Last weekend was a whirlwind with JC Fridays, as you’ve probably seen from my post I was everywhere. When I made it home I crashed for a few days, and as a result had to forego an awesome party at 660 Studios for the launch of The Culture JC app. I enlisted stylish peep “The Bun”, one of the  citizens of the 660 Studios spaceship to be my eyes and ears for this event.

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Rain fell like cosmic fertility on the roof outside 660 Studios , and lightning illuminated an otherwise dark autumn evening in Jersey City.  A set of thunder songs felt not unnerving but revitalizing, like a howl of energy en route to the earth.

Inside, an air of kinship characterized conversations amongst the collection of art-foragers representing The Heights, Harsimus Cove, Paulus Hook, Bushwick, and Queens, coupled across the 2nd floor, while Alex Pergament (Turtle the Bull Photography) and Roland Ramos strummed a forward-moving improv set and DJ Whorekit spun us through a wormhole, honoring the fly 90s.  There was an undies-only performance by the Love Portal which is Matthew Silver that culminated in the exchange of double-high 5s and a reverberating chant of “We are rooted!”

And we believed him. A depth of connection had been achieved.

This pack of previous strangers had banded together in celebration of The Culture JC’s soft launch for their new app, a technological tweak with intentions to fuse our “flintier than [Hoboken]” city.

The Culture JC founders, Luca Cusolito (local #creativeenabler), John Fathom, and John Ruddy, have taken JC’s arts & culture infrastructure into their own hands, and now they’re putting it in ours. Their new app, built in-house by the multi-talented Luca Cusolito, seeks to expand the scope of participation in Arts Season and bridge the gap between the current social sphere of arts-related happenings by those “in the know,” with the ever-increasing flow of transplants and foreign traffic here to experience what has been deemed by many a “culture of cool.”  Admittedly, it’s been Bad Ass. But sorta old school. And not entirely accessible in this age of technology.

As Luca says, “The information was mostly out there, but it lacked cohesion amongst venues, artists, businesses, and neighborhoods.”…Which created confusion in a community needing answers to questions like, where can I go to see a large-scale installation? and where can I learn to cold-brew coffee?

“The app is a response to that need.”

The app (available here for Android and soon enough on itunes) provides an easy-to-navigate interface, connecting users with a calendar of upcoming events in JC. It’s an all-access pass, an infrastructure which aggregates from existing social media sites and marries them under one smart-phone or website experience. It also gives those already involved but underrepresented- like those in The Heights or Greenville– a platform from which to promote their projects and raise awareness and attendance at their events.

Okay, got it. But… Art Season, they say?

Flanked between the end-of-summer reappearance of local vacationers and the escape to Art Basel Miami from the frigid prodding of East Coast winter, Art Season “puts parentheses around a natural phenomenon we’ve know to expect each year.” According to Fathom, “if you’re an artist and you’re gonna do something, this is probably the time you’re gonna do it.”

And it makes sense, ya’ know? April through August felt like Market Season. Groovin’ on Grove, gnoshin’ vegan hotdogs at 6th Borough, strollin’ Hamilton and Van Vorst Farmer’s Markets to pick from the local harvest.

Let’s be real. No one wanted to bare another day indoors after  holing-up with Hot Toddy’s all winter. But we love to layer and mob about in our best boots once the autumn air pushes in past our sweaty pits of summer. Hence: Art Season

“But what good is a season if it isn’t packaged in a way that can be consumed?” Go on, I prodded the trio. “Which is probably why we were only given a weekend for studio tours in the past. It was such a beast to pull off. People couldn’t conceive of doing it on a large scale because there wasn’t an infrastructure. But with the app, now there is.”

“So, after 20 years of people complaining studio tours need to be expanded, it has.”  The burden of trying to both see/appreciate and be seen/appreciated that existed in years past has been lifted. With a spotlight focused on Art Season, now neighborhoods, businesses, venues, and creators all have a chance to assert their own day, weekend, thing, thang, shebang. “Creating a vehicle for the growth of Jersey City’s creative class and an audience to support it is our premiere concern,” says Ruddy.

So, note to artists: harness that experimental impetus! Manifest that creative destiny! CREATE THE DAMN THING YOU’RE HERE TO CREATE! We’re waiting.

And proprietors: join hands and rejoice! The new app successfully streamlines JC’s collective ability to hustle, bustle, buy, and imbibe as a community in creative love….Maybe that mushy word seems foreign to your tinder-effed mind (mine is), but yes, love. It’s all about the love…Except when it’s not. Which is fine, because we plan for that, too.

Which brings us back to 660 on Saturday night; selfies staged in front of John Fathom’s insanity assemblage mural celebrating, “Let your spirit out” were, of course, taken and tagged with the reason for the Art Season, #CULTUREJC. The swing was swung. Talks of sacred geometry, belly dancing, Burning Man, and live nipple painting persisted. Hugs happened. Polaroid moments processed, preserving the affair. Outside: an expansive mist and a sky that continued to rev. Across the city: cathartic breakthroughs of light, anchoring a receptive earth. Just as Matt Silver chanted.

“We. Are. Rooted!”

Yeah we are, JC.  Viva la Art Season!

*The writer; better known as the bun and can be found doing handstands and playing with paint at 660 Studios