Buffalo

So the place we are currently working at up in Buffalo, NY is a strange little hub of arts activity seated in the middle of this little, formerly huge, formerly industrial town. Hallwalls is a contemporary artspace that literally began as a hallway gallery organized by a group of local artists outside of their studios located in an old converted ice house- one of it's founding members being Cindy Sherman!!! Hallwalls has since moved on from it's humble ice house beginnings and moved into the sprawling arts complex that is Babeville. Babeville (partly pictured here!) is a former turn of the century Methodist church complete with a towering steeple and features the performance venue/sanctuary (which we will be playing in tomorrow!) called Asbury Hall, the headquarters of Ani DiFranco's music label Righteous Babe Records and, of course, the newest permutation of Hallwalls- complete with a gallery/exhibition space, an on-site cinema that hosts screenings, and even a full on recording studio which we are in right now!

Hallwalls also offers a residency program, H.A.R.P. (Hallwalls Artists-in-Residence Project), which uses funding from different grant organizations to host artists to shuffle up to Buffalo and work on a project! In our case, Brent, me and Mike McGinley are here through the help of H.A.R.P. and the National Endowment for the Arts (and upon further inspection the Andy Warhol Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts) to map out the sounds for the new film and to perform Gravity live! Hallwalls is a pretty spectacular model for what a contemporary artspace should be: supporting the work of all types of artists, sharing them with a community and expanding the creation of new work! I think I am starting to love Buffalo...even despite the unearthly frigid winds!