Jason A. Maas

Jason A. Maas was a full time working artist until Hurricane Sandy flooded the first floor of his Red Hook, Brooklyn studio building in 2012. He joined the relief effort and was stationed out in the Rockaways for the next nine months running volunteer coordination, mucking & gutting homes, and cleaning mold. During this time, he developed systems to bring food to homebound residents, was invited by State Senators to share his first hand accounts at roundtable discussions, and created an outreach program that attracted over 100 college students a day to volunteer their time to gut out, muck out, and remove mold from flood ravaged homes.   His experiences completely changed his relationship with his city and his artwork, creating the series below. His experience also led him to found a nonprofit, the Artist Volunteer Center, in 2013. 

From an interview with New York Foundation for the Arts (January 2015):

I started collecting discarded materials from gutted homes. These materials felt like artifacts to me. I would bring them back to my studio and play around with them, ultimately incorporating them into installations. During this time, I completely departed from where I had been in the studio prior to the storm when I essentially had a two-dimensional drawing practice. The relief work I was doing introduced both new materials and new creative inspiration to my art. I found myself inspired by the protective gear we suited up hundreds of volunteers in a day, the city’s response (or in some cases, lack thereof) to the storm, the gut-wrenching need to demolish one’s own home and toss all personal possessions – subjects I encountered around me in the field each day. What happened after the storm completely changed my life and my art practice. It also made me recognize the need for artists to be offered support in order to get involved in their communities and make art about critical issues. This is how the Artist Volunteer Center was born.