May 1 on Avenue B

There seemed to be a lot going on along Avenue B on Sunday... religious processions... May Day celebrations... Maypole dances... EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos from along the Open Street...

A visit to Spooksvilla + Friends on 9th Street

Text and photos by Stacie Joy 

I’m hoping Shahrzad Ghadjar, artist/owner of female stoner-art-inspired shop Spooksvilla + Friends at 309 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue will allow me behind the shop curtain to see her studio. 

I’m fascinated with seeing where artists and craftspeople create, and after taking some photos of the store’s merchandise, I get the opportunity to do just that. We sit down to talk about demonic inspiration, her history in the neighborhood and the role advocacy plays in her work.

Where did the idea for the Spooksvilla brand come from? Where do you draw inspiration for your work, and what influences you? 

Initially, it wasn’t a brand; it was a way for me to make art under a different name. When I started working at this shop in my neighborhood in Los Angeles, I would go through all this inventory from these different small creative companies and see how — mostly female! — artists were making it work for themselves.

On top of that, the owner was making her own products, and she taught me a lot about how to run your own business. I started to see that there was a way for me to make money off of my illustrations if I put them on usable items. I liked that I could have complete control over what I was doing and get paid on my own terms. 

I started off with a couple pocket mirrors, three prints, some greeting cards and jewelry. I set up a table at this club night at a spot called Club Los Globos in Silverlake and all my friends came to support me, which was great. From there, I would sell at the Hollywood and Silverlake farmers markets every week and that’s where I met a ton of people that told me about other markets to try. By then, I had already put out Dinosaurs Smoking Weed, which people were loving, and I started to hand-draw stickers for lighters. 

The first like, 500 lighters I sold were all original drawings. I would spend an outrageous amount of time on them, and they would sell in the first 30 minutes of a market. I’d be like, Great — what do I sell now? I feel like the lighters have become my calling card and I really like that. 

Inspiration is a hard one. I’m all over the place with influences. Surrealism has always been my jam. I love a good cartoon. Definitely astrology and tarot — I’m a huge Alejandro Jodorowsky person, which is why we have his book on tarot in the shop.

I also love erotica, photographic or literary, which is why I have Anais Nin, Eric Stanton, Tom Bianchi and Araki books hanging around here. I pretty much only buy books for the shop by people I was influenced by. Love a Harmony Korine movie. Big fan of Nan Goldin. Obsessed with Francesca Woodman. 

Over the past couple of years, I’ve really leaned into my Iranian-ness. I spent a lot of summers in Iran hanging with my family and they made sure I saw the culture. Palaces covered in mirror work, ceramics, hand-knit carpets, gardens, vibes. My aunts bought me art books that I would casually dive into when I got home and those have always influenced me a lot. 

There’s this one book filled with old mystical Iranian iconography that I incorporate into my drawings. It’s just pages of symbols. There is a lot of imagery in Iranian poetry. My dad just repeats different lines from old poems to me over and over until it sticks and then sometimes I draw a picture, so I don’t forget it. The demon babes I draw are all supposed to be jinni, and I’m trying to learn more about those guys. 

The mirror piece I have in the shop is an homage to Monir Farmanfarmaian, an incredible Iranian artist who made huge mirror mosaics. She worked in this traditional art form called Āina-kāri — mirror work — and made it her own, so I’m also trying to do something similar where I take the idea of Āina-kāri and throw some of my demon babes into the mix. Figuring out a way to combine the Western and Eastern vibes within me.

You hung out on the block the shop is on as a teen. What did you think of the block at the time? Did you ever imagine you’d be running a business here one day?

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Ninth Street and St. Mark’s Place. Honestly, mainly St. Mark’s and just sitting at the cube back when it was a little island in the middle of the cars. I loved it! The East Village was always the place to be when I was growing up. I spent my high school years hanging at Mud Coffee with friends and “studying.” Smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank beers on the stoop across the street from the shop. Nobody was carding so we could go to the bar. It was great! 

