Locals are used to seeing Ze’ev Willy Neumann’s sculptures in area galleries and in his former workshop on First and Livingston streets in Saugerties. Since he has been ill, and has lost income, he is living in a small apartment at The Mill senior-citizen housing. The apartment does not offer space for large works he used to produce, so he has gone back to a genre he has not worked within in many years: painting.
Two local artists and business-owners have teamed up with the New Paltz Regional Chamber of Commerce to launch a new art project called “Outdoor Peace Exhibit: A Study on What Brings Us Together.” Liz Glover Wilson, a Chamber board member and founder of Sunflower Art Studios and Stone Wave Yoga, said that the board “had been talking about doing an art project for some time now, and I thought that this would be the time to really dig in and get something done that not only beautifies our town but also brings our community together.”
The Museum at Bethel Woods has announced a new augmented reality tour, “Meet Me at Woodstock.” The immersive tour gives guests the chance to experience the history of the festival first-hand as they listen to stories of those who were there, visualize the iconic stage, hear concert recordings and authentic announcements, and survey the grounds as a member of the 450,000 person crowd.
“I felt totally awkward that first month,” said Kate McGloughlin, long-time printing, painting and drawing instructor at the Woodstock School of Art as well as the institution’s former board president. “Then my partner Sarah and I decided to do a pilot class for online use.”
Woodstock and the upstate New York art community lost one of its brightest lights this summer with the passing of Elena Zang. Co-owner of the Elena Zang Gallery, she died at home from cancer on August 20. She was 74.
The Mark Gruber Gallery in the New Paltz Plaza presents its first exhibit change since the start of the pandemic. “Marlene Wiedenbaum and James Cramer — New Work” debuts on Saturday, September 5 and runs through October 17. In lieu of an artists’ opening reception, the show is free and open to the public during the gallery’s new normal business hours: Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Masks are required and sanitizer is supplied.
Everyone knows about the Loch Ness Monster, and most New Yorkers have probably heard about our own state’s famous cousin to Nessie, Champ, who reputedly dwells in Lake Champlain. But did you know that there’s an alleged Hudson River monster as well, called Kipsy after the City of Poughkeepsie? Sightings have been attested in a June 1899 issue of The New York Times, and also attributed to the crews of the Half Moon, the Clermont and the Clearwater.
Knaus Gallery & Wine Bar in Highland will be having an opening reception for an exhibit of paintings, drawings and photographs by New Paltz artist Bruce Pileggi on September 5 from 2 to 8 p.m. The exhibit, “Bruce Pileggi: Artist in Transition,” will be on display through September 27. Face masks and social distancing will be required.
The juried exhibition, “Hudson Valley Artists: New Folk,” featuring 29 local artists in an exploration of craft, cultural heritage and the communities we create together will open September 12 at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz.
In some ways, D. James Goodwin, owner of The Isokon studio in Woodstock, is a perfectly illogical place to begin an exploration of recording in the Hudson Valley. The self-described contrarian Goodwin is a conundrum: from local stock, his work with many national acts speaks more to a Brooklyn experimental sensibility, the antithesis of the fundamentalist Americana for which the region is most known. And yet he poses a far more subtle and complex problem than that. In his work with Blitzen Trapper, Kevin Morby, Rhett Miller and many more, Goodwin’s imprimatur is all over the re-imagined, experimental roots rock of the 21st century. He can go as weird as you want, but he has also been behind the board on generational music by the likes of The Hold Steady, The National, New Pornographers, and — get this — Bob Weir.