Inside Out in the neighborhood

Every couple days on my morning walk up Morse Hill road, I circle back through the Kildonan School campus. Hoping to get a job there this fall, I recently moved back into the area, into my home across the street from the large and now empty campus.  This August, the campus sits quiet and weeds grow in front of the building entryways. The sudden mid-summer announcement of the closing of the school has left the neighborhood guessing, and left me, a former and future hopeful teacher, in a state of hyper-dreamism where past memories, future visions and current truths are all braid together.

Two students, larger-than-life, with books the size of my car, peer at me as I pass. They are the ghostly remains of an art project initiated by Hunt, a Kildonan student who was inspired by a JR Ted talk, whose INSIDE OUT project encourages peoples from around the globe to express themselves. Hunt, a very generous dyslexic advocate, aimed to use JR’s INSIDE OUT project as a platform to raise dyslexia awareness and empower young people with dyslexia. Kildonan was a school with the focus to help kids with dyslexia express themselves through one-on-one tutoring and student driven projects.

Back in 2013, Hunt photographed every student on campus and worked with production managers from JR’s studio to paste the portraits to the driveway, the schoolhouse and the library. Still wheat-pasted on the side of the shuttered library six years later, the last two students are emblematic of how the art of the INSIDE OUT project created by the international social practicing post studio artist JR continues to give agency to the marginalized. I am hoping that the thousands of anxiety and academic suffering students this fall will find the support that they need.

Please check out the links above to hear JR talk about his projects, and to hear Hunt share his enthused participation in projects empowering kids in school.

Meanwhile, out back

Ian paints the pedestals

Some one is getting ready for an art show!

Whistling while we work

getting organized

One of the best things we have done since returning home has been the transformation of my dad's clinic into a sculpture studio for his play.
Dad retired from the veterinarian business at the beginning of this year. He was forced out by all the drug company regulations and mandated attendances at far away conventions. In order to keep his license to practice he had to attend a convention every couple years and have his badge scanned as he entered lecture halls to hear panelists discuss the newest drug or industrialized benefits. At 83, he didn't feel old, except when dragged through the networking "parties" and herded into sales rooms, so it was agreed between him and his wife that when the year started, he would stop.
And it seemed as if he really did just STOP. When I showed up mid June, the clinic waiting room smelled musty and still had bags of dog food in the corner. The operating table had a set of calipers, an empty syringe and his lab coat draped across it. When I asked dad what he was going to do with the space he sort of shrugged his shoulders...

Clinic waiting room Before

Partial crowd of helpers with Dad

Dad's office area, Before

After a memorial event in the city for my dear Uncle Pat, a crew of 19 siblings, children, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends gathered at the farm. There was a clip board, a whistle and the promise of just 3 hours commitment. (Lunch was already waiting at the pond for when we stopped). You could check off the list and choose whether you wanted to clean, paint, destroy, or set up.

during

getting ready to repair and level the concrete floor

Natali in the operating room

Noah and Sophie cleaning the waiting room

Annie doing the windows

Erin mans the vaccuum

Lois and Julian paint the cabinets

 Meanwhile upstairs in the kennel room....

Before

During

Kent and Gardner take down the kennel framework

Daniel and Dad

The Kennel room today

the old waiting room is now a gallery for Dad's sculptures

Dover Survey Show Closing party Aug 10

Artists are the economic revitalizers of depleted communities. They transform them with visionary skill. With rising rents in NYC and the boroughs, many creative’s have been making their way up to the country and we benefit.

In Dover Plains this month two NY curators, recent art grads, pair seventeen emerging artists in a wide ranging sculptural survey that highlights a re-imagining of our old barns and farms. Amanda Brown andStephanie Del Carpio have placed a diversity of artworks at the 5 Harts Road venue just south of Dover Plains off of route 22. “We are interested in creating exhibition opportunities for younger or emerging artists through the use of underused spaces,” said Del Carpio. 

This is their third curatorial collaboration. Last year’s show was in Bangall, NY in the old Bangall Whaler, a building that dates back to 1832 that had been vacant for several years. The owner, fearful of successive historic buildings in the neighborhood being demolished, invited the two curators to use his space. Del Carpio and Brown visited the Wassaic Project, another re-imagined farm space for inspiration. They invited and asked for nominations from artists. As a result, the ArtBangall merged 38 artists in the empty building and was so successful in transforming the interior that members of the community have come forth with interest in using the space.

