Dana Florin-Weiss, a native of Vermont, grew up watching people make work in the Bennington College Dance Department. Now a freelance artist, Dana combines her passion for movement with her interest in sound design and the moving image. Her practices investigate the interplay between the architecture of the body, the experience of living and the changeable environments that surround us.
Harriett Meyer is an educator living and working in the Hudson Valley. As a teacher of movement and writing both, she sees a link between the expressive potential of both media, and is passionate about helping young people to find and refine their voices within each.
Brenna is a graduate of Bard College and worked in the music industry for a decade before deciding she would rather be creative herself instead of working for other artists. She learned the basics of her crafts while earning her certification in Historic Preservation and Restoration, then developed her skills at a stained glass studio and a gilding studio, both based in NYC, before establishing her own studio in Rosendale, NY.
“I have always been fascinated by anything with a past and its own story, so I love bringing centuries-old traditional crafting techniques into contemporary settings. The inspiration for my work comes from patterns and color palates I see around me: historic buildings, record album covers, an aged iron railing, and nature just outside of my studio windows. Even though stained glass and gold leaf have both existed for centuries, there is so much newness to what has yet to be done in their conventional fields. I’m motivated by the endless possibilities.” ~Brenna Chase, Willow Deep Studio artisan/owner
Bren (project lead, minigolf frankenstein) is an assistant professor in psychology and neuroscience directing the Imagination & Moral Cognition Lab at SUNY Albany, a member of the Purpose Co-operative makerspace, and apprentices and works closely with Processional Arts Workshop (e.g., puppeteering a butterfly for the Great Pollinator Ramble at Thomas Cole, serving as a tech marshal for the NYC Halloween Parade and Rhinebeck’s SinterKlaas Parade).
Liam (project co-lead, mingolf igor) and his wife have built and operate two businesses in Catskill – Hilo, a cafe/art gallery, and The Avalon Lounge, a Korean restaurant/performance venue – which has given him several years of real-world experience in executing projects and bringing wild ideas alive while keeping an eye on the pragmatic fundamentals.
Ben Pinder is an interdisciplinary artist who creates a surreal visual mythology and cosmology that subverts traditional American masculinity. Pinder’s imagery draws from early woodcuts, medieval iconography and children’s drawings to create a playful, funny and yet sharp critique of American myth-making. Pinder’s drawings, sculptures, and videos operate at the intersection of high art traditions and low-brow Americana, piercing through the pride and fantasies of a hyper-masculine society and creating alternative realms to inhabit. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Ben was raised in Vermont, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania and is currently in New York. Among other venues Ben’s work has been exhibited at Brooklyn Arts Council, the Icebox Project Space in Philadelphia, Smack Mellon, Wassaic Projects, and The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. He received his Masters in Fine Art from Pratt Institute and now lives in the Hudson Valley.
B.A. Miale is a prolific video creator and live projection artist. She has directed and edited over 50 music videos and in 2007 began performing custom live projection art shows at concerts and events. To this date, she has created over 500 unique visual sets around the country and beyond. B.A. lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband Gregory Stovetop and beloved super mutt, Swayze.
Amanda E Gross is a multi-disciplinary artist, university educational designer, and re-wilding gardener. Gross’s work in various media is united by a love of play, an intuitive process, and a sacred, radically inclusive worldview, informed by social activism, contemporary and folk art and music, eco-feminism and the re-wilding movement, and since 2017, the biodiversity of the Hudson Valley. Gross’s paintings and illustrations have been featured in contexts ranging from The Salmagundi Club to The Field Museum to The Stranger, and her/their public art experience includes environmental sculpture installations for Compass Arts and Fuller Moon Arts Fest in 2022, with previous experience assisting on installations at Morris Arboretum and O’Hare International Airport. Gross earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a Master of Arts in Teaching from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
Robert Burke Warren is a writer, performer, teacher, and musician, author of novel Perfectly Broken and one-man show Redheaded Friend, and editor of Cash on Cash: Interviews & Encounters with Johnny Cash. His work appears in Longreads, Salon, Texas Music, Brooklyn Parent, The Woodstock Times, Paste, The Rumpus, The Bitter Southerner, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, among others. You can find his music on albums by RuPaul, Rosanne Cash, and rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson; The Roots used his tune “The Elephant In the Room” as John McCain’s entrance theme on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In the 90s, he performed the lead in the West End musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story. Prior to that he was a globetrotting bass player. He lives in Phoenicia, NY.
Bitch makes witchy poet pop. She does it with violins and synthesizers. The resulting songs from her ninth studio album Bitchcraft, which came out on Kill Rock Stars February 4th, 2022, are heartbreaking, spectral, political and beautiful.
Bitch is a longstanding queer music icon. For this tour, she has written a narrative play, an autobiographical “jaunt through her herstory” to take the audience on the journey of a shy and introverted child who goes on to reclaim ‘Bitch’ as a name and feminist act. This empowering, funny and heart-felt show is woven together with the huge violin-forward pop songs of Bitchcraft.
“There’s no stopping her now” the LA Weekly said, after she premiered the show in Los Angeles for the album release.
Bitch first achieved notoriety as one half of the queer folk duo Bitch and Animal. The band went on tour with Ani DiFranco, whom they met while playing a gig at a pizza shop in Provincetown, MA. In the mid 2000s, Bitch went solo, and shared stages with the Indigo Girls, acted in John Cameron Mitchell’s film Shortbus, co-wrote a song with Margaret Cho, produced two albums of her elder folk hero Ferron, and licensed some of her songs to the original The L Word.
Eight years ago, she began to weave together Bitchcraft. The project was born in a move from New York City, where Bitch had lived for 15 years, to a log cabin in the woods. There was all the time in the world to make art, and it was there, in the cabin, that Bitch began to write some of the songs that would appear on Bitchcraft.
“It gave me space to think about the biggest version of myself that I could be,” she says of those early days in the cabin. The songs she wrote were a departure from anything she’d ever written before. She began to craft huge pop tracks with the help of her trusty violin. Then, she moved to LA and Bitchcraft began to shapeshift again. In the years that followed, Bitch assembled a coven to complete it. She called on Anne Preven (Beyonce, Demi Lovato), the rapper God-des and Roma Baran (LaurieAnderson) as advisors. Melissa York (Team Dresch, The Butchies) and Faith Soloway (Transparent) co-wrote some of the songs. Bitchcraft, her first album in 8 years, is one that makes you think and makes you dance. It was recorded in LA, Austin, Provincetown, and Boston. Full of violins, synths, and huge vocals, the record is neon pink and in your face. It’s Joni Mitchell set to a clicktrack; it’s queer Cyndi Lauper and will hex you with its brilliance. It also makes you think: about the state of the world, about evil politicians, about what it means to exist as a woman, and how to find joy along the way.
A Celebration of Kingston’s legendary composer and humanitarian
“Ongoing celebrations of Pauline ‘s 90th Birthday continue with a Kingston Sonic event presented by O+ in collaboration with M.o.M’s Still Listening in Kingston Program. The event includes special friends of Pauline’s presenting some of her most enjoyable musical creations. This is happening at the OLD DUTCH CHURCH on October 8 as part of O+ Fall Festival !“
