• Event Calendar  
• Performances
• ::
• Workshops
• ::
• Readings & Lectures
• ::
• Youth Activities

---

14th Annual Juried Art Show Exhibition

February 20 through March 27, 2010

Painters, sculptors, photographers and paper/mixed media artists exhibit in the CCCA Juried Art Show Exhibition.

From the HOH Studio Exhibition

January 16 through February 13, 2010

An exhibition of works created in art workshops at HOH. Selected works by participants from the Life Drawing Studio, Open Painting Studio, and Creative Drawing Studio will be included. Sketch at left is by Maj Kalfus. An opening reception with the artists is on Saturday, January 16, from 6 - 8 p.m.

Paintings 2004 - 2009
D. Jack Solomon

November 7 through December 19, 2009

HOH presents paintings by D. Jack Solomon from 2004 through 2009. At left is Mell O Drama #6 (detail), 2006, 18 X 50 acrylic on canvas. An opening reception with the artist is on Saturday, November 7, from 6 - 8 p.m.

Columbia County African American Family Exhibit

October 9 through October 31

An exhibition of family photographs documenting the northern migration of African American families and their experience in Hudson and surrounding towns in Columbia County. Exhibition curated by Operation Unite as part of the Quadricentennial Celebration. Opening reception, Friday October 9, from 6 - 8 p.m. Photo, Detective Vivian Austin.

Tony Thompson
Forty Years of Drawings and Small Works
Boston - New York - Hudson

October 3 through October 31
Gallery Talk with the Artist Saturday, October 17, 2:00 p.m.

The exhibition includes work first exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, at P.S.1, Artist's Space and galleries in New York City, and work completed since the artist moved to Hudson in 1989. At left, mold poured acrylic paint on moire taffeta 14 x 14, 1985.

Opening reception with the artist on Saturday, October 3, from 5 - 7 p.m.

Artist Statement
Reflecting on forty years of work

Looking over forty years of work, a small selection of which is exhibited here, some consistencies suggest themselves:

There is an interest in materials being themselves - not being forced into unnaturalness by a human hand. Paint is presented as paint, paper as paper and likewise wood, fabric, rubber and clay. Paint, for instance, in addition to it's ability to depict other objects and scenes can pour, smear, drip, run, hide, mix, puddle, glue, etc.

The work is frequently done as part of a series that investigates all the ways two materials can interact, all the possible variations of their encounters, each one suggesting the next.

In addition to all the ways different materials can combine there is an interest in how the same material in a nearly identical shape can combine with itself, as in the tape and hand pieces. For me these pieces are able to call attention to the individual tape or hand unit and what it can become in interaction with itself at the same time.

Working directly on the wall rather than on a paper or canvas support reinforces the object quality of a configuration. Perhaps this is sculpture. When a piece of paper or board is used it usually acts as setting for the configuration rather than participating with it.

The traditional landscapes appear to be a break from my abstract concerns. They recall my earliest work, painted well before the period covered by this exhibition. But even then, a loose plein aire approach indicated an interest in the paint itself and in the brushstroke. This is still the case though the manifestation in the landscapes is less extreme than in the abstract work.

The photo drawings represent one of my attempts to combine representational and abstract ways of working without vitiating either. Here again I am working at combining paint with another material, in this case with photographs of the landscape or of my own or others paintings.

My statement from a 1979 exhibition at Artist's Space continues to sum up my approach to painting:

Its fun to do tricks and one is tempted constantly by the accessibility of illusion. I try to keep in mind that even the most subtle deviousness is ultimately less mysterious than simply being. It seems that the more something is a simple, meaningless, physical, presence, the more it points to a reality beyond the physical.

For more information, visit www.tonythompsonpainter.com

Let It Be in Sight of Thee

Hudson River Photography
by Carolyn Marks Blackwood

On Exhibition through September 27

Gallery Talk with the Artist
Saturday, September 26, 2:00 p.m.

Carolyn Marks Blackwood has spent many hours on the river, on patrol with Riverkeeper and also aboard the Coast Guard icebreaker Penobscot Bay. At HOH Carolyn exhibits the series of photographs drawn from her exploration of the Hudson River. The exhibition is presented as part of the Hudson Quadricentennial Celebration.


Artist Statement
When I first saw my little house in Rhinecliff, on the 100 foot cliff, with its 180 degree views of the Hudson River, my first thought was, "This is where I want to die." Now, I don’t want to rush things and certainly hope I have many more years on my perch, looking southwest to the Town of Esopus, then straight across at the old Town of Kingston, the Kingston lighthouse, and into the Kingston Rondout, where the Esopus Creek flows into the Hudson- then Northwest to the Catskill Mountains and far beyond...It just felt like the place I had always been looking for.

This is the place where I first heard the Hudson River Ice breaking on the shore below, where I watch barges and freighters and mighty ships pass- some taller than my cliff! Bald Eagles and Red Tail Hawk are in abundance and Great Blue Heron fly back and forth each morning and evening in their own version of rush hour. I am bathed in beauty every night and day. I thank my lucky stars.

