The streets of Catskill are graced with colorful statuettes depicting cats. The theme in Cairo is bears. In Saugerties, the summer street art project features horses, though unlike those of its neighbors, Saugerties street art changes from year to year, with owls, lighthouses, butterflies and even chairs in prior years.
A reprise of the original iteration of the Saugerties Chamber of Commerce’s annual street art project, the 35 horses, decorated by local artists, were mounted on village streets on Monday, May 22, following a presentation at Smokin Pony the day before.
According to Mark Smith, proprietor of Pine Grove Studio and chair of the Chamber, the first such project in Saugerties took place in 2009, with inspiration and guidance from Catskill’s annual street exhibition of artist-designed cats. “The first two years we did horses,” Smith explained, posed in “different gestures…This year we’re doing one of the originals.” Based on sketches stored at Town Hall of these early models, the Chamber ordered 35 new fiberglass blanks to the same specifications — 34 inches long by 32 inches high — from Cowpainters, LLC, a woman-owned business in Chicago that specializes in this particular manufacturing niche.
The horses will stay up through Labor Day, to be taken home by successful bidders at the Chamber Gala on September 10 at HITS. The auction this year will again be a hybrid affair, with bids beginning to be accepted online during the summer months and the final live bidding taking place at the Gala.
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