Entering the old hay barn of 5 Harts Road, undulating ceramic forms by Rebecca Manson rest on faux cardboard pedestals and a model of an enlarged hipbone dangles with two bullets from the corridor ceiling by JonathanDurham, both sculptures hinting at mortal fragility. A pair of mysteriously abstract paintings by llana Savdie grace a small section of lime washed wall facing a melted wax mechanical construct of Justin Cloud. In an animal stall with remnants of hay still squeezed between boards, Noa Ginzberg’s mixed media yarn shrine has suspended peepholes to playfully enhance the perception of light. Upstairs are whimsical light sculptures by Angela Alba, and a wintry video projected upon an explosion of large canvas fragments by Michelle O’Connell. Anne Wu has fabricated two life-sized architectural replicas of city stoops facing each other with embedded cultural references and between the rafters of the cavernous barn, perhaps in the cleverest response to the building, hangs fringe and ribbons, echoing the slivers of light and pattern, by Carolin Wood.

There is plenty to see and the curators are hoping visitors find an array of work that can reference the body or shed new light on synthetic manufacturing. There are no labels or excess of literature to help you out. This is not the Whitney Biennial. It is a re-imagining of space in the context of art.

Open and free on weekends. The closing event on August 10^th will include a performance within a work by of EleniGiannopoulou, whose tenuously built and slowly collapsing tent speaks of migration issues .

In addition to the hay barn installation, 5 Harts Road has interesting grounds to wander, including a school bus turned retro-lounge, a giant fire pit, and a possible pop up antique sale on the closing weekend. For more information check out surveysurvey.art

Wassaic Festival Tomorrow!

Nestled in the Oblong valley between the Connecticut state line and the NY Hudson River, the Wassaic Festival is happening tomorrow! It is a broad event created by a core group of artists. The work on display and presented in performances is playful, risky and witty. Building off a residency program, the Wassaic Project is a ten-year running institution with an investigative mission to explore new ways of seeing and thinking and to foster artists in their research. They have had year after year of maintaining freshness and quality.

Set in a casual country landscape, the Festival has food trucks, music, multi-experiential opportunities, lots of people, paintings, sculptures, and a gala atmosphere. It is free, fun and full of local color. The historical hamlet with the old Mill and Luther Barn are old-world early Americana. There is familiarity and comfort as the train rolls through town every hour. Dispelling the snobbery of much of the art world, firemen and country locals rub elbows with Yale grads, young poets and musicians. It is a seedbed for incredibly poignant contemporary statements. Don’t miss the artist talks scheduled every hour!

In the bucolic setting, experience the possibilities of performance, complete with literature in art, films, art in the stalls- not in pristine white galleries- and music that goes into the night. The place is bubbling with possibilities.  There is a generous and infectious attitude and the festival will be followed in the next few weeks with artist-taught youth camps, and more opportunities to share in the creative process. For more information visit www.wassaicproject.org

 Expect thousands. All are welcome. Art is fun and thought-provoking. It is free and family friendly, with kids art making opportunities. 

Art shows and parties in a local Haybarn

Two and a half years ago a group of three friends invested in an old farm in Dover Plains, NY with dreams of building a project space.  5 Harts road is the result of visionaries Jenny Morse, Jonah Trager and Walker Esner. It is an unconventional venue for art happenings. Being musicians themselves with experience putting on art festivals and having connections to the Wassaic Project, they have repurposed and renovated the barn and trailer spaces and, since last September, they have hosted parties and unique performances hoping to fill the gaps in programming in the area. Eager to respond to what people like and using word of mouth to grow their constituency, they have held Boondocks Film Society screenings, a Kings Highway Cider Boat party, and  even a wedding.  Currently Survey Dover Plains, a curated sculptural show, is installed in and around the giant hay barn. It will be up through August 10^th, weekends only.  5 Harts Rd, formerly 5 Van Nostrand Road in Dover Plains, NY 12522 to visit contact info@5hartsrd.com

Free and Fast Artist Talk

Every second Friday of the month, from May through October, the Pine Plains NY Free Library hosts a free and fast evening artist talk. In the darkened upstairs community room a small group of young emerging artists, all current participants of ChaNorth’s art residency, share 5 minutes of their work history and current focus using words and slides. Recently seven artists ranging from locales down the road in Chappaqua and Brooklyn to further away in Atlanta and Rancho Cucamonga, and across the seas from Japan, joined a handful of locals in the audience to share what drives their artistic focus. Painters were followed by sculptors and the evening was capped by an award winning performance poet, Mia Willis. The artist’s concerns were personal and political, humorous and scientific. The event felt like a vibrant injection of energy and stimuli for the wondering soul. Plus, the librarian always makes great brownies!

The next opportunity to follow up with the current artists will be at the free open studio on July 28^th at the Spruce Farm off route 199 just west of the village. It will allow us to see in real time the product of the artist’s month of investigations.

ChaShaMa  supports artists by partnering with property owners to transform unused real estate into spaces for artists to create, present and connect. These monthly events are free. A new batch of creative’s will be in the library August 16^th at 7pm.