Archives: Alumnus

We could all strive to be more like the letter X. It is a letter that has structural and sculptural integrity. With a wide stance and arms extended, it will not tip over. This letter is perfectly balanced and well proportioned; if it had a back you bet it wouldn’t ache. What would be an inspiring space to allow us to become more like the letter X? Our bodies are sculpture; we sculpt them along with objects. Could it also be an intersection of form and function, public and private? The Strength & Conditioning Creation Station is a participatory artwork and a functioning gym where folks can “design” their own workout in several different ways. There will be a mixture of creative minded people, personal trainers, and physical therapists to talk about the benefits of weightlifting with dumbbells and barbells and then to guide participants through the actions. However, the weights will not be standard, they will be made out of various upcycled materials crafted at the Red Hook Community Center Makerspace during open studio hours and special workshops throughout the summer and fall.

“The connection between wellbeing and art making is the driving factor for the majority of my work. At the beginning of July 2016 I moved back home to the Hudson Valley and later that month my brother died from a heroin overdose. Through grieving, working, and other life changes I have realized that in order to function I need to have the ability to create every moment of my life which is why I decided to farm and start the Makerspace. I aspire to create something enjoyable, recovery friendly, and free for the area that my brother and I spent the majority of our lives in.”

Daniel Totten is an artist and farmer who grew up and currently lives in the Hudson Valley. There he works on a beef and poultry farm and is the founder and program coordinator of the Red Hook Community Center Makerspace. He received his BFA from Alfred University in 2015.

The workshop, O+X = DO AND DON’T will focus will on integrating environmental Do’s and Don’ts and crafting with trash. Come join two environmental artists and share your ideas for making the world a better place. Drop in to the Kingston Artist Collective to contribute your own Do’s and Don’ts to Maxine’s cooperative sculpture and to create a reusable woven bag from old T-shirts with Arielle. Chat with the artists and get creative. Bring an old t-shirt if you can! (T-shirts will available for those who need one.)

Maxine is an environmental Taiwanese artist that focuses on the environment, communication and identity. Her most recent performance work titled Plady, a mummy made from plastics bags worn in Tops Friendly Markets, was documented in The Oracle and New Paltz Times.

Arielle Ponder has a deep respect and appreciation for our environment. Her work reflects the careful balance between humanity and nature. It is often inspired by the natural splendor and beauty of the region but also urges towards the spiritual and deeply emotional.

https://www.maxineleu.com/

https://www.arielleponder.org/

When we make a mistake, we ‘x’ it out. Writing, drawing, we have a need to physically destroy what has got awry. When you work with pen, there’s no going back, you need to start form scratch. What I’ve learned over the years in the process of making art is that crossing something out is not the answer- its best to use the mistake as much as possible and incorporate it into the work. The mistake can even bring about new inventions or creative ways to problem solve. ‘X’ is the mark that ultimately destroys. ‘X’ cancels forever. ‘X’ is what we are currently doing to our environment and sacred lands that surround us. We have an idea- a new project- a new development- a new dream- and we don’t let anything get in our way. This is causing eco-systems to be destroyed and with it- beautiful little souls. Cars race by on a stormy night and leave splattered bodies in its wake. Humankind has entered into an eco-system, perplexing it and leaving endangered predators who are no longer able to regulate the deer in the area. The deer graze and feast upon the wetlands, destroying the swamps and homes of salamanders, frogs and turtles. They’re left with lines of asphalt splitting their land. Water systems grow toxic due to fracking and the oil industry- as well as chemicals and factory waste. Amphibians are at the center of all this damage only to be seen as ‘slimy and gross’. Instead human kind chasing the ‘next big thing’ and speaking about their ‘American Dream’, the solution is right below us – taking care of the land we walk upon. This mural is about ‘X’tinction. About waking up, stopping our acts of cancelling nature, and growing together with the natural world. Tiger Salamanders are currently an endangered species within the Hudson Valley and are amazing, gorgeous creatures that need a little bit of love.

Annabelle Popa was born and raised in NYC and has a BFA in Illustration from the Parsons School of Design. She now lives in Kingston, NY. Her fantasy worlds and strange creatures are inspired by nature; they use allegory to communicate deeper meanings to viewers. She sees art as an exploration and adventure, and often it takes a life of its own by the end of the piece. She is merely a messenger who is able to peek into the vast unknown. Her art is based on folklore, fantasy, personal mythologies, and weird miss-moshed animal creatures. She tries to capture wild wonder, adventure, and the chaotic side of beauty. She makes an effort to paint atypical subjects in order to show another side of a story to get viewers thinking. http://annabellepopa.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/Fexazaur

