GCCA Honors Thomas Cole's Hudson
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ALBANY, NY PERMIT #486 Published by the Greene County Council on the Arts 398 Main Street, Catskill, NY 12414 • Issue 123 • July /August 2018 GCCA Honors Thomas Cole’s Hudson River School in “New School” overtly or abstractly. The words in Fern Apfel’s “The River” series are taken from a diary published in 1928 that documents the days as they pass, starting from New Year’s Day and traveling chronologically through the year through the three pictures. The year ends and begins, mimicking the river’s enduring spirit and constant motion. Several of the artists in New School not only take their School group exhibition will be on display through August 4, 2018, inspiration from the outdoors, but also make their art outdoors, concurrently with “Repeated Returning,” a solo show in GCCA’s a process called plein air that was common to the Hudson River upstairs gallery of multidisciplinary artist, Caitlin Parker. Parker’s School of artists. Marianne Tully chooses to do plein air landscape work involves printing on paper and fabric with pressed plants and paintings because she wishes “to capture the tones and forms experimentation with natural dyes, cyanotype process on fabric, of nature in my paintings, giving the viewer some of the same sewing and weaving. experience that I have felt in confronting the exquisite beauty The Greene County Council on the Arts Gallery is located at 398 Main Street, Catskill,bNY.bGallery hours are Monday through In honor of the 200th anniversary of Thomas Cole’s fi rst and reality of the earth.” Sheila Trautman, a plein air watercolorist, tries to “communicate the fundamental nature of the scenes she Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 12:00 p.m. Atlantic crossing, Greene County Council on the Arts (GCCA) to 5:00 p.m. GCCA is closed on Sundays. For more information is presenting “New School,” a group exhibition of local artists observes.” Trautman is also an active member of the Hudson River Artists Guild in Hunter, New York. on upcoming exhibits, events, artist and grant opportunities, visit who create artwork inspired by the Hudson River School that www.greenearts.org or callb518-943-3400. Cole founded. Artists were asked to submit work that represents While the sixteen artists in New School represent a variety contemporary interpretations of the Hudson River School, rather of mediums, all of the artists live in and around the Catskill Left column: Industry, 2018, Acrylic on board, 22 x 19 inches by than mimicking the classic landscape style. The New School Mountains, including Jewett, Hunter, Windham, Catskill, Stone Ridge, Elizaville, Schoharie and Woodstock. “It’s fascinating how Patrick Milbourn; Glistening Refl ections, Watercolor, by Sheila exhibition received a large number of submissions, of which Trautman. co-curator Sara Pruiksma chose sixteen artists representing a each artistbinterpretsbour shared, profoundly beautiful landscape,” variety of mediums from watercolor to photography. Pruiksma, says co-curator Sara Pruiksma, a long-time native of the area. “That Middle column: November- oil, 9 x 12 inches by Michelle Moran; best known for her botanical paintings, is the Curatorial Assistant is precisely whatbNew Schoolbis celebrating.” Early Light on Niagara Falls, Photograph, 17 x 21 inches by Susan Sabino. at the Albany International Airport. The “New School” exhibit is free The full roster of artists in New School is Fern Apfel, Hilary and open to the public. Baldwin, Athena Billas, Naomi Blum, Bob Crimi, Francis Driscoll, Right column: Exposed Strata, Overlook, 2012, Oil painting, Not surprisingly in an exhibition inspired by Thomas Cole, Scott Keidong, Laura Leigh Lanchantin, James Marquis, Patrick 30X30 inches by Marianne Tully; Floating Garden, Schenectady, Mother Nature permeates all the artwork in New School, whether Milbourn, Michelle Moran, Susan Sabino, Carol Slutzky-Tenerowicz, NY,bdigital photograph, 14 x 18 inches by Scott Keidong. Katarina Spitzer, Marianne Tully and Sheila Trautman. The New fragments, like a prism or a kaleidoscope,” says Parker. “Sometimes GCCA PRESENTS the image is so broken as to become obscured. I am trying to capture how my brain remembers, or doesn’t. When investigating REPEATED these ideas, I’ve been inspired to invent new ways of ‘painting’, pulling from other disciplines.” Caitlin Parker received her BA from the Slade School of Fine RETURNING Art, London and her MFA in painting from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, Parker has exhibited her work in New York, California, Nevada, the United Kingdom, Germany A SOLO EXHIBITION and Italy. She has had solo shows at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Michael Steinberg Fine Art, NYC; and Rhodes and Mann Gallery, London. Parker has been the recipient of the Rodney Burn Prize, Bard