I became friends with some of the different personalities on St. Mark’s. All of their shops have moved from the block now. As a kid, my parents would take me to Khyber Pass because they had good kabob and were close to our apartment. I spent a lot of time with Boris [Zuborev] at East Village Shoe Repair listening to his stories and just watching him do business. I bought all my shoes from him. 

Whenever I’d come by, he’d pull out a pair of shoes from a giant trash bag that fit perfectly. He still does that when I go see him in Bushwick. The dream was always to live in the East Village but not necessarily run a business. I never thought I’d own a business. It wasn’t even on my radar. I thought I was going to make artsy movies that would play at museums, and most people would walk past but there would be maybe four people who thought it was really cool. 

What kind of creative work were you doing before launching Spooksvilla? Were you living in Los Angeles? What drew you back to NYC? 

I spent about ten years in LA. I went out there for college and it was ROUGH. It was definitely a culture shift. Once I found my crew, everything got so much better! We were all trying to do things in film so we would all work on each other’s projects and were open to new ideas and really supportive. 

The best thing I did during those years was VJ at a couple clubs around LA. Possibly the most creatively fulfilled I’ve ever felt. Some friends and I would shoot visuals specific to the event and then would live mix them on a projector to the club music. It was SO. FUN. We definitely set up the vibe for the nights. I remember people going crazy to the music and visual combo. 

But unfortunately, it didn’t pay the bills so I was also doing freelance video editing work and casually working in postproduction on a reality TV show. That was mind-numbing. Even the people I worked with were like, “I have a feeling even if we offer you a job on the next show, you’re gonna say no,” and they were right. I was doing these pop-up markets every week and finally I got in with Artists & Fleas when they opened in the Arts District. Once I did that a couple times, I was offered a spot selling at Artists & Fleas in Williamsburg and I took it!

Has reaction to your work and shop changed since marijuana decriminalization? If so, how? 

The only real difference I’ve noticed since decriminalization is that older people are less standoffish when they see Dinosaurs Smoking Weed. There were a couple markets in LA I had parents dragging their kids/teenagers away from my booth because they just saw the word “weed.” Lots of scowls back then. I guess people are more likely to see the lighters and Dinosaurs Smoking Weed as goofy, which it always was. But now it’s socially acceptable to smoke weed so these conservative types can loosen up a bit. It kind of blows my mind that just a couple years ago it was such an ordeal to smoke weed in the city and now it’s just OK. We’ve gone from going into random people’s cars to buy weed to just walking into a smoke shop. It’s kind of wild.

Advocacy regarding human rights issues seems to play a big part in your life. How has that affected your art? 

Oh man, I should be doing way more than I am. I would like to get more involved in the community. Right now all I really do is show up to protests when I can and donate to bail relief and WNYC! 

You know who I think about a lot when I’m drawing these demon babes? Medusa. I’ve drawn different versions of Medusa my whole life. She is just the most epic character to me. I mean she’s this crazy monster with snake hair that turns men into stone. But why did that happen to her? Because she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple and Athena got pissed! Come on! How is that fair? 

Now she’s walking around traumatized, with snake hair and whenever she looks at people they turn to stone. History has this babe written off as a monster, but none of it was her fault. And I guess I look at all these jinni and demons wondering what their perspective is on the situations they’re in. Are they really evil or did something happen to them and then they were just over it? 

Another chick I have in my mind a lot is this character Gordafarid from the Shahnameh, an Iranian epic poem that all Iranians know about. She went out in men’s armor and almost defeated this beloved male character in the book, Sohrab, but mainly she distracted his army for so long that her kingdom was able to escape before Sohrab and his army could take over. I love that. She’s such a bad bitch. 

Ultimately, I just love strong women, whether they’re demons or heroes. There are elements of some of that in my work. I basically only draw women and they all strike me as super strong, fierce ladies. They do what they want when they want, and they don’t care what anyone has to say about it. I think I’ve dreamed up this universe of all-female demons that I fuck with. 