In the spirit of O+, this collaborative project envisions wellness as more than just an individual concern. Embodying wellness means thinking about how communities work together with their ecosystems to create sustainable and just systems. The diverse and thriving communities of Mid-town and Rondout in Kingston are also home to antiquated urban infrastructure. This area contains a combined sewage overflow system that, under heavy rain or snow melt, releases untreated sewage directly into the Rondout Creek, impacting environmental and human health. Besides sewage, plastic trash, road salt and many pollutants find their way into the river, affecting the well-being of the Hudson, a drinking water source for 100,000 people. This project brings together several groups including Riverkeeper, the Art Department of SUNY New Paltz, Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency, Hudson River Watershed Alliance and the residents of Mid-town and Rondout. Before the start of the festival, the students of SUNY New Paltz will create a massive plastic ball from Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency (UCRRA). Festival participants will meet at Broadway and Foxhall Ave with Riverkeeper watershed educator Sebastian Pillitteri and SUNY New Paltz professor Matthew Friday. After a short discussion about Kingston’s ecology, history and infrastructure, participants will begin rolling the giant trash ball as they trace the route of the city’s largest remaining sewer overflow system. While tracing the path of the sewer, this work will also recognize the buried stream that traveled the same path and the City of Kingston’s current steps to separate stormwater and sewer water. We will stop at several spots to point out various aspects of Kingston’s infrastructure and entangled ecology. This project takes up the theme of health and art to creatively renvision the connections between urban infrastructure, ecology and everyday practice. Focusing on the “X” theme as both intersection and destination we are proposing a project that will help people visualize their relations to their watershed and plan for a better, healthier and more resilient future. For us, X marks the spot of Kingston’s invisibilized infrastructure, a cross between stormwater, sewage, natural ecology, and history.

Sebastian Pillitteri is the Community Science Coordinator at Riverkeeper.He will be partnering with Emily Vail, artist and director of the Hudson River Watershed Alliance. As well as Matthew Friday, Graduate Coordinator and Associate Professor of Critical Studies at SUNY New Paltz to realize this project.

This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.

Four doors oriented as if they were four entrances to a square room. Weaving in and out of the door, creating an infinity symbol is a snake made of old wood siding and other detritus of a house that has collapsed. The wood becomes more decayed at the center of the symbol; the X. This section of the infinity symbol snake may contain many tiny porcelain bunnies.

Kerry Pharmer lives and works in High Falls NY. She studied art at The Maine College of Art and SUNY New Paltz. She has shown her work throughout the Hudson Valley region. Kerry initiated and curated the Newburgh Sculpture Project in 2004 to bring site specific art installations and visitors to the exceptionally beautiful but neglected areas of her home city. She is currently a part time art teacher and a graduate student at Pratt Institute.

http://www.kerrypharmer.com/

The Matter Digest is a living archive. It will be present at O+ to collect thoughts and ideas from the community, to be stored in The Matter Digest archive. Input into the archive will be chewed upon, digested, and then re-presented to the community by TMD founders, Havarah & Ernest. TMD will set up a tented space that people can enter and spend some time; outfitted with tables, chairs, fabric and pillows, the space will be inviting and comfortable.

They want  to start a conversation with people in the community about what matters to them. They want to hear from everyone and anyone. They want to hear about anything – from the dust bunnies in their living room to their financial concerns. This space will act as a point of intersection for the community. More specifically, we will be asking visitors to our booth to share recipes. Recipes of life – how do you wake up in the morning? Is there a recipe for perfectly clean socks? For a good conversation? A recipe for being a better neighbor? Recipes will be collected in our booth on the spot, either via written submission by the visitor or by transcription of their orated recipe. We will also offer visitors an addressed and stamped envelope so that they can send us their recipes at a later date. In the months following O+, these recipes will be compiled into a book, Recipes from Personhood, Vol. 2. The first volume of Recipes from Personhood was self-published in November of 2018 by The Matter Digest and is a collective volume of thoughts and practices. It includes recipes for consciousness (mind), sustenance (food), the mortal vessel (body), and more. The Matter Digest seeks to point out that OUR STORIES MAKE US STRONGER and that everyone has something to offer. Our booth at the O+ Festival will address the theme of ‘X’ in that ‘X’ is the marking of a point where we can all meet. It is the intersection of each and every one of us. The point at which our experiences unite us. X can also be a placeholder in the archive. Each person has a story to tell, a thought or recipe to share. The ‘X’ is that blank line in a sentence or paragraph to be filled in by anyone!

The Matter Digest is a living archive of thought, happenings, and experiences. Founded in the summer of 2018 by Ernest Goodmaw and Havarah Zawoluk, The Matter Digest exists in both no form and any form at all. It hopes to collect the “matter” of any person and preserve and present that matter to be chewed upon by any other person. The matter can then be digested, and thus brought into a collective consciousness. The Matter Digest is evolving daily. As it grows, it takes new forms, spills out into new realms of expression like water pushes through sand. To date, The Matter Digest has self-published three books: ‘Recipes from Personhood’, ‘Whatsa Home?’ and ‘STUFF’.

As an artist and facilitator, Ernest Goodmaw works to explore the connections and outcomes between the audience and the intention. They are fueled by questions, and ask them through documented and ephemeral performance, illustration, conversation, and experiments. How does it feel to be in the presence of something that asks a favor of you? How can we use what we have to interact with one another?

Havarah Zawoluk is a Kingston resident who has a passion for illustration and cartography. They have illustrated professionally for table top board games and various event promo materials. They have also organized many community events in the Hudson Valley, the most recent of which is a current on-going series of free workshops at Three Phase Center in Stone Ridge titled “ART/LIFE Automotive”.

www.thematterdigest.com

Beyond our stories & differences, where can we share healing and transpersonal experiences?  We seek to use the trauma we have been touched by as a gift, and to transform it to leave the world less hurting than we found it.  We dreamed this piece into being to illuminate thresholds, literally and in terms of curiosity, interconnection & transformation.  Like buddhist prayer flags setting the intentions into the wind – we work with light towards our aspirations.

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” -John Wesley

www.cygnetsway.com