Create regional Infrastructures that are diverse and well adapted to the local ecological,social and geological realities. A bioregion is an area that shares similar soils, climate, and plant and animal communities, they can include several watersheds. As a planning tool it dates to the 1920's when they were devised as physiographic provinces combining the sciences of physical geology and geography. Today they are being used as a regulatory base map by the EPA and the DEP and The Nature Conservancy. We are expanding the concept to create regionally appropriate models for economic development using Permaculture design.

It is about the development of agricultural practices in a context with a deeper look at the landscape of the region, appropriate to the geography and heritage of the place. It is about accountable stewardship of urban cityscapes to dramatically reduce the enormous waste generated by those spaces and to create positive relationships between cities and outlying rural communities. Andrew Faust asks, “How do we retrofit this infrastructure to be more ecologically sound and socially responsible?” He seeks the answer to this question in permaculture, articulating the interconnectedness of ecology and economy and describing tangible, simple, and yet somehow revolutionary urban and rural designs.

One of the premier Permaculture teachers and designers in North America with nearly two decades of experience in the field. His passionate and visionary presentation and curriculum has been inspiring and motivating students since his days as an alternative school teacher at Upattinas in Glenmoore, PA.

Andrew lived off the grid in West Virginia for 8 years where he designed and built a Permaculture inspired homesteaad including a 1600 sq ft strawbale house. He moved to Brooklyn in 2007 and has been applying his knowledge to the urban landscape culminating in a Permaculture Design Certification course many consider life changing. He is developing The Center for Bioregional Living in Ellenville, NY with his partner Adriana Magana as a pilot campus for his students, clients and baby daughter Juniper.

Andrew Faust has been practicing permaculture and biodynamics since receiving his Permaculture Design certificate in 1996. Some of our design clients include Ezekiel's Place Retreat Center in Hedgesville, WV, Leaveners Respite Center in Essex, NY,Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, VT, and local businesses and residents. Previous clients include the Gesundheit! Institute in Hillsboro, WV and Camphill Village Kimberton Hills in Chester County, PA. Faust has extensive experience in doing designs for a wide range of climates and habitats including desert, forest and mountain. He is a certified Alternative School Teacher, focusing on Bioregional Education; he instructed atUpattinas Open Community High School for ten years. Faust holds a B.A. in comparative religions from Guilford College.

Adriana is a permaculture designer and certified horticulturalist living in Ellenville, NY. She runs the administrative side of Center for Bioregional Living and renders most of the maps and designs for their growing roster of clients. She is an avid researcher, home-maker, herbalist, nutritionist, gardener, artist, crafter, musician and mother. She formulates most of the family’s herbal medicine and cosmetics and teaches classes on these as well as traditional food topics. She is passionate about natural child rearing and believes in keeping things as simple as possible.

Adriana, aka Dreiky, spent numerous years playing drums, recording and touring with legendary super group Crash Worship. She moved to NY’Cs Lower East Side in 1996 (from San Diego and a brief stay in New Orleans) to squat a building that was then torn down. She moved to Brooklyn after this and for nearly 8 years curated the celebrated underground loft party Happy Birthday Hideout.

She started the Hungry March Band with artist Leslie Samuels and a handful of musician friends in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to play at the Mermaid Day Parade in 1997. Other bands that she has performed (singer, drummer, keyboards, producer) with are: The Turn-Offs, Televised Execution, Morricone Youth, Express Fiesta Glacier, Lycaon Pictus, Sxip Shirey, The Loser’s Lounge and many others. In 2002 she performed Fantastic Light at Roulette in NYC, an experimental opera made possible through a generous grant from the Jerome Foundation. She is now compiling an album of the songs she sings to her young daughter Juniper Amie Faust Magana.

GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE, BROOKLYN and GRAY ZONE, KINGSTON

at ROSEKILL, ROSENDALE NY

GRAY ZONE
1. An area intermediate between two mutually exclusive states or categories, where the border between the two is fuzzy.
2. It exists in a grey area between legal and illegal.
3. topic that is not clearly one thing or the other, that is open to interpretation.
4. Synonyms[ (an area intermediate between two mutually exclusive states or categories): penumbra
-wiktionary

[ Gray Zone logo by Vincent Tiley ]

The Gray Zone, Kingston and The Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn are run the by husband and wife team of Jill McDermid and Erik Hokanson

Presenting a Performance Art Gallery:
PERFORMANCE ART is not theater, dance, spoken-word, painting, poetry or sculpture yet it is all of these.

GRAY ZONE, KINGSTON continues the founding mission of the Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn: the Glorification of Performance Art, yet in a location more loudly resonant in Nature. Gray Zone on the Rondout is only yards away from the Hudson River estuary that provides life-sustaining water for agriculture and wildlife. Gray Zone is on Broadway, a life-sustaining thoroughfare through all of the variances of the City of Kingston, itself in a gray area surrounded by river, mountains, farms and towns.

GRAY ZONE celebrates the diversity of our world by centering itself in this city and in this valley that are abundant with all kinds of diversity - providing a conduit of experience for the peoples of Kingston, the Hudson Valley and beyond.

McDermid was first based in Marbletown, NY then Brooklyn where in 2006, with Melissa Lockwood, they opened the Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn, offering live works by the current generation of performance artists from around New York, the USA and the world. These live performances have always been presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer.

Grace Exhibition Space has had the opportunity to present local artists Thomas Albrecht [Kingston], Meghan Van Alstyne [Albany/Kinderhook]area artists Peter Dobill, Marni Kotak, Rob Andrews [NYC] Nyugen Smith, Rafael Sanchez [New Jersey] Marilyn Arsem , Mari Novotny-Jones, Jeff Huckleberry, Sandy Huckleberry, Alice Vogler, Vela Phelan, Sandrine Scheaffer, [Boston] and internationally renowned artists Roi Vaara, Essi Kasalinnen [Finland] Gim Gwang Cheol [South Korea] Boris Nieslony [Germany] W. Christiawan [Indonesia] Chen Jin [China] Fernando Ribiero [Brazil], Martin Renteria and Pancho Lopez [Mexico], Non Grata [Estonia + Beyond]

We plan to continue our focus on diverse community-building through our unique programming which will continue in Kingston, throughout the Hudson Valley and beyond.

Jill McDermid earned an MFA in Intermedia: Video + Performance after three intense years of study and creating at the University of Iowa, 2000. Since then, she has presented hundreds of performance art fdisolyas through the Grace Exhibition Space for Performance Art since 2006, the Fountain Art Fair, the Egeszegedre series and 21st Suffragettes: Art + Performance by Women.

Erik Hokanson studied at the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, MA. He worked as a painter, sculptor, jeweler and object-maker until 2007 when he began making conceptual performance art. Since then, he has been performing in NYC and international performance art festivals. He currently runs the Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn with Jill McDermid. Erik Hokanson is also a highly skilled luthier, making guitars from idea to design through building and playing.

GRACE:
Grace, n. - simple elegance or refinement of movement
Grace Period - an extended period granted as a special favor
The Three Graces (Greek Mythology) - charm, grace, and beauty

Opened in 2006, Grace Exhibition Space is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging works by the current generation of international performance artists whether emerging, mid career or established. Being a Brooklyn loft, our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art.

Grace Exhibition Space presents over 30 curated live performance art exhibitions each year, showcasing new work by more than 400 performance artists from across the United States and the world since 2006. Grace Space received fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas in 2007.

Since opening, Grace Space has had the opportunity to present three pivotal members of the internationally famous group Black Market International: Boris Nieslony, Roi Vaara and Lee Wen; Mexican artist and curator Martin Renteria and the 3rd World Pirate Marcel Da Champ. We have hosted the local, internationally renowned artists Peter Dobill, Marni Kotak, Nugent Smith, Rafael Sanchez and Rob Andrews- as well as the internationally renowned Boston artists Mari Novotny-Jones, Jeff Huckleberry, Sandy Huckleberry, Alice Vogler, Vela Phelan, Sandrine Scheaffer and Marilyn Arsem (Ms. Arsem was presented through esteemed curator Jonas Stampe's Live Art Festival).