It’s almost June. It’s almost summer. That means it’s almost time for Bushwick Open Studios, the annual event that stretches from East Williamsburg to Ridgewood in a grandiose three-day celebration of art on levels both individually intimate—as artists open their creative spaces to the public—and collectively extravagant—via group exhibitions, performances of various sorts, screenings, parties and so forth. It’s all free, by and large, and all thanks to months of hard work by a crew of stalwart volunteers at Arts in Bushwick. Among the chief organizers of this year’s festival is Lucia Rollow. We stole a few minutes of her time to find out what might be new and different about BOS 2014.
Over the last eight years, the event has grown consistently in terms of geography, numbers of participants and sponsors. Still true this year?
Yep! We made an effort to quell the numbers this year a bit by enacting a single registration rule: that participants in the festival have a year-round presence in the neighborhood. We left it a bit ambiguous to allow for creativity. Last year we had around 550 total registrations, I believe, and right now we’re at about 600 with one more week left in registration. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up with another 100 or so.