Upstate Dispatch studio is open for business throughout April: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 12-4pm and by appointment.
Drop by for tea and snacks, take in the local art. Pick up a copy of the journal Upstate Dispatch!
A new journal for Summer 2026 is going to print in May.
It felt like 2025 barreled like a runaway train, right out of the gate, headlong to its sudden and swift end, like it was shuddering on the rails, at speed, while we bounced around on the seats and clung to the handrails for dear life. Was it just me that felt that way?
For me, the holidays very much seemed like 2025 hit the buffers in the terminal with a crashing thump. I couldn’t write nor paint during the festive season, so I had to stop and think for a few weeks. I did a lot of winter hiking and the season seems to be getting colder and colder every year, but it sharpens the senses. I focused on the requests I’ve had in 2025: a few more chapters on Alfie. (The first three you can find here, here and here). He is coming up on his 13th birthday and his kidneys appear to be slowly winding down, a fact that overshadowed the year. There were also requests for more watercolor birds, which have been my most popular art so far, and it was rewarding to offer affordable original pieces to everyone.
Nobody wants the nudes, (one is currently on show at ArtUp Margaretville), which was disappointing because I’ve worked quite hard in figure drawing over the years and produced work that nobody wants. I’m told that it’s a good exercise to do good work, then rip it up and start again. I hope to start winter figure drawing soon.
And then there is the new space, a new studio on 818 Main Street in Margaretville that doesn’t feel quite right somehow. It feels lonely to be out on the street on one’s own instead of nestled in a studio with other artists all together. I’m already looking around for somewhere else to put Upstate Dispatch, but it has to have a kitchen, so I can make everyone tea and coffee. Next weekend, I will be opening the studio January 9th, 10th and 11th from 12pm-4pm for the final showing of the seasonal show “Spring in Winter” that includes my Catskills Mandalas.
The Catskills Mandala Project will encompass other artists this year and I am planning a show of that work in the summer. It’s going to be a colorful 2026.
Finally, The Delaware National Bank of Delhi on Route 28 in Margaretville has asked me to show my work there, so all my framed photographic work will be going up there when I can get to it in the next week or two.
Happy New Year! I wish everyone a peaceful and fulfilling 2026.
The Gallery on 818 Main Street, Margaretville, NY 12455. Opening hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 12pm-4pm.
It’s official! Upstate Dispatch has a shopfront at 818 Main Street in Margaretville, Upstate NY.
Who starts a new business at the onset of a Catskills winter? You might ask. I had been looking for a location for about a year and this one came up for rent unexpectedly. Properties like this don’t come along very often, so I decided to grab it and try it for a year or two. Historically, it has been difficult to get customers out of the house in the depths of winter, but there are so many business in the village now that I’m hoping to get some holiday foot-traffic.
It’s always been a dream of mine: to have a shopfront art studio. Back when I first visited New York City in the late 1990s, there were so many artists who took up residence in the “missing teeth” – empty shopfronts – of places like Williamsburg and Greenpoint, areas that were ghosts of their present selves at that time. There was even a makeshift art gallery run by artists in the cavernous depths of one of the gigantic abutments of Williamsburg bridge, where I bought my first painting on an installment plan. A group of artists had got together, painting the interior of the abutment’s basement a blinding white and put in sections for each artist.
Right now, glistening residential tower blocks rise like shards of glass out of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, making them look like Manhattan’s Soho, but 30 years ago they were ghost towns that had cars burning in the streets, with artists burrowed into abandoned commercial spaces.
New projects are planned for this new space on Main Street: a writer’s room, art classes, art talks, hosted salons by visiting art dealers and gallerists, and more.
Save the date: Friday December 5th 4-7pm, there will be a soft opening and artist’s reception with a group art show tentatively entitled “Spring in Winter”. On display will be some colorful spring scenes to brighten up these dim days. But mostly, it’s a party to celebrate being part of the local art community, to offer a warming beverage and some local catering.
