William Sofield, Nancy Lorenz, Jamie Drake, Ed Farrell Photo: Gina Curovic
On February 13, a coterie of bold-faced names within New York City’s art and design spheres descended on Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Alpha Workshops. The star-studded evening raised a glass to the organization’s ongoing commitment to providing decorative arts education and employment to adults with visible and invisible disabilities. The nonprofit was founded by Kenneth Wampler in 1995—the height of the AIDS crisis—to benefit the HIV-positive community.
To kick off the evening, Alpha’s executive director Ed Farrell gave welcoming remarks that honored the organization’s social and creative impact across three decades and traced its model back to early-20th-century London, where the famed Omega Workshops emerged as a group of iconoclast painters. In particular, he praised Wampler and the board of trustees who “believed in Ken’s vision of a place where people trying to live with AIDS and HIV would come together to work with their hands in the practice of decorative painting,” he said. “[Alpha’s inclusivity has always increased to meet the needs of the community at the moment. The diversity and breadth of lived experience of those drawn to Alpha throughout 30 years have contributed to our longevity.”
Wallpaper by The Alpha Workshops. Photo: Gina Curovic
He also acknowledged the increased resources The Alpha Workshops now enjoys following its relocation to the Powerhouse Arts building this past spring. The cavernous former power station underwent a decade-long revamp into a community-focused contemporary arts hub, which was officially inaugurated in 2023 under president Eric Shiner. The Alpha Workshops can now collaborate with fabricators across the facility’s expansive ceramics, printmaking, and public art departments, affording new creative possibilities for their artists and designers. “Alpha is concentrating on wallpaper, textile, and fine art commissions,” Farrell said, as well as “getting the Alpha Workshops Studio School back to capacity, bringing alumni back into our space for additional training, and collaborating with Powerhouse fabricators.”
In another grand celebration of Alpha’s 30th anniversary, Powerhouse Arts presented artist Nancy Lorenz’s monumental Cieli E Terra Nuova (2023)—a quartet of painted and gilded jute banners depicting earthly and celestial themes—in the former power station’s soaring Grand Hall on the graffiti-clad top floor. Previously only displayed at Rome’s Basilica Santa Maria in Montesanto in Piazza del Popolo, otherwise known as Chiesa degli Artisti (Church of the Artists), the occasion marked the majestic commission’s Stateside debut.
“I was so inspired by the big and gorgeous things happening [at Powerhouse],” Lorenz told Galerie after Shiner gave her a tour of the building. She mentioned wanting to create limited edition works based on her original banners when Shiner suggested the organization’s newest collaborator, The Alpha Workshops. “I knew Alpha from their early days, when they first started making handmade wallpapers,” Lorenz recalled. “I was so happy to reconnect with them. I love their mission and their commitment to fine craft.”
She collaborated with The Alpha Workshops Textiles Shop to produce a series of collectible prints based on the basilica murals utilizing burlap, traditional gesso, and dry pigments embellished with precious metal leaf. “They meticulously recreated my original studies with a kind of obsessiveness that matched my own when making those first drawings,” Lorenz said of the prints, available in an edition of 25 and packaged in a light blue box made by Hope Bindery.
Both the monumental banners and limited editions were previewed at the ceremony, which was attended by artists, designers, gallerists, and other art-world luminaries. These included Sarah Gavlak, William Sofield, Cristina Grajales, Elizabeth Fiore, Jane Beebe, Frances Beatty, Alpha Workshops board chair Jamie Drake, and more.
Cieli E Terra Nuova(2023) by Nancy Lorenz. Photo: Gina Curovic
Nancy Lorenz and Elizabeth Fiore. Photo: Gina Curovic
Megan Skidmore, Sarah Gavlak, Reed Seifer. Photo: Gina Curovic
Jamie Drake. Photo: Gina Curovic
Frances Beatty and Eric Shiner. Photo: Gina Curovic
Nelson Segarra and Nelson Rodriguez. Photo: Gina Curovic
Lindsay Walt and Carol Polakoff. Photo: Gina Curovic
“Nancy Lorenz: Cieli E Terra Nuova” will be on view at Powerhouse Arts (322 Third Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215) until February 20 by appointment only.
