Each spring for eleven years now, the walls of the Steinberg Reading Room at New Paltz’s Elting Memorial Library have played host to a gorgeous assortment of works by local artists, and each year, participation has kept on growing. It won’t be long before the place begins to run out of room: a sign of success for certain.
The popular annual event is sponsored by the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) of the Village of New Paltz, with the intent of heightening public awareness of the visual delights that the community’s architecture and natural environment have to offer. The guidelines for the art show call for “pieces depicting local and area historic landmarks, architectural details and landscapes, as well as impressions of life within a historic context and preservation’s role in promoting equality and justice.”
Featuring nearly 70 pieces, this year’s Historic Preservation Commission Art Show has been on view for nearly a month now, and will stay up through the end of June, open to the public during library hours. On Saturday, May 31, a festive reception was held in the Steinberg room to announce the award-winners in the three categories of painting, drawing/mixed media and photography. The occasion also honored Valerie McAllister as she retired from the post ofHPC secretary after more than 21 years.
With much fanfare, one of the four judges, Kevin Cook, pronounced the team’s decisions, while HPC deputy chair Kamilla Nagy — the show’s prime organizer, by all accounts — circled the crowded room sticking ribbons on the frames of the winning artworks. Named best in show for 2025 was James Bacon’s large oil painting titled Minnewaska Trail, depicting a vista of pine barrens under lowering clouds, the crimson foliage of huckleberry bushes in autumn vivid in the foreground against the dark sky.
Apparently judges Cook, Peter Fairweather, Mary Kastner and Maureen Rogers were inclined this year to favor scenes in deep, moody colors offset by dramatic lighting: a visual theme that recurred throughout the exhibition. Jon Yettru’s oil On the Ridge, which took first place in the painting category, certainly fit the bill, and second place winner Perrine’s Bridge by Jack Fagan rendered the familiar covered bridge in unusual deep blues set against brighter foliage. Third place went to Donna Rutland for a watercolor of a teetering, snow-covered barn titled South Putt Road Farm.
Caren Fairweather’s Under the Footbridge, Minnewaska, the first place winner in the drawing/mixed media category, used a lighter palette than many but was no less dramatic, showing an abstracted cliff face in pale shades of green. Second place went to Judy Howard’s rustic pastel of an antique loom, Shedding Light on the Past. In third place was Bluestone, a pencil drawing of a horsedrawn wagon laden with the historic building material, by Kamilla Nagy herself.
In the photography category, the first place winner was Mary Ottaway’s The Old House, in which a vintage home was foregrounded by an irresistible orange calico cat peering over its shoulder at the viewer. The Ridge by Ryan Kraus, a cyanotype of a classic closeup view of Sky Top, took second place. Third place went to Bill Winter’s Starry, Starry Night, in which a comet was framed by the arch of the Mohonk Testimonial Gateway.
Besides the deliberations by the four professional artists who served as judges, attendees were invited to vote for their favorite pieces. James Frauenberger, director of programming at the Elting Library, who helped organize the event, seemed dumbfounded as he announced the results of the poll: a five-way tie! In addition toRyan Kraus’ aforementioned The Ridge, the winners of the popular vote prize were Linda Gray’s oil A Quiet Nyquist Moment, Amelia Pape’s oil The Rock Garden, Stephen Darwin’s oil Denton’s Granary and Katherine Gray’s watercolor Oak Promenade.
Tom Olsen, longtime chair of the Historic Preservation Commission, offered thanks to all who helped make the event happen, singling out Nagy as “the brains, the brawn, the genius behind it all. She also did the catering.” He then cited the contributions of Valerie McAllister, “my unequivocal number two in this operation,” who was stepping down after her long tenure as secretary of the commission. “It’s her last day,” Olsen said, before calling up Nagy to hand McAllister a gift bag. It was the size and shape of the sort of plaque or framed signed certificate of appreciate that typically changes hands when a retiree is being honored, but upon unwrapping proved to be something better: a small oil painting by Nagy of a Shawangunks landscape, captured from a perspective especially meaningful to the recipient.
Asked afterwards what she planned to do with her leisure time upon retirement, McAllister, who still works full-time in the office of the provost of academic affairs at SUNY New Paltz, said, “Probably get a little more sleep. I’m ready to just have one job.”
New Paltz mayor Tim Rogers noted that the village board will be holding a public hearing this month on proposed changes to the zoning code that would expand the role of the Historic Preservation Commission’s Design Review Board. According to Olsen, the commission’s design guidelines are merely advisory and currently apply to “only about a dozen properties” in the village, mainly within the Huguenot Street Historic District. The amended verbiage in the code would enable the planning board to require minor aesthetic modifications to proposed building designs that would clash particularly egregiously with the historic architectural profile of New Paltz. “It wouldn’t take much,” Olsen said. “I think it’s a step toward a mature community.”
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