Greetings from Asbury Park 🔹 Part 1 🔹 The gARTen @ 713 Cookman

cognoscere (68)in #photography • 7 years ago

Found a truly crazy art exhibit last evening while walking along Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

And it just goes to show some justification for always carrying a camera, because you just never know what's up around the bend, or down the block in this case!

We drove into Asbury yesterday evening to grab dinner at the Asbury Ale House which is a popular sports bar that was packed due to the bazillion flat screens that were showing the 142nd running of the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore as well as game 5 of the Western Conference hockey finals between the Nashville Predators and the Anaheim Ducks.

After dinner, we took a walk up and down Cookman Avenue which is the street that the Asbury Ale House is located on. Cookman also runs through one of the main areas currently undergoing revitalization in Asbury Park. It's a busy and crowded street with many nice restaurants, bars, and assorted shops. It's also a great people-watching area and you just never know what you might encounter.

Just after passing the Cookman Creamery there is an empty lot that has one of the most bizarre art exhibits I've seen in a while. It's the creation of an artist named Joe Harvard and it's an outdoor gallery for recycled art.

I could try to explain it, but it's probably better that you read the below description as told by Joe Harvard and then checkout the collection of photos I captured last evening. I hope you enjoy them!

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The gARTen @ 713 Cookman 2015-16
_{Formerly cleared and founded as a community "Garden of Joy", the lot had since become overgrown despite the efforts of subsequent guerrilla gardeners like Chuck "the Chuckinator" Ade & Lisa Bagwell [now at Kula Farms]. There were issues with broken glass, jetsam, rampant thorns and noxious plants in Spring 2015, when Asbury Underground Curator Joe Harvard began to clear it as an outdoor gallery for recycled art. With assistance from Cranial Mass Productions partner Mallory Massara & Mark Davis, AKA Xylophone of Wrench, they presented Beauty Thru Decay, a show with mixed media, photographs and canvases from all three artists for both the June and October Asbury Underground events -- for the first show it was called "The Garden of Good & Easel", but by October, 2015 it'd been renamed the gARTen @ 713 Cookman.}

_{The goal of becoming an outdoor black light art gallery was realized temporarily during Asbury Underground 8 and for events on Aug. 15 & Oct. 30, 2016, with the addition of the Magic Tent & newly developed LED black lights; the goal of a year-round version with more extensive lighting remains.}

_{The lot is used through the courtesy of Sackman Enterprises; Asbury Underground is the creative brainchild of art629 Gallery's Patrick Schiavino. Big love to neighbors Jenn Hampton & Jill Ricci at Parlor Gallery, the Johnson's at Cookman Creamery, Malcolm Navias at Heaven & the Show Room team, as well as Dave Warren & Julie Warren.}

Here's a Google Maps street view from back in August of 2013 when the vacant lot at 713 Cookman Avenue was used as a community garden:

Google Maps: 713 Cookman Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ

The view looking out from the patio of the Asbury Ale House

Here's a full view of the empty lot hosting the gARTen @ 713 Cookman 2015-16

There was another back section of this exhibit behind a locked door. I learned that it's open to the public during the daytime hours. Will definitely have to make a return visit to check it out!