Dylan Gauthier craves the quiet of winter

Name: Dylan Gauthier
Age: 34
Hometown: Venice, CA
Current town: Brooklyn, NY
Job description: boatbuilder; educator; media artist
Bio: Co-founder of Mare Liberum, a boatbuilding and printmaking artist collective in Gowanus, Brooklyn
Select links: The Free Seas 

Describe your current state of mind.

I would say surprisingly focused. Surprisingly because I have a tendency to meander. I think it's because I was out in the Pacific Northwest, which always re-centers me. Just came back from two weeks there with my wife Kendra, and it was a very grounding kind of experience in the quote-unquote natural world...both in and on the water and in the forests. The trees out there are huge and dark and haunted, and the water is deep blue and green and icy cold most of the year. And you can pick up oysters on the beach and then hike up into the rainforest for a picnic. So, I feel pretty chilled out and also like it cleared away a lot of that kind of city-stress that builds up here over time.

Chrissy Beckles took a knee to the cheek

Name: Chrissy Beckles
Age: "I’m older than Selena Gomez and younger than Madonna."
Hometown: Manchester, UK
Current town: Brooklyn, NY
Job description: Animal rights activist; boxer; former branding consultant
Bio: Founder of The Sato Project, a non-profit organization that rescues abandoned dogs from Dead Dog Beach in Puerto Rico; amateur boxing champion, trained and competed in Thai boxing, with a former title from Golden Gloves ("I fought at Madison Square Garden three times, which was really cool."); former consultant for Estee Lauder's Lipstick Queen line, by Poppy King 
Met at: Gleason's Gym, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Upcoming projects: "We’d really love to do a reality television show or a documentary."
Select links: "Operation Paws" (NY Times); "The Sato Project Saves Puerto Rico's Pups From Dead Dog Beach" (Pawnation); The Sato Project official site

Describe your current state of mind.

I’m exhausted because we had a very difficult trip to Puerto Rico about two weeks ago, and it's still foremost in my mind.  It’s probably one of the most difficult trips I’ve ever had in seven years of rescue.  I went down there for a specific event; it was the inauguration of the mayor of Yabucoa, which is the municipality where we primarily work.  A new mayor had been elected and he’s been very supportive of our efforts, so we wanted to reciprocate the support and have our volunteers there for his inauguration.  We had some dogs to transport, but we were also rescuing [new] dogs;  we rescued 23 in one week.  

Michelle Levy received a message from Agent Cooper's doppelganger

*Twin Peaks SPOILER ahead*

Name: Michelle Levy

Age: 36

Hometown: Great Neck, Long Island

Current town: Brooklyn, NY

Job description: Performer, arts administrator

Bio: Program director for Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts; created  Searching for Agent C, a seance-like performance project inspired by the TV Show, Twin Peaks

Upcoming projects: "I am in the process of spreading a spiritual movement inspired by the vision of the floating head of this guy I know, Matt Stromberg, surrounded by a cornucopia of living things - fruit, flowers, different types of vegetation, fish, planets, stars...I call the vision Cornucopia Stromberg, and it is a healing vision that first appeared to me when I was in a hospital bed. I have delivered some multi-media sermons (including a 15 minute projection of Cornucopia Stromberg coming to life), but the work is far from done. Working on some video related to it, and planning a tour in the spring…"

Met at: The West in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Select links: "Searching for Agent C" (Flavorpill); "David Lynch May Have Met with NBC to Discuss Reviving 'Twin Peaks'" (Warming Glow); michelle-levy.com

Describe your current state of mind.

I'm excited about the future, even if the world is about to end next week. I feel like things are going to start getting very interesting soon.

Michael Arenella's '66 Plymouth appeases the locals of yore

Name: Michael Arenella

Age: 34
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
Current town: Brooklyn, NY
Job description: Jazz vocalist; swing bandleader; musician; antiquarian
Bio: Founded Michael Arenella and his Dreamland Orchestra; hosts Gallow Green, on Sundays (5-8 pm) on the rooftop of the McKittrick Hotel (Sleep No More); a fixture at the annual Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor’s Island; performs at Cercle Rouge (7-10 pm) on Mondays, and at Clover Club on Wednesdays (8:30-11:30 pm)
Upcoming projects: The Winter Ball (Dec. 8th)
Met at: Clover Club on Smith Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
Select links: “Michael Arenella’s Jazz Age Life” (NY Times); “That Twenties Show” (WWD); “Jazz Age Lawn Party” (New Yorker); “Good Morning, Doll” (Glamour); official site

Describe your current state of mind.

That is a really good question. I feel like I am manning a very fast moving sailboat but all by myself. That's how I feel.

Why do you feel that way?

I'll speak metaphorically, since I already threw the sail boat thing out there. I feel like it took me awhile to get the sail boat gliding. Once I got the sail boat gliding, I felt like it took me awhile to get it gliding in the right direction. And now that I am gliding in the right direction, and I have a good wind in my sails, I'm sort of looking around and I'm saying, “How am I going to continue this journey?” Because it can be a little disenchanting and a little exhausting to be sort of a champion of an antiquated way of life.

