Kingston’s art scene has been hit hard by the pandemic. But now a few galleries are once again welcoming visitors and this, along with the return of art workshops and the launch of a couple of noteworthy community art projects, is bringing the scene back to life.
Exhibits adapt
Pinkwater Gallery on North Front Street reopened in mid-June, continuing with the show of monotypes that had been forced to close down in early March. In the interval, owner Anne Sanger updated her Instagram feed weekly to show works from that show and also posted a video tour of the gallery on Facebook. The exhibition, which is open on weekends from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays from 2-6 p.m., closes August 23. After that, Sanger’s changing her approach, becoming a “boutique for art.”
“I’ll be putting more furnishings in the space and emphasize collecting for the home,” said Sanger. She’ll continue showing abstract work, mainly from regional artists, but will “show it seasonally, like a fashion show.” Each exhibit will constitute “a collection of work. You buy it off the walls and tables, and when a piece sells I’ll replace it with a new work.”
Sanger said her visitors have been “half and half” locals and people from elsewhere, many of whom are looking to invest in a home in the area. “The difference since the pandemic is people are not buying artwork,” she said. She credits her landlord, who lowered her rent by half for several months, for helping her survive this difficult time. But she’s betting all those potential transplants soon will be seeking art pieces for their new abodes.
David Schell, owner of Green Kill, located on the street of the same name, said as soon as the pandemic hit, “I sat down for two weeks to map out a new plan.” He bought equipment, including a reader for blood oxygen, a thermometer and sanitizer, to help ensure people were safe when the gallery re-opened in June. It’s now open Tuesday through Saturday from 3:30-5 p.m. and by appointment and from 5-7 p.m. on the first Saturday of the month. Currently on display is work by Deirdre Day, Melanie Delgado, Chime Lama, and Noah David Roberts.
Only 10 people are allowed into the gallery at a time, but nonetheless “the art openings are lovely,” he said. “I’m so thankful people have such interest, and it brings a tear to my eye when people come to talk to the artist.”
Green Kill also hosts performances and poetry readings on its fully equipped stage, which Schell has been live-streaming. Recent acts include Mike Jurkovic and Nick Bisanz for the launch of their American Mental Book & CD and Elly Wininger, an inductee for the New York Blues Hall of Fame. People pay for tickets through Eventbrite for access to the unlisted page on YouTube. Because so many more people bought tickets than could physically be accommodated in the space, “we’re able to give more money to the artists,” Schell said. Indeed, “we get viewers from all over the country and elsewhere…it’s important for artists to have places to present themselves. This is a peer-to-peer space, which depends on the art community to grow.”
The limited options for in-person events are forcing organizations to collaborate and think outside the box. The Midtown Arts District (MAD) is holding its first Kingston Annual art exhibition at the Arts Society of Kingston, with works by 26 artists chosen by curator Julie Hedrick. The show, which will run from September 5-27, will feature work by internationally known mixed-media artist Judy Pfaff, who once maintained a studio in Kingston’s Rondout neighborhood, as well as Kingston-based artists Susan Spencer Crowe, Chris Gonyea, Nancy Donskoj, Neville Bean, Harris Diamant, Casey Schwartz, Deborah Mills Thackrey, Stefan Saffer, Ernie Shaw, and Hans Van Meeuwen. Hedrick also chose three prizewinners: first prize was won by sculptor (and Kingston resident) Pamela Blum; second prize by painter Betty Greenwald; and third prize by photographer Frank Theodore.
Hedrick chose the artists from approximately 200 submissions, a task that wasn’t easy given that “there was a lot of exceptional work.” Both the $900 total in prize money and an exhibition catalog are being funded with a grant from Ulster Savings Bank.
ASK will be open by appointment Tuesday through Saturday from 1-6 p.m. and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. through September. Contact the gallery ahead of time at 845-338-0333 or ask@askforarts.org.
Feats of clay
In lieu of its annual Celebration of the Arts, MAD is hosting the CommUNITY Clay Project, in which people are given a half-pound hunk of clay from which to sculpt a figure, which has to be hand-size, stand up and have two eyes, according to Susan Whelan, a ceramicist and Bailey Pottery employee who is overseeing the project. Bailey Pottery has so far donated 700 pounds of clay, which has been distributed to project partners Mountain View Manor, the ARC/Cornell Creative Art Center, Northeast Center for Rehabilitation & Brain Injury, Kingston Boys & Girls Club, Catholic Charities, YMCA Starfish Camp, two scout troops, and Mountain Rise Daycare. In July, MAD moved into a new ground-floor space at RUPCO’s Energy Square, 20 Cedar Street, which includes studio space in addition to residential housing. Workshops are being held on weekends through the end of this month for anyone from the Kingston community who wants to make a figure.
Whelan said so far, 200 figures have been collected, and she expects many more by the end of the month. “They’re wonderfully created and outrageous,” she said. “We have dragons, dinosaurs, unicorns and old birds…clay is incredibly intuitive. It’s the most accessible art material there is, and everyone can be good at it. It’s very grounding and a great way to get the community to share in the creative process.” After firing in Bailey Pottery’s kiln, the figures will be displayed at the MAD space in September. She said that while there’s been talk of distributing the pieces afterward back to their makers, she’d prefer they stay together. “I’d love to see them on those magical pink marble stairs in City Hall. They could go places.”
