Putting a Glow On the Big Apple
NEW YORK
When students at New York City’s Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities hang out in the school lobby, they are surrounded by a rainbow glow of light pouring through stained-glass windows.
AFSCME Local 375 (D.C. 37) member Gregory Frux can take much of the credit for the beauty of the windows. He is arts administrator and curator of the Public Art Program for the city’s Board of Education.
Frux supervised the restoration of the 60-year-old windows, which were badly damaged. The restoration was a complicated process: Windows were taken apart, missing sections were recreated and pieces were reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle.
Frux oversees a collection of about 1,250 art works in the school system.
HIDE AND SEEK. The New York City school system is filled with art dating back to the turn of the century, but it wasn’t until 1989 that a program was established to look after them. One of Frux’s first tasks was to search through the schools and storage areas to find existing works and catalog them. He discovered many faded and fallen into disrepair.
Since then, he has worked with a wide variety of artists and crafts workers to restore and repair the art. Frux says his exposure to the wide variety of styles and materials in the collection makes his job a constant challenge and voyage of discovery.
Frux’s office also seeks out and commissions new art works, including stained-glass windows, textile, murals, tiles and sculptures. A number of the projects have resulted from collaboration between professional artists and students. “We want to put top-of-the-line artists’ works in the schools,” he says.
His program also accepts corporate contributions — like a recent donation of 200 art works from an anonymous corporate donor. Frux has a goal of “having every school in the city with a work of art.” He figures he’s about 70 percent there.
Frux studied long and hard to arrive at this point. He earned his master’s in fine arts from Brooklyn College with the help of D.C. 37’s educational fund. That training helped him win his “day job,” but also encouraged his personal artistic efforts.
HOMETOWN GUY. After years of painting New York City street scenes, Frux was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to design a poster for its award-winning neighborhood series.
Frux painted the spires of four churches in his own neighborhood — Park Slope, Brooklyn. His poster, which depicts the way the spires look at different times of the day, has been displayed throughout New York’s subway system.
By Susan Ellen Holleran