My whole thing with demons or jinni is that they’re mischievous goofs. So my demon babes are super powerful creatures that can be perceived as scary or evil but are also just having their idea of a good time. It’s kind of like humans, right? You can’t be all bad or all good. There’s some balance in there.

What’s next for you and the shop? Any future plans? 

I’m working on my second mirror mural, so I’m super stoked! I’d like to do four by the end of the year. Also, sitting around doing a lot of drawings for the shop so that the Spooksvilla brand stays strong! 

For now, I’m just trying to keep the shop stocked with fun stuff that the people want. Maybe I’ll open up in Brooklyn or even LA, but for now, the East Village is all I really care about!

You can keep an eye on what’s happening at Spooksvilla on Instagram. 

A last look at the now-closed East Village institution Sunrise Mart

Photos by Stacie Joy

After news broke last month that the four longtime businesses along Stuyvesant Street would shutter in the weeks ahead, EVG contributor Stacie Joy visited Sunrise Mart. This Japanese specialty store opened here on the second level at Third Avenue in 1995.

At the time, employees said they were closing but didn't have an exact date. Sunrise Mart closed after the business day on Sunday. Village Yokocho and Angel's Share shut down on March 31. (Panya remains open for now.) 

The other three NYC locations of Sunrise Mart are still in business. 

A co-worker told me about Sunrise Mart right after it opened in 1995 at 4 Stuyvesant St. I recall walking into the lobby and facing an unmarked elevator. I thought I had stumbled into an employee entrance. Or maybe the Cooper Union dorm. The entry definitely had dorm vibes.

No, this was how you got up to Sunrise Mart. 

Then the doors opened up into a sprawling retail space with a tastefully cluttered vibe with shelves stocked with unique items ... let's take a last look...

A visit to Le Phin, the new Vietnamese cafe on 10th Street

Text and photos by Stacie Joy 

Curious about Vietnamese phin coffee? 

I sure was, which was why I was holding off on my daily caffeine ration before visiting Lê Phin Café, a sunny, delicately appointed new Vietnamese coffee shop at 259 E. 10th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue to talk with owners Khuyen Thi Kim Le and Duc Manh Nguyen (the wife-and-husband owners go by Kim Le and Dan Nguyen). 

Kim recently published a piece about phin on coffee-publication site Sprudge, so I had an idea of what to expect, and since the labor- and time-intensive phin takes a while to create, we had time to chat about the café, Vietnamese coffee and local reaction to the highly caffeinated drink.

How did Lê Phin come to be? Was there a quintessential moment for you to realize the dream of opening your own business? 

Ten years ago, after I got admitted to grad school, I was still trying to figure out my move from Vietnam to the U.S. I would have never imagined myself opening a coffee shop! 

I remembered trying to squeeze a few bags of coffee and a phin into my carry-on before the trip, hoping to bring a little bit of home with me into the next chapter of my life. 

Over the next few years, through all my ups and downs, all the moves, all the struggles, the habit of having a cup of phin coffee every day has probably been the single consistent and familiar thing that I could keep in my life, comforting me through those moments of diaspora blues. 

It is hard to explain such a strong attachment to something so simple, all from the daily life I used to have back home. I guess that emotional attachment is where it started, or at least where the first sparks started for me. 

After my graduation in 2015, while still trying to figure out what to do next, I made a trip home to Vietnam and one of my relatives invited me to visit his coffee farm in Bảo Lộc. That was the first time I got to see the whole process. The work that goes into the single cup of coffee that I had been drinking without understanding much up until that point. Tasting those fresh, high-quality beans was eye-opening to me. But more important, I was overwhelmingly surprised by how little the farmers in Vietnam make, despite their hard labor. 

The light bulb kind of went on at that moment. After that trip, I came back to the U.S., started researching and learning more and more about coffee and coffee production. I got my certificates and eventually became a coffee-quality grader and also started a small business exporting Vietnamese green beans to Japan. Then Covid hit. 