Whelan said she got the idea from a project by British sculptor Antony Gormley called “Field for the British Isles,” in which 100 volunteers made 40,000 clay figures. Extruding the clay, bagging it so it stays moist, and delivering it and picking up the figures has been a labor-intensive process. The type of clay is Brooklyn Red, the same hue as the bricks that were once manufactured en masse on the shores of the Hudson—a nice tie-in with Kingston’s history.
Speaking of clay, the Kingston Ceramics Studio, located at Kingston Lofts (the former Shirt Factory), is offering classes to beginning, intermediate, and advanced level adults seven days a week, along with a one-day-a-week class for elementary, middle and high-school students. The two-hour classes, which also include an extra hour of open studio time, are $35 and limited to six students.
More happening at Energy Square
The Department of Regional Art Workers, or D.R.A.W., is the art-education arm of MAD. It has been offering workshops for elementary and middle school children this month in its new 1800-square-foot ground-floor studio at Energy Square (which constitutes the bulk of the space rented by MAD). Paid high-school interns, participants in D.R.A.W. sister program P.U.G.G., assisted executive director Lara Giordano and artistic and program director JoAnn Ruissi in setting up the new space in July before beginning the workshops this month. The workshops are being held four days a week and are limited to six students each. The younger children have made paper puppets and accordion books, while middle schoolers have done comic illustration.
Besides displaying the figures from the CommUNITY Clay Project, the D.R.A.W. studio space, part of which is located in a storefront visible from the street, will show the paintings, wire sculptures, and artist’s book of Mariaelena Ferrer in its inaugural exhibition, entitled “Masking Identities: Rebuilding Deterritorialized Cultural Memories,” opening September 5. Originally from Venezuela, Ferrer moved to Kingston in 2011 after living in Spain for a decade. The exhibit chronicles her experience as a migrant.
A community mural in Rondout
The Reher Center of Immigrant Culture and History has partnered with children participating in the Reading and Writing Program at the Rondout Neighborhood Center, which is located across the street, to create an eye-catching 16-by-16-foot community mural on the cinderblock wall of its building on Spring Street. Conceived by visiting artist Julia Vogl, the mural encodes the responses of community members to three multiple-choice questions the children devised through a grid of stenciled images; each design and its two colors are keyed to the responses. The survey questions were sent out electronically in Spanish and English, and community members can visit the Reher to answer the questions and spray paint the images on the wall in 15-minute time slots. Vogl, who resides in London, has done similar “data visualization” public art projects around the world.
So far, 92 respondents have contributed to the mural, with 56 more expected for its completion, according to Reher Center director Sarah Litvin. It’s a way to “invest the public in and share with the community what the kids care about and also to beautify our wall and reflect the diversity of the community,” she said.
MyKingstonKids offers workshops
MyKingstonKids, in association with the Ulster County Restorative Justice and Community Empowerment Center, is featuring “Photography Now,” an online exhibit of the works of teens who participated in two eight-week photography workshops taught by Start Nigro and MyKingstonKids program director Winston Queen (viewable on mykingstonkids.com). A third photography workshop, which will be held virtually—kids use the cameras on their phones—will begin on August 25.
MyKingstonKids is holding a Zoom art workshop for up to 10 children, age four to ten, on August 25 from 4-5 p.m.; participants can sign up and receive free art supplies by going to mykingstonkids.com and clicking on Events. (MyKingstonKids and Red-K Apparel is also sponsoring a reading by Victoria Blain of The Book with No Picture, by BJ Novack, at Forsythe Nature Center on August 22 from 12-2:30 pm.)
UPAC/Bardavon host performances from classic Dylan album
UPAC and the Bardavon are offering a free online series of “Albums Revisited” via YouTube featuring several live new performances. On Sunday, August 30, at 8 pm, the Bardavon Presents & YouTube series, as it’s called, will present a 55th anniversary celebration of the release of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited with 11 original performances of Dylan classics by the following musical heavyweights: Jack DeJohnette and John Medeski, the Weight Band, the Darwin Effect with Jimmy Vivino, Rich Pagano and John Sebastian, Guy Davis, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Kate Pierson with The Restless Age, Happy Traum, Larry Campbell and Cindy Cashdollar, Simone Felice, and Laura Stevenson. The link is https://www.bardavon.org/show/bob-dylans-highway-61-revisited/. A portion of all donations will benefit People’s Place and Dutchess Outreach. The series will continue on September 26 with a performance by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, on October 16 with staff picks accompanied by a live DJ set with Michael, and on November 1 with a 50th anniversary celebration of the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty album.
O+ popup
While this year’s O+ Festival has been cancelled, the nonprofit is planning a pop-up month-long exhibition of work by alumni artists and friends in Kingston’s storefront windows in mid-September, according to O+ executive director Holly Kelly. The displays will showcase the work of artists who’ve been hit hard by the pandemic and hopefully garner support for them. O+ also has updated its printed mural maps, which will be distributed in boxes placed throughout the city. Three O+ alumni collaborated in June on a new Black Lives Matter mural at 695 Broadway; another public mural, in conjunction with Kingston Midtown Rising, is planned for September, according to Kelly.
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