College MFA fellowship, and Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, which took her to conduct research and photograph Ukraine’s Chernobyl site. She grew up in Northern California and lives and works in upstate New York. The Greene County Council on the Arts Gallery is located at 398 Main Street, Catskill,bNY.bGallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. GCCA is closed on Sundays. For more information on upcoming exhibits, events, artist and grant opportunities, visit www.greenearts.org or callb518-943-3400. Greene County Council on the Arts (GCCA) is proud to present “Repeated Returning,” a solo exhibition of multidisciplinary artist Left: Never Grow Up, 2018,bCyanotype on linen/cotton, Caitlin Parker who was recently in residency at the studios at MASS 39 x 57 inches; above: Indigo Landscape, Indigo resist on cotton/ MoCA. Parker’s work involves printing on paper and fabric with linen, thread, 14 x 18 inches. pressed plants and experimentation with natural dyes, cyanotype process on fabric, sewing and weaving. Because of the artist’s Thematically, Parker’s work investigates the inherent deep connection to Nature in both her subject matter and process, tensions that occur between animals, plants and humans as they GCCA chose to pair her solo exhibition with the group exhibition encroach on each other. Abandoned overgrown spaces, human “New School” (in GCCA’s downstairs gallery), which will display interventions in nature, and the slow reclaiming of the manmade by contemporary artwork inspired by the Hudson River School that the natural world make up the source inspiration. Transformations Thomas Cole founded. Both Repeated Returning and New School over time, literal and psychological, are explored through subject will be on display through August 4, 2018 at GCCA’s gallery, 398 and material. Main Street,bCatskill,bNY.b The exhibit is free and open to the public. An avid gardener, Parker uses the plants she grows in her According to the artist, “repeated returning” is a meditative garden as both inspiration and subjects for her work. She collects practice of continually refocusing one’s mind and staying present. and presses plants, coats them with natural dyes made from plants The body of work in her fi rst solo exhibition at GCCA is about like goldenrod, madder, indigo, and coreopsis, and then ‘stamps’ trying to be in a moment, and then returning to it again through the dyed plants onto fabric to create paintings on silk, cotton or the work. Formally, this is expressed through the re-use of imagery, linen. of materials and themes. Parker says that constantly changing the The pressed plants also become part of the imagery used in materials she uses, “keeps me a beginner with less attachment to the large-scale cyanotypes, which represent a specifi c period of future outcomes. Every cyanotype is a complete experiment fi lled time—12 minutes to be exact—that her son lays on the fabric and with variables that can change the end result: fabric, chemicals, tries to be still. Like a daguerreotype photo, viewers can sense that my son, the sun. The weavings and sewn paintings only reveal passage of time in the fi nal piece. In contrast, the weavings are very themselves as they’re being completed. And the ink paintings are slow, almost static. The cut up paintings refl ect the representation unlike oil or acrylic in that you can’t go back and wipe or scrape of memory. something away. Every mark stays, for better or worse.” “We remember certain events not as whole images, but in ArticleAti l on page 11 Presenting Cultural Events & Opportunities for Greene, Columbia & Schoharie Counties. www.greenearts.org 4 Page 2 2018 July/August ALIVE Coordinators, Margaret Uhalde GREENE President's Bill Deane, GCCA’s new president at [email protected] for COUNTY of the Board of Directors. Greene and Columbia counties COUNCIL ON and Dennis Shaw at schohar- THE ARTS Ѭ Corner [email protected] for Schoharie County. Reviews and recommen- dations for awards to each appli- BOARD OF DIRECTORS cation are made by independent A Message from BILL DEANE, panels, which are then approved David Slutzky, Chairman by the GCCA Board of Directors. Bill Deane, President GCCA President of the Board of Directors Good luck and please take advan- Nancey Rosensweig, Vice President tage of this valuable opportunity in Jeff Friedman, Treasurer GCCA’s role to help foster the arts community in the three counties Lawrence Krajeski, Secretary My wife, Helen, and I recently fashioned the old way from plants, Andrew Cuomo and the New York we serve through this important spent ten great days on a cruise soil and other natural sources. A State Legislature, provides funds Kico Govantes program. and land excursion to Alaska. cultural expression if I ever saw for The Community Art Grants Liz Kirkhus The County Initiative Program Besides great food and amazing one.