Vanessa Cronan channels her wolf deity

Name: Vanessa Cronan

Age: 30
Hometown: Suburb outside of Philadelphia
Current town: Traveling
Job description: Interactive Ritual Healing Performance Artist
Bio: Touring under the moniker, VnessWolfCHild, as part of “Dawn of the Universe”; former member of Wildway, a music collaboration with Adriana Atema; member of art collective, Rabid Hands (“We make experiential art/music situations. We support each other get to the next level of our creative life joy selves. It's special. We put on a 60-person immersive art experience in a vacant convent in Greenpoint. We made several massive climbable sculptures in a dilapated warehouse in Detroit that's now used as a show space. In Columbia, Missouri, we demo-ed a portion of a hotel that was about to be torn down, built some installations and threw a concert. The whole process was made into short film installation.”)
Upcoming projects: “Dawn of the Universe Tour (performing as VnessWolfCHild; it's a musical/ritual performance art experience); ‘Age of Aquarius,’ an installation take over of a warehouse in Richmond Virginia organized by Andrew Schrock, where Amanda Stone and I will perform a myth about Awakening using the Japanese dance technique of Butoh, while interacting with animal sculptures; creating the next thing I'll perform on tour; writing a comic book about two friends telling each other when they felt most in touch with nature, with Amanda Stone; assisting Serra Victoria Bothwell-Fels for her solo show at Parse Gallery in New Orleans; making a video for a lead dance routine we've been doing to close our shows; we call it Spazzersize (spiritual jazzersize); other things that are a secret”
Select links: "Giving Away PaperGirl Art is Easier in Brooklyn" (NY Times); Spring 2011 Art + Architecture profile (Gowanus Ballroom); Dawn of the Universe (tumblr); "Live:  The Sequence of Waves Exhibit Crams A Former Convent with 60 Artists, Including Chris Weingarten In Duet With Justin Bieber" (Village Voice); "Slideshow: The Opening of A Sequence of Waves in Former Greenpoint Convent" (NY Mag)


Describe your current state of mind.

When I was teaching yoga in Philadelphia, there was this person who came to my class, who when I would ask, "How are you?" would respond using imagery of land formations and weather patterns. This was all we ever really said to each other, but I felt like I really understood him through the richness and subtlety of the visions he would create with his words. That being said, right now, I'm in the canopy. I'm in the thick vibrancy of the cicadas buzzing and the leaves caressing as the wind brushes through; I'm moving. I'm floating into spots where the trees aren't in the way of the sky and the light of the sun is extreme. It's so bright everything looks over exposed. There is a definite direction - though I'm not the one directing. It's all of the vibrancies bouncing off each other, creating the direction of the current. It's beautiful, like watching birds from the ground when the sun is low in the sky.

Mitch Horowitz remembers the UFOs of yore

Name: Mitch Horowitz

Age: 46
Hometown: Queens and Long Island, NY
Current town: New York, NY
Job description: Occult historian; author; tour guide
Bio: Published Occult America: The Secret Mystic History of Our Nation; conducts occult tours in New York City
Upcoming projects: One Simple Idea, a new book about the positive thinking movement. 
Select links: "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012" (The History Channel); "A Matter of Faith" (CBS Sunday Morning); "When Does a Religion Become a Cult?" (WSJ); "Reagan and the occult" (Washington Post); "Ouija! How this American Anomaly Became More than Just Fun and Games" (Esopus Magazine); "The Occult Isn't Just a Batty Idea in Someone's Attic" (Religion News Service)


Describe your current state of mind. 


My current state of mind is very divided, within the New Age and alternative spiritual culture, where I spend a lot of time. We speak of these inner and outer states as if they are different things. And the implication is often the product of what we call the ego or ambition, and the inner is associated with non-attachment, selflessness. I feel like the New Age is at risk of adopting a kind of religious language. We slip into what, unconsciously, a different out of state that we associate the inner life with - something desirable [to] the outer life, something egotistical, all all just labels that we can on to experiences. And I am trying right now to see more about this division in myself and whether it’s not altogether artificial.

Stephanie Diamond defines the hipster

Name: Stephanie Diamond

Age: 37
Hometown: New York, NY
Current town: Brooklyn, NY
Job description: "Artist; Social Practice practitioner; educator; community builder; healer"
Bio: "Stephanie has thrived on community engagement all her life. Her project, Listings Project, a free weekly email of real estate and opportunities listings serving people world-wide, has become a staple in the art community. She has worked with communities throughout the United States and abroad. She employs art as a vehicle to bridge gaps and provide access to places and people that would otherwise never come together. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. She is an adjunct professor, visiting artist and lecturer at various schools throughout the country. She has worked as in the education and community departments of museums as a director, consultant and teacher."
Upcoming projects: "Public Trust exhibition at Flux Factory which seeks to both celebrate and question the roles of formal and informal institutions that package and deliver culture"; new Listings Project website


How did the Listings Project come about?


Listings Project is a free weekly email of real estate and opportunities listings serving world wide creative communities and beyond. I create Listings Project every week by reading, curating and personally emailing each lister. There is a fee to post a listing. There is no cost to receive Listings Project.


I started the list in 2003 when I needed a place to live. In addition to going to brokers and going to other listings, I emailed all of my artist friends that I needed a place. Ideally people always cast a wide net when searching for things we need. I was living in Queens at the time the list began, then through friends I found a great place in Manhattan. My friends kept sending me great listings, I compiled their emails and then forwarded them, even though I found my new apartment. I didn't want people to miss out on these great opportunities, and it's so easy to forward emails.