Ave.) side.

Artists will use plywood (which will be provided) as their canvas. The pieces will be displayed in the buildings exterior south side (on Madison Ave) windows. There are nine windows, each artist will have one window and their work will be displayed for one month.