Don your pj’s and get ready for a night out! Creative Time is hosting its first annual fall gala event in the lobby of the fashionable Ace Hotel on Wednesday, November 18, from 8 until 11:30pm. Join three hundred of your closest…um…strangers for a night of dancing, drinking and possibly pillow fights, all with a sleepover theme. Serving midnight snacks catered by The Breslin, with many beverage options, the event will flow along to the music and performances of Fischerspooner, Matt Creed and Patrick Cleandenim.

Don’t have your own jammies (at least not ones you are comfortable wearing in public)? Creative Time has commissioned artist Will Cotton to create a unisex pair of classic white pajamas featuring his original design of tiered sweets: ice-cream cones, pies and tarts. You can purchase a pair of this limited-edition sleepwear for $195 (signed by the artist $350). However, the dress code—“Boudoirs and Bachelor Pads”—leaves partygoers with plenty of other options!

Have you ever wondered what social commentary on political unrest in Iran would look like in comic form? Well, put down your X-Men and log on to Creative Time’s website for its eighth monthly installment of Creative Time Comics, comic art relating to current events and hot issues. Past installments have focused on parenting, pollution, climate change and penal systems in Africa. That kind of puts the Hulk to shame.

This month’s issue launched on August 1. The Future Men, which was created by James Pyman, is focused on the history of comic art. See what a contemporary comic artist has to say about the culture and visual styles of superhero comics ranging from the 1970s to today. Pyman’s comic retrospective is set up in the classic nine-panel grid, which is reminiscent of his Marvel predecessors.

So if you’re looking for free, conveniently located art that might actually make you think, look no further.—Helene Eisenstein

A week ago Saturday marked the opening day of Creative Time’s “Plot/09: This World & Nearer Ones,” a collection of site-specific public art works incorporating the landscapes and buildings of nearby Governors Island. Former homes, a chapel and a movie theatre, among other sites, have been converted into gallery and installation spaces, requiring viewers to either walk (or bike) from location to location. Particularly interesting was the work by Anthony McCall, a geometric light installation inside the St. Cornelius Chapel that will entice viewers to enter into a large room completely void of light, except that of the projectors fixtured directly above. After allowing their eyes to adjust, the viewers stand directly under the paths of light and stare up—the effect is pretty awesome. This and all of the outdoor delight is free and open to the public all summer long and is a great way to spend a sunny day (providing there are any), complete with a ferry ride, possible picnic on the grass and some interesting art. Fri 11am–4pm; Sat, Sun noon–6pm;  through the rest of the summer.—Joe Sturm

You’ve made your requisite offerings to the sun gods and it finally stopped raining. So what are you going to do this weekend? We suggest you grab a unicycle/scooter/piggyback and head to any number of excellent art events that are happening all over town.

While it’s not outdoors, start the weekend off right with AMP, a music and performance series presented by Amanda Simms Hunt and Rashaad Newsome at Rush Arts Gallery. This one-night-only performance starts at 7pm on Friday and engages all sorts of experimental noise-making techniques, from comb-playing by Kenya Robinson to a piece by Moritz Wettstein that mixes in calls he receives on his cell phone in real time into the electronic music he’ll be making on site.

X-Initiative’s No Soul for Sale extends through the 29th and is on view 1–9pm daily; check our recent post for details. Don’t forget to lounge around on the roof.

Socrates Sculpture Park is hosting a three-day open-air marketplace, Makers Market, which features fine arts and crafts. Check here for dates and times.

And last but certainly not least, let’s not forget our friends over at Creative Time, who have worked so hard to bring us “This World & Nearer Ones,” a massive outdoor exhibit on Governors Island by more than a dozen young talents.—T.J. Carlin

We all know you TONY readers have many talents; we’re willing to bet that you didn’t realize you’d make a great zombie. Think about it, though; ever catch your reflection in the subway window during your morning commute? Yeah, you know what we’re talking about. So we have a great line for your résumé: volunteer to be an extra for artist collective The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s movie about the end of the art world, Isle of the Dead, produced for Creative Time’s exhibition “Plot 9: This World and Nearer Ones.” You need to R.S.V.P. by June 1 by going to its website or e-mailing zombie.bhqf@gmail.com; beyond that, just show up at 11:45am at the Governers Island Ferry Terminal on June 7 and be ready to look dead and perform karaoke en masse. When you’re processing down the red carpet at the next Oscars, don’t forget to wave; don’t say we never did nothin’ for ya.–T.J. Carlin

A number of recent panel discussions have sought to project a way forward for artists and arts organizations impacted by the ebb in collectors and private donors. Last Thursday’s “(Alternative) Arts Funding for Sustainable Creative Practice,” organized by guerrilla bake-saler Tracy Candido at NYU, provided several examples of business models that source their local communities, hinge public services on profitable, private sector businesses, or just have their foundation’s fingers in many pies to minimize the impact of the bubble-break.

In the spirit of sharing, we’re reposting a number of the resources discussed here:

Creative Capital Foundation
Reminding us of their beginnings as young upstarts who funded artists in the wake of the NEA culture wars in the ’90s, Creative Capital has turned their decade of professional-development programming and workshops into an online database available to all.

Fractured Atlas
Providing affordable health care, funding, and business guidance for artists, FA supports their services through a profitable software business at the organization’s center. This financial base, and their focus on creating services that also generate income, ensure that they are relatively untethered to the caprices of donors and outside interests.

Creative Time
Creative Time plows ahead with their expansive public-art projects. Their “open door” program can lend a hand to those navigating the ins and outs of public-art projects and grant writing. Allowing occasional corporate-sponsored projects, CT offsets drops in donor money, while ensuring its freedom to continue sponsoring challenging, visionary projects.

InCUBATE (based in Chicago)
This collective’s Sunday Soup Brunches fund artists’ projects by way of a door charge. The ad hoc jury votes with its stomach. An upcoming project amounts to an artists bank, a kind of merry-go-round savings account that pays out the total monthly dues collected from all members to each artist in turn.

Feast
A Brooklyn venture based on the InCUBATE Sunday Soup Brunch model, Feast stays local in its practices, drawing on artists from the community, who munch on a seasonal, local repast and then vote on a project that will be fulfilled and presented at the next monthly gastronomic go-round.

Next event: Church of the Messiah, 129 Russell St between Driggs and Nassau Aves, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Sat 9. 6-9p; $10-20, no one turned away.

WAGE (Working Artists and the Greater Economy)
This artists group advocates fair compensation for artists, who generally suffer from a “cultural discount” attributed to their services as their labor is assumed to be “intrinsically rewarding” and thus not deserving of a proportional wage.
Go to their site to support the Artist Museum Partnership Act 2009!

Additionally: check out these upcoming panels on Artists in the economy:
Wednesday, May 13th
The Field presents New Economy Smackdown

Saturday, May 16
NYFA’s The Low Down: Strategies for Artists During the Recession

—Brian Zegeer