Brooklyn-based artist and commercial-studio-building developer Stef Halmos talks about:
How she feels about Greenpoint’s gentrification arc, as a 12-year resident there herself; her commercial development in Catskill, New York, two hours north of the city, where she’s helming the renovation and rentals of a 50,000 sq. foot building called Foreland Catskill for studios, galleries and production facilities; the genesis for starting the project/buying the building, which came out of wanting to join a communal studio situation instead of working from home; what she’s been learning as a developer/project manager in terms of obtaining permits (much easier than it would have been in the city), working with the contractor (Rich, who she speaks about glowingly), and what they need to do to keep the building sustainable for another 150 years; her father, who co-owns the building with Stef and also acts as her mentor and “consigliere,” providing endless advice on the project; her early years as a video artist and photographer, including interning for Annie Leibowitz; losing all the work she had ever made (which had been kept in UHaul storage) during Superstorm Sandy, and how that changed her art-making and career trajectory; and the two-and-a-half years when she wasn’t making any work at all, and how she managed to turn that unproductive period around.