This show is the culmination of my three year fixation on the river and was created to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's sail. I wish to thank Gary Schiro for all his help in making this show possible. I also wish to thank Alex Matthiessen, the Director of the Riverkeeper Organization, who has allowed me to photograph from the Riverkeeper Boat. John Lipscomb, the captain of the Riverkeeper boat is a Hudson River Historian and poet in his way. He lives and travels on the River most months of the year, protecting it and its inhabitants. He teaches me so much whenever we travel on the river together. I would also like to thank the Coast Guard for allowing me on their boats, but especially Lt. Marshall Griffin, Captain and Lt. James Collins, and the crew of the Penobscot Bay Icebreaker. What a thrill it has been to travel the river when it is covered with Ice.

I wish to thank Barbara Rose for seeing something in me I never could have imagined, and Alan Klotz for being the best Gallerist, Photo Historian, teacher and friend. I would like to thank my dear friends who show up to openings and always support my endeavors; especially Ramon Lascano and Joseph Maresca, beautiful artists in their own right.

And I want to thank my son Gabriel and my darling Greg for being there, cheering me on. You have all helped me make my dreams come true.

Carolyn Marks Blackwood

Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty, mercy have on me!
But if I expire today,
Let it be in sight of thee.

Emily Dickinson

Water Series and Ice Series courtesy Alan Klotz Gallery, 511 West 25th Street, NYC.

Carolyn's photographs will also be on exhibition at a Hudson River show at the Alan Klotz Gallery opening Sept 17th 2009.

For more information, visit www.cmblackwood.com

Myths and Muses
John Musall

May 9 through June 6

Umbra, 2008, oil/linen, 40 x 46

HOH presents a solo exhibition by painter, teacher and lighting designer, John Musall. The exhibition features new works that explore shadows and theatrical light.

An opening reception with the artist will be on Saturday, May 9, from 6 - 8 p.m.



For the past sixteen years I've focused on the play of colored light on the human figure. It began with dancers I met in NYC at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio where I worked, teaching and practicing lighting design. In the last few years, I've been drawn to more complex scenarios, often re-synthesizing historical themes, as with "Judith and Holofernes", and "3 Graces", and sometimes inventing new settings, as depicted in "The Chair", and "Trinity". As always, my models are drawn from the performers, artists, and students I see and work with on a daily basis.

I'm involved in a study of shadow, researching the historical record and applying it to my work as a painter, teacher, and designer. I'm interested in what is seen and what is not seen, as in shadow, the "hole in the light", for it is in the contrast of light and it's absence that our world is revealed. There, in shadow and then, emerging into the half light, what is exposed can have a greater, and more complex meaning, as in the familiar yin yang symbol, where light and darkness come together in a great affirming totality, and it is there that I find a reason to continue to paint.

So this is who I am now: I paint the human figure lit with theatrical incandescent light. I teach a class in lighting design for performance, and help mount productions for Theater and Dance departments at Bard College. I am also the County Supervisor of Hudson's 1st Ward, which has led me into confronting ideas of service, community, and also those ideas which divide us, like politics, and the faltering economy. It is with hope and a desire for truth (Truth equalling Beauty) that I quote Daniel Burnham, the great Beaux Arts Chicago architect, who said "beauty has always paid better than any other commodity, and always will." So be it." - John Musall April, 2009



John Musall was born in Dubuque, Iowa in 1946. He studied at the University of Minnesota and Ohio State University at Columbus, majoring in Fine Art. Trained as a painter, he evolved as a performing artist, uniting his capabilities as a director, designer, writer and musician, working collaboratively and as a solo performer. He has produced and directed for the stage, video, and film, and has designed sets, lighting and costumes for hundreds of theater and dance production. For fourteen years he was associated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation as Studio Technical Director where he designed various projects and taught lighting for performance. It was his experience there that led him focus on painting the human figure bathed in incandescent stage light. After moving to Hudson in 1997, he joined the Dance and Theater Department's production staff at Bard College. He continues to paint, teach and design, and produce video works.

His work has been shown at La Mammelle, San Francisco, And/Or Gallery, Seattle; the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sidney; the Philadelphia Museum; the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Painted Bride, and Temple University, Philadelphia, Calvert Gallery, and Wahington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C.; the Greenville County Museum, SC.; in New York at Morris Healey Gallery, Westbeth Gallery, Gruzen Samton Gallery, and the Cunningham Studio, the Barrett House Gallery, Poughkeepsie; TSL Warehouse, and the Hudson Opera House. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Art Matters, Inc. and the Judy Willows Prize from the Columbia County Arts Council. In 2007 he was elected to the Columbia County Board of Supervisors.

For All Who Are Kept In
For All Who Are Kept Out
Myron Polenberg

April 4 through May 2

Barbed Wire #1, 80" x 80" acrylic on canvas, 2008

HOH presents a solo exhibition featuring new works by abstract painter Myron Polenberg. Opening reception with the artist is on Saturday, April 4, 6 - 8 p.m.

