Graduate Stays True to Her Mission
Charlotte Moss Scholarship Recipient Rachel Edelstein ’19 (BFA) is Working Hard at Beyer Blinder Belle & Launching Brick x Brick Studio, an “Art for Charity” Business
There’s not a moment to spare in the life of Rachel Edelstein, and for now she finds this energizing. She starts work at the Washington, D.C. office of Beyer Blinder Belle at 7am most weekdays. Her official title is “Architectural Designer,” but she functions as the only interior designer this 50-year old architecture firm has hired in Washington, DC. Working closely with the firm’s interior architect, Rachel is currently designing the interiors of a high-concept, 500- unit apartment building with a unique twist she can’t yet reveal. She says, “NYSID is architecturally oriented, so my portfolio was strong in interior architecture. I think that’s what convinced BBB to take a chance on me.” After work, Rachel returns home to her apartment in D.C.'s Navy Yard, greets her boyfriend, walks her dog, and then gets to work yet again, although now it’s sitting on her couch to fulfill orders for her new “art-for-charity” business, Brick x Brick Studio.
Combining Activism, Feminism, Art & Architecture
In November, Rachel launched Brick x Brick Studio. One hundred percent of the profits from this art-for-charity business go to Calvary Women’s Services, an organization that provides housing, education, therapy and employment training to homeless women in the Washington, D.C. area. Edelstein started Brick x Brick because she’s interested in combining social activism with interior design, and using design to help people in extreme need. She says, “Every one of us should be able to utilize our passions and skills to give something back.” She chose Calvary Women’s Services as the charity her business would benefit after a visit to their facilities. She says, “Calvary is more than a homeless shelter. It’s an outcomes focused program that rebuilds women’s confidence and gives them the skills to get back to society and work. A new facility of Cavalry is dedicated to reserving 50% of their beds for domestic violence survivors. What makes this location rare is the fact that it accepts women without children, which very few shelters do.”
Rachel is not just the founder of Brick x Brick Studio, she's also the lead artist. She spends many hours on Saturdays painting architecturally compelling buildings of Washington, DC, using a technique she learned in her watercolor course with Steve Gerber at NYSID. She does fine pencil drawings and tracings of images D.C. photographers have taken, seeking permission from each photographer to use his or her work for charity. She says, “For this first collection, I didn’t want to paint the iconic buildings and monuments everyone knows, like the Capitol Building or the Lincoln Memorial. I wanted to paint townhouses and row houses on the little, hidden blocks, which capture something essential about D.C. Architecture is part of what made me fall in love with this city.” She experiments with color and pattern, and the result is that her work is more expressionistic than photorealistic. All of her prints are numbered, titled and signed, and she sells them for $40, $55 and $75 at the Brick x Brick Studio shop. She is beginning to consider private commissions of renderings of homes from home owners and interior designers.
A Scholarship Recipient on Why NYSID Scholarships Matter
“There is no question that I’m where I am in my design career because I received a scholarship,” says Rachel. As a student, Rachel commuted to NYSID from Caldwell, NJ. She didn’t have the funds to buy herself a computer, so she waited to work on the computers in the library and studios at school. When she received the Charlotte Moss Scholarship (for her sophomore and junior years), she was finally able to afford a laptop, which freed up a tremendous amount of time in her schedule, and made it possible for her to intern and put her heart and soul into her studies at NYSID. Says Edelstein, the daughter of two writers, “A career in the arts should not only be for the very rich. Scholarships make it possible to have a diversity of socioeconomic and cultural perspectives in design, and that makes the whole field more dynamic.”
For her capstone project at NYSID, she created a theoretical women’s rights center for men, called “Man Up,” an educational community center devoted to raising men’s awareness about what women face and enacting change, person by person. She says her thesis instructors, Jack Travis and Barbara Weinreich, taught her to think about design as problem-solving. Rachel adds, “Their mantra was ‘how by design.” We had to answer ‘how by design’ we would accomplish what we wanted to get done in this world.” What Rachel wants to accomplish is the alleviation of poverty, and the empowerment of women. Just one year after graduation, she’s off to a great start.
To learn more about NYSID scholarships or donate to the scholarship fund, reach out to Joy Cooper or make a gift to the scholarship fund.