My exporting business halted right when I was planning to test my own roast in the United States market. I was struggling quite a bit before finally deciding to open my own coffee shop. It is a completely different business than curating and exporting beans, but it takes me back to where it all started, that comforting feeling from my daily cup of phin-brewed coffee. I want to share that joy and comfort with more people, and for me that was a great place to begin again.

Why was the East Village a desirable location to open your café? 

I have always loved the East Village and spent a lot of time hanging out here. To be honest, I was a bit hesitant at first to settle here, since there are already so many coffee shops in the area. I was not sure if I could handle the competition!

I spent four or five months wandering different neighborhoods, looking at quite a few locations for my shop, from Brooklyn to Queens through Manhattan. But whenever I asked myself, Where would I want to spend a cozy morning sharing all those random stories over a cup of coffee with friends from all walks of life? 

I could not think of anywhere else than this neighborhood. The multicultural and unique characters you come across, this artistic essence, this dense urban feel yet welcoming vibe that reminds me of home, all of that made me decide to take a leap of faith and settle here.

What have you found to be the most challenging part of opening your own shop? The most rewarding?

My husband and I spent many months looking for a location and many more months renovating this place after we signed the lease. Almost every day of that preparation period felt challenging. We put our entire savings into this but we did not have much, so we did a lot of things by ourselves, from floor plan and interior design to finding suppliers and contractors. 

Almost everything was new and every little thing could go wrong, sometimes it felt like I could never get the shop ready for opening. But it finally did open. And then I guess the most rewarding part was to be welcomed by everyone, more than we could ever imagined: Our neighbors come by every day with a smile, customers come back bringing a friend, random people spend an afternoon at our shop and start talking to each other, sharing all little these stories. This place has quickly become a little oasis for not just us but many of our old and new friends, and that brings me joy every day. 

Did you model Lê Phin on any of your favorite places/cafes? 

Not really. We did not hire an interior designer and basically just gathered the items that we liked, all preloved furniture, and tried to put them next to each other in a way that seemed to make sense. 

The only thing is this yellow accent color that we used for our shop, which is a shade that you can easily see everywhere in Vietnam, especially in the older, French-influenced buildings. 

What has been the reaction from patrons to date? 

People have been very excited about our special drinks. I started having some repeat customers come to the shop and order phin pour-over coffee, straight black — no milk. It proves that the phin is really capable of brewing a delicious cup of coffee.

What’s next for the two of you? Any future expansion plans? 

We would like to take the time to make sure everything runs smoothly first. Since the shop is getting more attention, our primary focus now is to train our new staff and maintain the quality and service.

The café is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

A visit to Archie's Press on 10th Street

Text and photos by Stacie Joy 

I’m eager to meet Archie Archambault, the mind behind Archie’s Press, a newly opened letterpress-printed retail art and map shop at 219 E. 10th St between First Avenue and Second Avenue.

An East Village resident as well, Archie greets me at the shop before business hours, shows me the prints, maps, and pressed art pieces, and patiently answers my questions about the letterpress machine and process, his conception and design methods, and what’s it’s been like opening a retail space during the pandemic.

Can you provide a brief primer on letterpress — including the part about potentially crushing every bone in your hand? 

Between 1492-1980, anything printed for mass consumption was produced using letterpress technology. Every size of every font was cast in little metal letters that were strung together and printed into advertisements, newspapers, books…everything. For disseminating information, this was the most important technological development until the internet. EV Grieve would be typeset by hand if it was around in the 1970s. [Ed note: YES!] 

Digital typesetting made it mostly obsolete and many presses were left to rot or destroyed. In the late 1990s, people started rehabbing presses to make beautiful stationery and art books. Letterpress actually presses the design into the paper, leaving a strong indentation. It’s up to 600 pounds of pressure, which can easily crush every bone in your hand — watch out!

How did your interest in letterpress come about? 

