Richey Wikipedia - Google Docs

Richey Wikipedia - Google Docs

Beverly M. Richey (born April 25, 1953) is an American artist known for her work in cake, waste, feminist art, political conceptual performances, early social engagement and the significance of local issues in creating art. (foot note?)

 

Lenore Tawney (born Leonora Agnes Gallagher; May 10, 1907 – September 24, 2007) was an American artist known for her drawings, personal collages, and sculptural assemblages, who became an influential figure in the development of fiber art.[1]

 

Early life and education[edit]

The younger of two children born in New Haven, Ct to  American born Jewish parents Helen Liner Richey and Herman Richey. She left home at 18 to begin her college studies. Richey attended Upsala College in East Orange, NJ for a semester before returning to New Haven, Ct where she worked to support herself and began studies at South Central Community College. Upon completing that she moved to Storrs Ct to continue to study psychology at the University of Connecticut.

1980'S NEW HAVEN ARTISTS UNITED-ONLINE ARCHIVE | #ABBC/THIS POST REMAINS UNDERCONTRUCTION *** | Facebook

ABBC 1980'S NEW HAVEN ARTISTS UNITED-ONLINE
ARCHIVE | # *| Facebook

Artspace Asks: "Who Governs?" ABBC BEV RICHEY CAKE

Artspace Asks: "Who Governs?"

John Landino/Building Facade of ABBC 1987 - Google Photos

LINK TO FuLL PHOTO ALBUM HERE:

John Landino/Building Facade of ABBC 1987 - Google Photos

These photos were taken in John Landino's studio on Front Street in 

Fair Haven, Ct (near the Grand Ave, Bridge) on the Quinnipiac River.

Photo Credit: Tim Feresten or Roberta Chambers

In the studio with him that night are other ABBC members of the ABBC operations crew:

Judith Johnston

Joyce Greenfield

Ellen Wolpin

Beverly Richey

Phillip Chambers

LEARN MORE ABOUT JOHN LANDINO'S EARLY WORK HERE ON FB: 

"A-mazing Bureaucratic Birthday Cake" 1988 Google Photo Album doc.

"A-mazing Bureaucratic Birthday Cake" 1988 - Google Photos

This is the google photo ALBUM I used to share materials with New Haven Curator, Frank Mitchell. Frank curated the show who Governs? for Artspace in 2020 (yes, during the pandemic). we also had the ABBC ZOOM REUNION as part of that EXHIBITION. 

No 'just desserts' on this birthday cake

New Haven Register
Sunday June 5 1988

No 'just desserts' on this birthday cake
By Barbara Steinberger

New Haven - Getting a free piece of cake wasn't a piece of cake in this city Saturday.

But according to designers of the A-Mazing Bureaucratic Birthday Cake, that's the price you have to pay for democracy.

In order to get a small square piece of dessert at the "New Haven Celebrates New Haven" festival on the Green, visitors had to survive a bureaucratic runaround that made waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles seem like a day at the beach.

For most cake-eathers, the ordeal began with a five-to-10 minute wait, during which over zealous cake commissioners passed out cake consumption permit applications (in duplicate of course) and "cake police" kept the crowd orderly. About 30 people milled around in line at any one time.

Then the nightmare began.

Bewildered visitors were forced to wade through a sea of red tape (in this case, red streamers and balloons), and get rubber stamps (in duplicate) proclaiming them for "zoned for cake consumption" and "approved for cake release".

After declaring whether they were "fork-users" or "non-fork-users" choosing the appropriate flavor, and confessing whether they had ever previously been denied cake, the by-now starving applicants took and oath and proceeded to the cake distribution center, where volunteer cake servers such as Mayor Biagio DiLieto and US rep. Bruce Morrison, D3, gave them the long awaited baked goods.

But those who declared themselves fork-users were out of luck since there were no forks available.

And as for the choice of flavor-well, those who picked chocolate cake with chocolate frosting just had to settle for white cake with green frosting, because that was all there was.

"We were told forks are plastic and if you burn them it releases dioxin," Morrison said. "And chocolate is too expensive. They can have any kind of cake they want, as long as it's what we have."

All this was just a little too much for some cake applicants to handle. "I don't believe I am doing this for a piece of cake," said a hungry Paula Diliberto of Bristol as she stood in line with her permit application. "Do we want cake this badly?" Another women asked her friend.

