© J.N. Urbanski
Upstate Dispatch is waking up with the brilliant Berry Breakfast this overcast, surprisingly warm and humid morning (61F at 7.30am), in order to join the Halcottvsille Plein Air Group on top of a mountain in Roxbury for a watercolor session. Then it’s back to oils for the winter. We can’t get enough of this surperbly, delicately crafted tea.
Theodora Anema has been a designer for her entire career after having attended an art academy in Amsterdam, the Rietveld Academy. She bought her house in the Catskills in 2000, quitting her job in 2012. On her website Pillowtique, you can find her home accessories: appliqued pillows and ottomans made with leather, suede and ultrasuede.
When her daughter was born, she wanted to design some fun accessories for her bedroom, “some things to spruce up her room. Around that time those abbreviations were widely in use, like LOL, LMAO, etc. So I started doing that and made a whole series of them”.
There’s something homely and comforting about pillows and blankets in tactile soft suede, especially as we go into winter. Beautifully-made soft furnishings like this also make excellent gifts. Continue reading
Tractor in Field, watercolor by Alix Travis
Coming soon to Margaretville… Alix Travis is opening the Commons Gallery in Margaretville, “a gallery for artists”, meaning an actual gallery run by and for the artist. The gallery will exhibit Travis’ work when not in use by other area artists who wish to curate a show or showcase their own work. Travis says:
“The idea grew out of frustration of my having a series of paintings that were community inspired and not having a venue where they could be shown in entirety and easily accessible to my community. The series had been exhibited beyond our area, but I wanted it here.”
The Commons Gallery is not a cooperative and will only charge reasonable rent, not commissions, allowing artists the freedom to have solo or group shows whenever they want and based on whatever subject matter they feel like exhibiting.
“Galleries frequently have a particular focus which is limiting,” says Travis. “I felt the absence in our area of an attractive space with Main Street exposure at a reasonable expenditure for local artists who wanted to show their own work, or curate a show of other’s work: that is a creative activity in itself”.
Travis states that the other real plus is that the Commons building now has several artist’s studios and is becoming a real community of artists and artist creations: a destination.
copyright J.N. Urbanski
“Master, Mentor, Master: Thomas Cole and Frederic Church” until November 2nd, 2014 at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 218 Spring Street, Catskill, N.Y. For more information: thomascole.org or 518-943-7465.
Don’t forget to see the gorgeous paintings of “BREATHE: Plein Air Paintings of Delaware County by Sandy Finkenberg” at the Catskills Center’s Erpf Gallery in Arkville, New York until October 24th, 2014.
Alice Waters at the Blue Cashew Kitchen Pharmacy in Rhinebeck, New York on September 28th 2014.
23rd September at 11am, the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development are breaking ground on the site of the new Maurice Hinchey Interpretive Center, a center where tourists can learn more about the wonderful Catskill Mountains. The ground breaking will be followed by a hike.
copyright J.N. Urbanski Watercolors by J.N. Urbanski
While a mild country summer closes and another spectacular Catskills autumn steals in over the mountains drawing its vivid hues, here at Upstate Dispatch we have our binoculars trained on another intense winter approaching in the distance. The farmer’s almanac predicted it, and the moderate summer. However, let’s not go there just yet… It’s not winter until your watercolors freeze.
Up here, you’ll still find En Plein Air groups nestled in the sunny mountains, painting hemlocks for the Catskills Center’s call for artists. The hemlock tree is endangered up in the Catskills by the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid. The Catskills Center for Conservation and Development is running a program to save it and they are publicizing the issue by running an art competition and exhibition on the subject.
It’s been a fine summer for Plein Air groups and watercolorists alike. Visit Sandy Finkenberg’s stunning oils at the Eprf Gallery at the Catskills Center until October 24th 2014.
Fall in the Catskills is art itself and it’s just beginning.
Welcome to Upstate Dispatch.
copyright J.N. Urbanski Watercolors by J.N. Urbanski