When the Center for Photography at Woodstock kicks off its Woodstock Summer Love with a huge framed art sale, tintype photo booth and special programs Saturday, June 30 for a two-week celebratory run through July 16, it won’t have quite the impact that last year’s 40th anniversary bash of the same name had. But according to all involved, it will likely be even better, given that it will have been more finely tuned this time around.
“Forty-one is never as exciting as 40,” noted CPW Executive Director Hannah Frieser this week, as 110 pieces from 65 photo artists were being assembled for the $75 per piece sale that will be covering the gallery’s walls as Woodstock Squared, starting with a noon to 5 p.m. reception on Saturday. “Plus we’re definitely going to have a mirror ball…”
Mirror ball? For an exhibition or tintype booth?
No, that’s for the Woodstock Summer Love closing party set for July 14, Bastille Day for many, when there will be a deejay spinning classic vinyl, and dancing in the galleries starting at 5 p.m. And yes, everyone’s hoping those gallery walls will be empty by then, with all 110 pieces sold.
Photographs are being sold on a first come, first serve basis right off the wall. There’ll be an accompanying sale of art books. And on the Center’s front porch, photographer Tom DeLooza will once again be setting up a tintype photo booth for those interested in getting their portraits taken, singly or in groups, in the unique, 150-year-old photo process using a view camera that so much of our history’s been recorded in.
Believe this reporter when I say the picture-taking’s fun, and the results quite startling. We did it for my wife’s birthday last year; the results sitting on our mantel proudly as I type.
Other scheduled events will include family-oriented art activities on CPW’s front porch from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. on July 8 and July 15, a teen workshop on portraiture from July 11 through 13, a professional practices presentation for CPW’s advanced members on July 8, and the Center’s Photographers’ Salon on July 10, featuring the current artists in CPW’s 2018 Artists in Residence season, currently in its second round this year.
“Things are going very well,” Frieser added, noting how the AIR participants have tended to expand their residencies from four to six weeks this year, given the comforts of the Center’s new artist’s house on Glasco Turnpike, as well as the ways new programs are shaping up for the year. “We’ve got a great exhibit of works created by a former Byrdcliffe fellow opening in August, all taken and printed here in Woodstock. It will take up the entire gallery space.”
Also in August, CPW will start hosting some new lectures for the public as it continues working to revamp its workshop and other public programs with a greater emphasis on regional artists of stature.
The Woodstock Squared photographs on sale in the gallery (as well as online at $100 per piece) were all printed in limited editions of three, one of which is sold in the gallery and two via the online store. The photographs are archival pigment prints, sized 5” x 5”, sold matted and framed and printed on Red River Papers on an Epson P6000 printer.
It’s all part and parcel with Frieser’s rethink of the 41 year institution as a continuing light of inspiration for all artists regionally, and the still-burgeoning photographic world nationally.
For more information on Woodstock Summer Love at the Center for Photography at Woodstock opening Saturday, June 30 and running through Sunday, July 16, call 679-9957, see cpw.org, or stop by the galleries at 59 Tinker Street.
Join the family! 