But this wasn't just some half baked idea. A 30 member cake bureau, including a panel of 13 cake commissioners, spent about six weeks formulating policy, defining terms, designing stationary and memos, and making up agendas and minutes, said Beverly Richey, marketing and membership director for the Greater New Haven Arts Council and the artistic director of the cake project.

The cake was made by Leon's Bakery in Hamden, which planned to give out 3500 pieces over four cake-serving periods Saturday and today, said bakery owner and chief cake commissioner Leon Weinberg. Visitors to the green can apply for cake today from 1-4pm and 5-7:30pm.

 OTHER ARTICLES RELATED TO RICHEY'S ART/LIFE/WORK 

A Cake by Committee transient Art an amazing part of 350th

New Haven Register 
June 1988

A Cake by Committee transient Art an amazing part of 350th
By Markland Taylor

To Beverly Richey, Leon Weinberg, and friends, New Haven's 350th birthday celebrations this weekend are quite literally, a piece of cake.

To be precise, 3500 of official, free, individually sliced cake, which will be served to 3500 reveling members of the public on the New Haven Green on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and evenings.

It's all part of Richey and Friends' A-Mazing Bureaucratic Cake. A slice of transient culture commissioned by New Haven's 350 Committee and sponsored by Leon's Bakery, the committee, the New Haven Register, and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. And what is more culturally transient than and edible piece of cake?

Actually, New Haven's A-Mazing Bureaucratic Cake is a combination of the edible and non-edible. The edible portion, supplied by Weinberg's Leon's Bakery, will consist of a generous supply of sheet cakes.

The non-edible portion will be an "elaborate and humorous" central structure-an 14-foot high iced facade of city hall.

It will have cut out windows through which the edible slices of cake will be served and part of the fun will be a "bureaucratic maze" (hence the cake's amazing title), a crowd-control device through which would-be noshers will be directed.

Be not afraid. The whole bureaucratic approach, including filling out a registration form, supplying requested information, and ultimately receiving approval for a piece of cake, won't take more than a minute or two-even allowing for "amusing bureaucratic mishaps".

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven's director of marketing and membership, Richey is no newcomer to transient culture or cakes.


Cake first became an art form to Richey when she worked as an apprentice to Paul Rutkovsky, the founder-director of Papier Mache Video Institute, from 1978-1983.

Then, in 1983, Richey's submission to the Connecticut Chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art Spring Cleaning Show was a twenty-inch tall cake in the shape of a Comet scouring powder can. It both delighted and fed the public.

The following year, Richey contributed a military wedding cake to New Haven's first show of 1984 (based on George Orwell's novel). And her work has continued with such appetizing pieces as Famous Cookie, Eat Audubon Street, and the Profitable Hartcake.

Her A-Mazing Bureaucratic Birthday Cake is, however, her biggest project to date, and the first time she hasn't baked the cake herself. "When I started thinking about the project after the 350 committee commissioned it, I found myself faced with endless questions," Richie {sic} says. "What is a city? What do you give a city for its birthday? What will the weather be like? Who will attend? How many will attend? and so on.

"Since this would be by far the biggest number of people I have ever served cake to, the main issue became the actual serving. Obviously, one person couldn't possibly serve 3500 people. So it became clear that I needed an organization, a system, a bureaucracy to make it all happen."

So Richey brought together some of her artist friends with some "commissioner type people" to interact. She ended up with a Cake Bureau or 30 individuals, including a systems consultant, a bureaucratic fashions designer, maze developers, paperwork producers, and more than a dozen cake commissioners.

"The bureaucracy involved frightens, inspires and fascinates me," Richey admits. "But through it all I've discovered that systems, hierarchy, aren't necessarily bad, that in certain cases they are essential to get things done. It's been quite a stretch for me working with so many individuals and groups."

The transient art will be documented for posterity-by the cake bureau's 3 documentation artists Michael Rush, Timothy Feresten, and Joan Fitzsimmons. And so that everyone can see everything that's going on at all times, there will be a television monitor revealing the action behind the city hall facade.

Richey knows a lot of variables inevitably impinge on such a project. "But the one variable I don't expect is no customers," she laughed. "Whenever I do cake I can't get them away from the table."

 OTHER ARTICLES RELATED TO RICHEY'S ART/LIFE/WORK