In a year-long project that begins this month, entitled Art x Nature, I will be hosting seasonal shows: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. I am now looking for artists to represent in these shows and studio visits will begin next week. I’m looking for small, medium and large works, and of course, I’d like to include affordable art, like postcards, books and magazines.
This holiday show will feature David George (scenic European watercolors pictured above), Elena Peabody (botanical illustrations), Cena Pohl Crane (oil on canvas), and myself (new bird studies, and mandalas). The show will run through the holidays and include my own photographs of the Catskills, prints, books and more.
Set weekend opening hours will be begin in December closer to the holidays. However, this month (November), I will be posting my attendance on this blog and Instagram if you happen to be in the area. Please email me at info@upstatedispatch.com or message me on Instagram (below) to arrange a visit.
Upstate Dispatch Studio, 818 Main Street, Margaretville, NY. (Next to Annex).
Wish me luck!
June 28 saw the opening reception of artist Luke Dougherty’s superbly ethereal “Here a Mist, There a Mist” at Hawk & Hive gallery in Andes, NY on show until July 27, 2025.
There is much more to this body of work and so the gallery show has been named “Part I” of the show. The artist will also host a one-day open studio and reception on July 13 2025 from noon – 3pm for a viewing of “Part II”.
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No nudes is bad news.
I joined the Catskills life drawing group back in 2016 and I credit these weekly sessions, that only paused during the pandemic, for improving not only my sketching skills, but also my observational skills. The human form is the most difficult subject to draw and I’m only just beginning to draw feet after almost ten years of practice. I’ve given myself a goal of decent hands by the end of the year.
I have lived for this habit over the years. For three hours, I shut out the world with intense focus. Our little group of dedicated life drawers, assembles wherever we can, sometimes in the Upstate Dispatch studio, whenever we can, in all weathers.
This past winter, we dedicated artists have braved all the atrocious Catskills weather, the bone-crunching frigid temperatures that freeze the fluid in your eyeballs, emerging from our snug hiding places to hone our skill at ArtUp, organized by Gary Mayer. Not to mention our brave models that bare all for us for three hours every week, after having driven from far-flung corners of the region.
The result of this past winter’s work is the new exhibition “Skin and Bone”, at ArtUp in Margaretville.
Participating artists: Suzanne Ausnit, Steve Burnett, Chris Criswell, Sandra Finkenberg, Patrice Lorenz, Gary Mayer, Joe Miller and myself, Jenny Neal, all representing wildly differing styles, all dedicated observers of the human form. I have sixty small nudes on offer including the one pictured above. Last week, a fellow artist described me as follows: “you paint like you’re whispering in someone’s ear” after I told them that I paint like somebody who can’t afford paint; less is more, my brush seems to be saying.
Gary Mayer, who organized the winter sessions says: “intense observation and concentration unites our little group of artists and model, once a week”.
The show runs until Sunday April 6. Opening reception: Friday March 28, 4-7pm.
ArtUp, 746 Main Street, Binnekill Square, Margaretville, NY 12455.
When I first began to explore Jake’s farm, Lazy Crazy Acres, in that winter of 2020, I noticed what looked like old, dead bamboo by the river – very tall beige rods with those distinctive horizontal ridges – but it was actually Japanese Knotweed, a member of the buckwheat family. This imported Japanese ornamental is everywhere and is as exceptionally difficult to eradicate as any living pest like the emerald ash borer or hemlock wooly adelgid. It’s a problem because it’s so incredibly voracious, growing by feet in a day, and its roots can destroy the foundation of a house. The stems can grow up to 15ft tall, and they block natural light for any other plant beneath it. The plant quickly takes over large areas and smothers everything on the forest floor below and disrupts wildlife habitats. It has beautiful large spade-shaped leaves with their deep blood-red stems, all shooting from hollow green bamboo-like rods.
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Water is ubiquitous in the Catskills, flowing along side us everywhere we go: rivers, streams, and creeks provide nature’s musical summer backdrop as we drive the roads and hike the mountains. Country homeowners – outside village municipal water supplies – are delivered this precious resource via wells and springs. Residents and business owners of the Catskills are tasked with protecting the water and sending it down to New York City as cleanly as possible.
