Me and Roz at the Louis Armstrong House Museum

This post originally appeared on www.hoongyee.com

I have been running around with Roz Nieves of QPTV and her camera crew grabbing footage of artist interviews, performances, readings, and garden tours happening this weekend on the Queens Art Express.

Dean Project

So far, we have spent time in Long Island City chatting with Reinaldo Sanguino about the quirky hand twisted mops from their exhibition, “Jack in the Space” at the Dean Project and meeting John Navarro, a young film maker screening his horror film at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center.  After a full day of filming we topped off our day at Bistro Latino La Vuelta with mojitos and great food – a fantastico combination of art and food!

sign in tables for the garden tours

Saturday morning found us wandering through Jackson Heights starting with a garden tour with the Jackson Heights Beautification Group and art around the park featuring one of a kind pieces and one liners from local artists from the Jackson Heights Art Club exhibiting their work on the fence,

Me and two Jackson Heights artists

against the walls of buildings and inside a neighborhood jewel of a cafe, espresso 77, where the friendly girls behind the counter were busy restyling their Queens Art Express T shirts.

espresso 77 girls

art on the walls in Jackson Heights

In another garden, in another part of Queens, we walked into a jazz concert at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona.

Shades of Satchmo and ice tea in a leafy garden was a very cool way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

For lunch, Roz brought us over to Pio Pio, a cavernous Peruvian chicken place on Northern Boulevard where we ordered something called the Maestro.  ”You get more than you can eat and you end up taking stuff home.”  she warned us as we scanned the menu.

She was right.  Instantly, a rotisseried chicken cut in quarters appeared with large side orders of yellow rice and beans, maduras, yellow plaintains and an avocado salad.  This is a family style place with a relaxed atmosphere, a place to come back to with a swarm of friends or, in our case, with a TV crew.

Sitting with theater members of Adhikaar’s Arts & Activism program at the Jackson Diner

Our last Queens Art Express event for the day was a literary reading presented by a new QCA program, QUILL, Queens in Love with Literature, and the Asian American Writers Workshop at the Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights.

I walked down iconic 74th street talking about the neighborhood as Kevin caught some B roll and when we got to the diner, Manjit, the owner, brought out four tall glasses of mango lassi and a plate of vegetable samosas for us.

You would never have thought we had just devoured a Maestro platter at Pio Pio the way we savored this Indian treat!

Several local writers and members of a theater group presented readings in a glass enclosed second floor space above the restaurant to a packed audience.

Platters of samosas were served with two sauces – tamarind and cilantro with green chili – and hot masala tea.  I was struck by how much everyone loved the localness of this literary event and that they wanted more of it.  For me, to present writers of other languages and other experiences is a way to live in other worlds.  Local artists bring a passion in presenting their work that is both transcendant and transformative.

Add great food and atmosphere and you have a  true word feast.

Me, Koosuke Ikeda and Roz @ Subdivision in Long Island City

Crazy T shirts

To wrap up our weekend, we set up shop in Subdivision, a boutique/gallery in Long Island City to talk to Koosuke Ikeda,  a local artist currently exhibiting there.  Here you will find unique pieces by emerging designers including some handknit pieces by Virginia, the owner.

“I have to really start working on stuff now that its summer so that I have things ready for the fall.”  Virginia smiled with a sigh.

“You are a knitting squirrel.”

She liked that.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?