Arielle Avenia is the visionary behind Aftermath, a used art supply store located in the Silent Barn studios. Along with her business partner, Devin Lilly, Avenia opened up shop on March 1 of this year. We caught up with her for an interview:
“So what is Aftermath about?”
“Basically, I spent a long time in art school, accrued all of these supplies that I noticed people were just kind of discarding for no purpose other than that they were just moving or didn’t care enough to pick up after themselves…I’d been working with a lot of artists and seeing all the resources they require, and I thought it’d be really cool to be one of those resources for people…I consider this not just a shop, but an installation art project. I want it to be aesthetically pleasing, but it also has a greater purpose.”
“Is all of this stuff from donations?”
“I’d say maybe a fifth of it is mine, and then the rest of it is all donation. We probably had maybe 30 people donate to us in different ways.”
“That’s a lot of people.”
“Yeah, I have a spreadsheet.”
“Is it still coming in?”
“Yes; it’s amazing. I feel really lucky to have a very supportive community of people who want this to work…I feel like I’ve been handed the keys to the city because people will call me and say ‘I have all this stuff’… it’s like Christmas.”
“What are your best donations so far?”
“Someone gave me the key to their station wagon for two months to move stuff around, which was probably the most helpful donation…Someone else just gave us all of this Liquitex acrylic last week and I almost, like peed my pants, I was so excited…Also, my friend Ray Cross from Bushwick Print Lab gave us a lot of wood for the loft [which Avenia and Lilly built by hand, with the help of a few volunteers]…Beyond that, the best donation we got was from this art performance group named Cheryl…They were one of the first donations we had and just gave us the most incredible things…tons of paints and party supplies…this pile of sketchbooks…fabric, just everything you can imagine.”
“How is being a part of the Silent Barn?”
“I think it’s a super great place to incubate ideas…The coolest thing about Silent Barn is that it’s an all-ages venue, so maybe [people will] come for the art supplies and see the music, or come for the music and see the art supplies… I think it’s a great resource for college kids-or anyone in general-but especially the college population in Manhattan who’s kind of clueless about what’s going in Brooklyn or curious about any kind of underground DIY scene.”
“Are you ever going to sell anything you make here?”
“I feel like that kind of deviates from the purpose of this place. It’s not about my art. It’s about other people making art.”
“Any future plans?”
“We want to run some workshops here eventually. I have seven sewing machines, so I want to get them fixed and teach people how to sew, because I think that’s important to know how to do. And maybe this is super crazy and hoarder-y of me, but I want to start saving dryer lint so that I can make paper…I’m just really interested in using recycled stuff to make other stuff that you want.”
“How is business so far?”
“Right now it’s kind of just my social network that’s still finding out about this place… The next step is more of a public outreach and having other artists know that we exist [but] I go back and forth. I like that we’re kind of secret…that it’s something where people kind of wander back here and are like, ‘Is this your studio? Is this a store?’ Yep, both!
Honestly, it’s worth it to me to pay the rent on this space to just play shop and have my office upstairs…to have a say in the collective, to be able to interact with the community. If every once in a while we sell a little pot of ink, that’s great too.”
Aftermath is usually open 3-4 nights per week during shows at the Silent Barn (603 Bushwick Ave.). Stop by and stock up! Check them out on Facebook.
Author
Tori Wolffe likes music and art and stuff. She also works at Booktrope, a startup publishing company based in Seattle.