Things you may not know about the Catskills when you move here: constant work is needed to protect our groundwater. The Catskills Watershed Corporation hosts conferences, events, and organizations like the Water Discovery Center in which you can educate yourself and help to protect the water.
Coming on June 7th is Groundwater in the Catskills: Challenges and Solutions, a one-day conference presented by the Catskill Water Discovery Center with the Margaretville Rotary Club, and Rotary District 7170 from 10 am to 3 pm in the auditorium of the Catskill Watershed Corporation, 669 Hwy 38, Arkville, NY 12406. Tickets are $10 including lunch, and are available at: Eventbrite directly or access Eventbrite through the Water Discovery Center’s website.
According to the CWDC: “Globally, groundwater is an essential drinking water source that is at risk in many places. Locally, residents in the Catskills, including those in the NYC watershed, encounter variable drinking water conditions via private wells or municipal systems, seemingly illogical given that the NYC’s surface water reservoir system provides exceptional drinking water to nine million people.”
The conference will explore the problems Catskills municipalities, and residents, farms and other users of groundwater, encounter – problems such as arsenic, sulfur, iron, lead, copper, chlorides, coliform/E Coli, nitrates and gasses including methane, and carbon dioxide. Speakers will examine where contaminants come from and how they can be addressed.
Featured speakers include representatives from the State’s Drinking Water Source Protection Program (DWSP2), led by NYSDEC and NYS DOH in collaboration with other state agencies.
Residents living within the NYC watershed, may benefit from measures put in place for protection of the surface water. A representative from NYC DEP will speak to those protections.
The afternoon panel session will include the morning’s speakers plus municipal leaders from Andes and Middletown and representatives from the Catskill Watershed Corporation, Watershed Agricultural Council, and the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District.
Getting crisp, but still warm in the sun, despite giant clouds and a high around 60F.
Overcast with a blanket of rippling cloud that allows occasional sunburst and a high in the low sixties. Gloomy in the woods mid-afternoon.
A little warmer with a high of 58F and a mixed lot of multifarious cloud cover.
A jumble of weather: giant, scene-stealing clouds, scattered showers and some sunny spells with a high of 60F.
All day rain and the ubiquitous foggy mist. Humid with a high of 66F. The dullness is muting the fall colors.
Overcast and gloomy today, and humid with a high of 78F. Dinner at the Print House.
Another scorcher: a high of 86F with a virtually cloudless sky, save for the odd scattering of cotton balls in the distance. Fall and Summer collide to make a gorgeous day.
A fall scorcher: a high of 82F with clear skies and another serene sunset.
A hot sunny day, mostly clear except for a couple of big fluffy cotton wool clouds and a high of 76F. Serene sunset.
Misty rain on the peaks becoming heavier in the valleys. Humid and foggy with a high of 66F. A muted red glow at sunset.
A chill in the air, and warm in the sun but mostly overcast with a flat swathes of menacing cloud. Late afternoon rain and a high of 67F.
Gloomy and rainy, with intermittent showers leaving a trail of thick mist in their wake. A high of 71F and humid. The goldenrod is enjoying this late summer.
Bright and warm with scattered clouds like a handful of odd, mismatched clouds were chucked in the air, and a high of 79F.
Another steamy day, overcast and dry with a high of 83F. Post-sunset torrential downpours cool the evening air.
A steamy day. Hot and humid, with plump, fluffy cloud and a high of 89F. Mid-afternoon thunder and rain that took a pause for sunset and then continued with epic house-rattling thunder and lightning after dark. Some epic weather.
Warm and sunny with a high of 82F. Day 4 of haying: bringing the bales down off the mountain and “tedding” the second cutting.
Day 3 of haying in the Dry Brook Valley, mostly clear and sunny, a high of 72F, with late afternoon cotton wool cloud and some post-sunset sprinkles. Jewel weed is thriving down by the river.
