Art & Flea

The 2nd annual Village Art & Flea Market took place Saturday. I missed the first one so I can’t compare if the turn out was better. I was talking to somebody about it earlier that morning. Tiny fliers promoting the event were being handed out and the location was listed as the intersection of 4th Street & Newark, which is basically where the 4th Street Art Festival is held. Funny how those number streets have angles to them. Unlike Manhattan, we’re the anti-grid. It’s a funny little nook up there, in the shadows of the Turnpike, the weird forbidden zone separating Downtown from the Heights. The outskirts of Downtown, the outer edge of the Italian Village. I think the combination of nice weather and fleas made this event more fun than the 2009 4th Street Art Festival.

I should have taken a picture of these 8-tracks I saw. There was actually a tape, an official release tape of Double Dose by Hot Tuna. A terrible live record by a truly great group. I think I only heard it once. I wonder if the retro movement will do to 8-tracks what they are doing for vinyl. What’s next? A gas guzzling 8-cylinder ride. Washing down a Quaalude with Southern Comfort. Tuna! Always sobering to see some weird artifact from your youth, like a Hot Tuna 8-track, sold as a quasi antique. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. Sooner than you expect too! You can’t escape it. Your youth too will soon be a retro fad. If your He-Man & Skeletor are in their original packaging they may be worth more than your IRA ever will be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between community and art lately. There is more art in Jersey City lately and there is more of a feeling of community than there has been in a long time. What is the nucleus and what is that which coalesces? I can never tell the chicken from the egg.

Another social trend that has happened within the past decade or so is that couples here – still not an optimum singles town – are having kids and staying here. Used to be, this once cheaper alternative to Manhattan or Hoboken was a way station to the suburbs. Young yuppies would start their nest but then move it to the suburbs with the yards and the school systems and a neighborhood the grandparents would not mind driving to.

Now, it seems this new generation are having kids and intend to raise a new generation of city kids. We knew artists were having sex but who knew given the chance they would actually reproduce? Maybe it’s their just friends taking care of that aspect but I doubt it.

Used to be, artists seemed the artists off in their own world, separate and unequal. There was the world of the galleries and such and there was the world of young parents and it seemed the two communities occupied parallel universes, even when they coexisted side by side in the same setting. Certainly, realms still exist where there is no over lap. And, often our artists act pretty dang clubby. But more and more, the art events are more inclusive, there are kids around, welcomed even when the event isn’t just for kids. With children comes a larger semblance of community. One might suggest that the very concept itself requires children since communities that remain stagnant soon disappear. Art is pretty hard to make a buck at, much less a decent living, but as a reason for people to come together and share a feeling of community, it seems quite effective. Something new is going on with this city and the arts, a sort of mutual enhancement of quality of life. By new, I don’t mean new just for this city, either.


This particular event was an interesting mix of art—the artisans and crafts men & women—and fleas, folks selling their old stuff. A garage sale exploding, a communal stoop sale. At Brunswick some musician performed on the street. A microphone and some amps, no stage. A young boy danced within a hula-hoop. It was a beautiful spring day. Spring and Fall, not many great days distinctive to those seasons. Summer and Winter dominate our lives, always coming too early then lasting too long. A couple of food vendors were intermixed with the tables of jewelry and paintings that were alongside tables of used stuff and hand-me-downs. Not much happened, besides community and an afternoon.