I took a letterpress course in college and got hooked. I’m not sure exactly why. It’s a very “liberal arts” craft. It’s composed of words, so you become a poet. The type needs to be laid out so you become a designer. The colors need to be mixed, so you become an artist. The press is going to break, so you become a mechanic. 

There are so many different parts of the brain at work when executing a project. I’m impatient, so it forces me to slow down, think carefully, and stay cool when things don’t go smoothly. When I started selling my work, it became my full-time job, and I haven’t looked back. 

Please tell us a little about the Vandercook SP-15 that you use in the shop. 

This model is the lightest flatbed press available at about 700 pounds. It was designed to make one perfect copy of something like a newspaper sheet using hand-set type. That one perfect copy would be made into a film for offset printing, which runs very quickly (it’s the machine you see in old movies during newspaper montages). 

Remember, there were no computers, so this was the only way to get that one perfect copy. Vandercooks are the most common flatbed presses for doing larger letterpress prints because they are reliable and bulletproof. My press operates without a motor, so it can be used during the apocalypse, which is exciting. 

What’s the concept behind your city/state maps? 

New research indicates we’re underutilizing the navigational parts of our brains because of GPS. Turns out that’s a problem. This is a hugely powerful part of our brains. When was the last time you felt so lost you thought, “uh oh?” Google Maps is constantly coming to the rescue. 

I’m trying to explain the city in the major gestural terms on a map that taps into the “map from the mind.” There’s a great book called “Image of the City” by Kevin Lynch that describes our mind’s vision of our urban spaces. We do not think in birds-eye view. We create our mind’s map with pathways, boundaries, landmarks, nodes and neighborhoods. 

I try to draw a map that brings all these things together and omits everything else. I want the viewer to engage with the map and feel the city when they explore it. Keeping it simple prevents a “dazzle” effect. Making it beautiful encourages more engagement. 

To get to that sharp gestural drawing, I work with people who are from the city to arrange it like it is in their minds. States are much larger areas, which are harder to wrap one’s head around, but still, there are important roads and landmarks in states that keep our minds constantly orienting themselves.

What design vision guides your work? 

I have no formal graphic design education, but letterpress is essentially the foundation of graphic design. All the physical rules of letterpress created the visual language we take for granted on our screens. There’s a reason we keep lines evenly spaced. The personality of each font is much louder when it’s cast in metal. 

Everything I know about design I learned by typesetting and printing. I do most of my designing on the computer now because it’s so much more efficient, but the vision comes from letterpress. I’ve expanded to many other ideas, all based on organizing information in a way that is simple and beautiful. 

Why decide to open a storefront for your products — instead of relying solely on an online operation? 

I opened the store for a few reasons: I wanted to start making new work and get people’s reactions right away. Now I can get something from the idea to the shelf within a week rather than months. 

After an isolating 18 months due to COVID, I really wanted to see more people and rejoin the community. I live nearby, and I’ve never felt more at home. And I wanted to collaborate with artists and designers, and having a storefront gives me the venue to produce and celebrate their work.

What has been the reaction to the shop so far? 

Everyone who comes in is supportive and delighted. Most people who come immediately go for the print racks, flip through every print and then stare at the walls for a while. It’s a feast and everything in the shop is special for one reason or another. I love it when people ask, “Did you make everything in here?” If I did, I would be a wizard. 

Why choose the East Village for your shop? 

I’ve lived in the neighborhood for five years and love our robust ecosystem of small unique businesses. For some reason, I felt like the East Village would “get it” and appreciate it. I was right! I cannot imagine this shop anywhere else. 

Any future plans you care to share? 

We’re just starting to take custom print jobs, so if you have a wedding invitation or business cards to get letterpress printed, we’re the place! We’re also starting to collaborate with artists and designers, so we’ll be having a new show every month or two starting in the spring.

You can keep an eye on the presses here.

Store hours: 

Monday 1-6 p.m.

Tuesday Closed

Wednesday Closed

Thursday-Friday 1-6 p.m.

Saturday-Sunday noon- 6 p.m.