After meeting during their journey through the SUNY-New Paltz Masters of Fine Arts program, local artists Eileen Hedley and April Warren together have co-curated more than 40 art exhibitions at the Unison Gallery at Water Street Market in downtown New Paltz. It has been a great run, but the two artists will curate their final show in that space, highlighting the work of Jessica Poser, with the opening slated for Dec. 17.
After Hedley — who is also a manager at True Value Hardware — curated a show for Unison Arts that involved her friend Warren, they were approached by Unison to curate art shows at the smaller gallery at Water Street Market (which the Market provides free of cost to the non-profit Arts and Learning Center).
They both admit that their favorite shows were what they called their annual Mini-Artwork group show, where all artists had to submit pieces of work that were five by five inches. “We’d pick a theme for each year, and then send out inquiries,” explained Hedley. “They always had a theme: One was ‘Surprise,’ then there was ‘Atmosphere,’ ‘Submerged’ and ‘Appetite.’”
“It was a challenge to get 200 pieces hung in a tiny space,” said Warren (they used to be located in a smaller space inside the Water Street Market tower). “But it was a real crowd-pleaser, and it was always standing-room-only, with another hundred people outside. One time we had a friend build a firepit to keep everyone warm during the opening. It was very festive and fun.” Another show that sticks out in their memory was the “Paper Heart Show,” where they asked 20 artists to create a valentine, with all proceeds donated to Family of New Paltz.
Hedley recalls one of the wildest shows being that of artist Michael Asbill. “He photographed an abandoned pool in the Catskills, where they used to have those summer retreats with all of the bungalows,” she said. “Then he blew up the photograph and superimposed it on a foam board, completely to scale, and hung it upside-down, so that when you walked into the gallery, you were walking into an upside-down abandoned pool! It was very cool.”
Both concur that as artists themselves, being able to curate taught them a lot about their own work. “I never considered myself mathematical,” said Warren. “I’m an artist. So I thought I couldn’t do math. But one of the main elements to curating is hanging everything just right, measuring, learning to use the wall space in a way that best highlights the artwork. I look at space differently now. I certainly think about space when I paint, which I didn’t do before.”
“I’m more of the organizer,” said Hedley, “and I definitely appreciate making sure a piece is ready to hang, rather than just handing someone something. I did a show recently, and they were so impressed that my work was ready to be hung.”
“As a curator, you also have to be adaptable to each artist,” mused Hedley. “Each artist has different ideas, and you need to work with those ideas and make them fit with the space available.”
“We’ve always tried to be fair and balanced and bring in as many local artists as we can, while still being open to artists from other areas,” said Warren. “But mostly we’ve showcased local artists, and there has been such a wide variety of styles, materials and mediums [media]. It’s been great.”
The two artists hope that someone will step in and fill their position as curators, because they feel that “This is a real gem in our community,” said Hedley. “It’s hard to find gallery space, and the more gallery spaces we have to exhibit artists, the better.”
Now they will take a step back from presenting other people’s work and focus more on their own. Hedley is an illustrative painter, using mostly water-based paints; Warren, also a painter, works mostly with gouache and tends to have a landscape aspect to her art.
Besides curating the Unison Art Shows at the Water Street Market, Warren and Hedley also teamed up with Celebration of the Arts (COTA) to help organize “Corridors,” a monthlong event where local artists hang their work in and around downtown businesses before the annual COTA extravaganza at Historic Huguenot Street. Now they are working on the Phools’ Parade, which is an art-as-life/life-as-art Mardi Gras-like parade slated for May.
Currently the show in the Unison Gallery at Water Street Market features work by Tom Blake and Patty Tyrol. Blake has some fascinating photo reconstructions that are nostalgic and moody, taking the viewer to places that they’ve likely been: “an old 1970s couch, a barren spot in a desert, maybe on a cross-country trip as a child with the family…” Tyrol presents stunning cyanotypes with various hues of blue and geometric shapes giving them a stratospherelike feeling.
Hedley and Warren’s final show will highlight Hudson Valley artist and educator Jessica Poser, with the opening slated for Dec. 17 from 5 to 7 p.m. To learn more about the artist and her work, go to the link www.unisonarts.org/programs/Jessica-Poser.html. To learn more about Warren’s work, log onto www.aprilwarrenstudio.com and for Hedley go to www.boxheadbrand.com. ++
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