Sunny and clear with a high of 80F. Tall goldenrod stems swing in a gentle breeze and its Day 2 of a hay window in the Dry Brook Valley.
Cold, with a high of 48F and a chilly wind. A mostly gloomy day with the sun emerging late afternoon like it had spent all day a work. A beautiful evening.
A grey day, overcast and humid with a high of 61F. A tinder polypore on a hemlock bench perfectly reflects the day’s colors.
Sunny and warm with a high of 62F. Leaves hanging on.
Mostly overcast with a low blanket of mist, and humid with the occasional peep of sun, a sprinkle of rain carried over from last night and a high of 65F. 2022 is having a spectacular, drawn out fall and now we are deep into the earth tones of the giant oaks: copper, gold and brassy brown.
Overcast with the odd glimmer of sun and still balmy for the season with a high of 61F. The fall colors are now the golden, brassy, maroon and copper tones of the oaks and ironwood, and some of these trees are still green.
Another clear, fall day with a high of 70F.
Bright and sunny with a nippy wind and a high of 53F. Big dome of clear blue with the odd remnant of wispy cloud.
A frosty morning with dew steaming out of the valleys, a fresh dome of azure sky, chilly but humid, rising to a high of 55F with giant clouds moving in mid-afternoon. Fall is falling.
A dingy start to the week, with a sky like washed ink and a high of 55F.
Bright and breezy, mostly clear skies and a high of 63F.
A frosty morning, warming up to a high of 65F. Clear and sunny with leaves fluttering like confetti in a light breeze. Coral-colored sugar maples line Andes’ Main Street.
Another gorgeous misty, cloudy morning, clearing by noon and warming up to a balmy high of 65F. Warm in the sun.
A gloomy, chilly morning warming up to a humid, rainy day with a high of 62F. Falling leaves tossed around by gusty winds. Torrential rain into the evening.
Sunny and humid, mostly clear skies and a high of 66F.
A crisp morning with thick mist sinking into the valleys. Clear sky for the rest of the day, balmy with a high of 67F.
An overcast morning giving way to an afternoon of big, dramatic clouds, the barest sprinkle of misty rain and a high of 59F. Two farm dogs declared cancer-free and loving the view from their mountain.
Peak fall colors, but only brief periods of sun in which to showcase their glory. A nippy wind and a high of 58F.
Chilly and overcast with brief periods of sunshine and afternoon rain. A high of 50F.
Overcast and misty with late afternoon rain and a high of 66F. We’re in the peak of glorious fall here in the Catskills. We just need some sun to show it off.
Sun, at last! Mostly cloudless with a high of 74F. A beautiful fall day.
A rainy morning walk through misty mountains. Another overcast day, with thick foggy cloud and a high of 61F. The sun making a brief appearance mid to late afternoon, brightening the gorgeous fall colors. A lovely half-moon rise though streaky cloud.
Cloud stretched taut over the sun like thick gauze, chilly with a high of 52F. Chronic overcast conditions are dulling these fall colors that are best experienced up close: oak on the right, maple on the left. The oak will be the last man standing.
Overcast and chilly with blustery winds and a high of 57F. Fiery sunset.
Overcast with ruffled grey cloud, morning mist and a high of 62F. Goldenrod still hanging on.
Thick cloud cover clearing by late afternoon. Humid but chilly, with a high of 62F. Yellow leaves falling.
More gloom. Overcast, with a slight chill taking the edge off the humidity and a high of 65F. Misty clouds sail through the valley towing their falling rain.
Another overcast day: humid with swirling clouds with misty rain and a high of 65F. Some color still remains in the garden.
Dull and overcast, mostly rainy with brief periods of sunshine, with cloud cover clearing at sunset, a rainbow and a high of 65F.
A very crisp, dewy morning at 42F, but sunny and clear for the rest of the day with stray wisps of cloud a high of 69F. Perfect weather for cycling to a festival.
Loud overnight thunderstorms begin in the early hours of the autumnal equinox, the first day of fall. Intermittent rain, some afternoon sun, and a high of 69F. Humid with a chilly breeze.
