With the onset of warmer weather, folks are inspired to throw their windows and doors open wide to air out their homes following months of cabin fever. This holds true for artists and their studios as well. The season for open studio tours is just getting underway, and among the first artistic enclaves in our region to jump on the bandwagon is the Town of Gardiner and its neighboring hamlets.
The Gardiner Open Studio Tour (GOST) will be marking its tenth anniversary on the weekend of May 6 and 7, with a total of 20 artists at 14 locations – from Phillies Bridge Road in the north to Pine Bush in the south – welcoming visitors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Some will be giving live demonstrations of their artmaking processes, and all will have original art for sale. A preview of the styles of work in store will be visible along Gardiner’s Main Street (Route 44/55) beginning on April 23, as the celebrated GOST Doors will be reinstalled in front of downtown businesses.
The roster of artists who participate in GOST fluxes from year to year. The 2023 version will include one new addition: “Debbie Brooks, who designs handbags that include her paintings,” according to tour co-organizer Annie O’Neill. Also on this year’s list are Marcy Bernstein (mixed media), Anna Davis (sculpture/poetry), Stacie Flint (paintings), Alexa Ginsburg (felted fiber), Lysa Hoffman (ceramics), Lynn Isaacson (stoneware/porcelain), Leonie Lacouette (mixed media/clocks), Donna Manger-Weil (painting), Marsha Massih (painting), Meadow (mixed media), Vicki Morgan (drawings), Marilyn Perry (acrylics/encaustics), Lady Pink (painting/murals), Anna Pratt (metal sculpture/jewelry), Michelle Rhodes (wood-fired stoneware), Amy Schnitzer (functional pottery), Ron Schaefer (painting), John A. Varriano (oil painting) and O’Neill herself (low-fire earthenware).
Another exciting development is Lady Pink’s return to the tour for the first time “since 2017 or so,” according to an assistant who identified herself only as Victoria (it’s commonplace for graffiti artists to use single names professionally). “Her studio in Gardiner will be open to the public, and she and her assistants, Matt and Chloe, will be painting in the studio, on the lawn and in the garage next to the studio during the tour.”
Regular readers of HV1 may recall our coverage of Lady Pink’s ambitious project in the summer of 2022 to paint colorful murals of gigantic roses and other subjects all over exterior walls in downtown Rosendale. An Ecuadorean native whose real name is Sandra Fabara, Lady Pink made a huge name for herself in the world of graffiti art beginning in the late 1970s. Though she got formal art training at the Manhattan’s High School of Art & Design, Lady Pink had the street savvy to find acceptance among two of the most influential graffiti “crews” of the day, the Cool 5 and the Public Animals, and painted New York City Subway trains with them from 1978 to 1985.
Lady Pink’s work was included in the landmark 1980 “Graffiti Art Success” show at the Fashion Moda gallery in the South Bronx, which more or less put hip-hop culture on the map. She went on to collaborate repeatedly with Jenny Holzer and to become one of the stars of Charlie Ahearn’s film Wild Style. Though she still paints outdoor murals with her husband Roger Smith, nowadays she works mostly on canvas. Characterized by vivid color and images with a science-fiction feel, her paintings now hang in such hallowed halls as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Netherlands’ Groningen Museum.
This spring, not only will Lady Pink be opening her studio to the general public on GOST weekend, but she’ll also be doing a major demonstration project in downtown New Paltz from noon to 4 p.m. this Sunday, April 30. The Groovy Blueberry lawn at the Water Street Market will host a live outdoor painting session featuring Lady Pink and her assistants: Matt O.,
Chloe Moss, Nikki and others. They will be painting on doors, canvas, an oversized guitar and woodcut roses, some of which will become permanent additions to the lawn. The public is invited to watch the live painting in process.
The GOST website at gardineropenstudiotour.com features information on all the artists participating in this year’s tour. It’s also the place to go to download the map of all the studio locations. You can also obtain hard copies of the tour brochure and map from any of the local businesses that are sponsoring GOST 2023: the Mountain Brauhaus, Café Mio, the Disgruntled Chef, the Grazery, the Hoot Owl Restaurant, Stone Wave Yoga, the Natural Pet Center, the Bruynswick Inn Oyster & Clam Bar, Beck’s Hardware, Ulster Energy, Ulster Savings Bank, Uptown Attic, Whitecliff Vineyard, Wright’s Farm and Yoga Wellness.
Join the family! 
