This is the final week for the 2025 Spring Sale here at Upstate Dispatch Studios in March. I’ll be open on Thursday, Friday & Saturday this week from 1pm – 5pm.
I will be offering discounts on framed photography of up to 50% on some works. All discounts will be based on each individual piece.
So come and get some sketches, watercolors, magazines, postcards and framed photography at reasonable prices.
Upstate Dispatch Spring Sale:
Thursday March 27, Friday March 28 & Saturday March 29, 2025.
Time: 1 – 5pm
Address: The Commons Building, 2nd Floor, 785 Main Street, Margaretville, NY 12455.
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.
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.
Welcome to Upstate Dispatch 2024! I want to thank you, the reader and subscriber, for waiting. 2023 brought many changes, but the one constant was my attendance at a life drawing group in Andes and Margaretville. Artists gather weekly to sketch a live, nude model and the practice really helps artists hone their craft. The Andes group shut down for the winter, so Gary Mayer is hosting a Margaretville group out of the ArtUp Gallery in Binnekill Square, Margaretville every Wednesday from 4pm – 7pm. When we don’t have a model, we sketch each other, fully clothed. We’re not all throwing off our clothes in there!
In December 2023, Upstate Dispatch moved to a new HQ, an art studio and gallery, upstairs at the Commons Building on 785 Main Street, Margaretville, NY. Most Saturdays, I am there at my desk (above) painting or writing. Visitors are welcome on Saturdays from 1pm – 4pm. (Yes, the floor is slightly sloped in areas, which makes for an unsatisfyingly unsymmetrical picture).
In the studio, I will be hosting a group show of the best sketches of our winter figure drawing group. Participating artists are me (Jenny Neal), Gary Mayer, Steve Burnett, Sophia Teixido, Alex Wilson and more. The reception will take place February 24th, 2024 from 4pm – 6pm. Save the date! The work will be offered for sale at affordable prices. I would like to see more affordable art in the Catskills. I will be selling my 5-minute, 10-minute and 20-minute watercolors for less than $50. You’ll find a sketch wall of pencil and charcoal drawings for $10 and $20 each. Most work will be unframed.
In 2023, I started writing the book, Upstate Dispatch, a memoir of my life and experiences as a writer in the Catskills, which is being serialized on Substack, a medium for writers where they can get paid for their work. This is paid content, $5 per month, with NO advertising. If you’ve been enjoying Upstate Dispatch ad-free for years, please consider supporting me there. I’m about halfway through, depending on how long the book will be. It’s arranged chronologically in chapters with the first chapter being the oldest (first) post. The actual book will be published this year, fingers crossed.
Finally, this year is the tenth anniversary of Upstate Dispatch. I’m celebrating by joining the AMR Open Studios Art Tour this summer, where for one weekend at the end of July, artists in the Catskills open their studios to visitors. Watch this space for more details.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A bright, crisp morning, but overcast. A high of 67F, and pockets of sunshine despite stormy cloud cover and afternoon sprinkles. A slight yellowing of the foliage and a few splashes of red.