Myron Polenberg is an abstract painter living in the Hudson Valley. He has spent a lifetime pursuing art and during the last decade he has devoted all his time to working in the studio. His paintings range from large to mural-size canvases and relate to the abstract expressionists. Utilizing heavy body paste paints and non-traditional tools such as compound taping knives, masons' & plasterers' trowels and 2"x4"s, Polenberg pushes paint across un-stretched canvas. The multi-layering of paint achieves a richly colored and deeply textured surface. In 2005 art historian Neil A. Chassman wrote, "Polenberg has created a vivacious surface - the large movements of paint are reminiscent of Franz Kline and have a palpable strength." Polenberg's paintings begin with an exploration of color palettes, simple forms and shapes that he sketches on small pieces of paper.

These multiple studies slowly developed over time take shape before any paint is applied to canvas. In his studio he works on several paintings at once. This allows the artist to step away from a particular body of work and move onto another. Polenberg expresses it in this way: "I'm fortunate to have a large enough work space so I can do multiples of canvases. I tack up anywhere from six to ten directly on the walls. I work with un- stretched canvas. I work on all the canvasses mounted at the same time; while one is too wet to continue, I start on the next. Then somehow miraculously they all get finished. I judge when the work is complete by the texture. My driving goal is about how paint works; it's about the surface."

Myron Polenberg's paintings have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York City and the Hudson Valley. Recently the tree paintings were shown in a solo exhibition at the Yellow Bird Gallery, Newburgh, NY. The number paintings were shown in a solo exhibition at The Center Hall Gallery at the Hudson Opera House, Hudson, NY. In September 2007 Polenberg's paintings were shown in a solo exhibition at the H. Pelham Curtis Gallery, New Canaan, CT. In addition to exhibiting his work, Polenberg's paintings are in a number of prestigious private collections in East Hampton, NY, Princeton, NJ, Old Westbury, NY, New York City, Dallas TX & Hollywood, CA.

Marking Time
Artists from the NYFA Mark Program

February 21 through March 28
Artist Talk, March 7, 4:30 p.m.

(sculpture by Lisa Breznak, clay, paint and 22K gold, photo by Howard Goodman)

HOH and the Columbia County Council on the Arts present a group exhibition of the Hudson Valley artists from the 2008 New York Foundation in the Arts Mark Program. Working in a wide range of media and styles 12 artists reflect on the idea of time and how its passage manifests itself in their work.

The artists, Dawn Breeze, Lisa Breznak, Laura Cannamela, Giovanni DiMola, Mimi Czajka Graminski, Tana Kellner, Greg Lock, Karl Saliter, M. Scott Schaffernoth, Carla Shapiro, Matthew Slaats, and Chad Weckler were chosen from across the state to participate in the inaugural year of the program.

This exhibit marks the first time the group will exhibit their work together expanding on the relationships and professional growth produced within program.

An opening reception with the artists will be on Saturday, February 21, from 6-8 p.m.

From the HOH Studio

January 17 through February 14

An exhibition of works created in art workshops at the Hudson Opera House. Selected works by participants from the Life Drawing Studio, Portrait Painting Studio and Plein-Air Painting Workshops will be included.

An opening reception with the artists will be on Saturday, January 17, from 6-8 p.m.

Jack Millard
Story Lines

August 23 through September 20, 2008
Opening Reception August 23, 6-8 pm
at left: The Threshold, 64"x48", enamel on canvas

An exhibition of new works by artist Jack Millard that explore narrative portraits. Jack has enjoyed painting portraits for many years, but felt the limitations of a single subject. As time went on, the backgrounds in the paintings became more complex by including landscapes and buildings. Eventually, by adding friends, family, co-workers, even adversaries, would help clarify the subject's personality. Finally, he realized that it was groups of people, with their narratives, that he wanted to paint. The implied relationships of the people on the canvas convey a psychological urgency that supercedes technical or formal details.

Jack Millard lives and paints in Chatham, NY. He practiced architecture in New York City where he worked for Paul Rudolph and for Peter Marino. Chairs of his design are sold at Dennis Miller Associates in New York.

His paintings have been shown in Hudson at Carrie Haddad Gallery and Time and Space Limited. In New York City, he has shown at Max Protetch Gallery.

Cassandra Jennings Hall

July 19 through August 16
Opening Reception July 19, 6-8 pm
at left: Whales, 30"x40", oil on canvas

Cassandra Jennings Hall, abstract artist born in Orangeburg, SC, spent her first twelve years in the segregated South until her parents moved the family North to New York City. Even as a young child, the pull of her imagination was irresistible. Crayons were her first medium, using the same brilliant lush color that continues to be one of her signature marks.

For the last 15 years, Jennings Hall has been painting and showing her work. Initially, she worked in a hard edge geometric style but became dissatisfied with the constriction of the linear form. She began to create works with subtle surfaces full of rich color, balancing calligraphic lines and soft edged shapes creating paintings which betray a studied simplicity. Another pivotal moment in her career came when she saw the work of Japanese abstract expressionist, Tsugio Hattori who became her teacher and mentor until his death in 1998. Today her art reflects both African and Asian influences in color and style.

Cassandra Jennings Hall's work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, universities and corporations as well as in private and corporate art collections in the New York metropolitan area. Jennings Hall continues to live and work in New Jersey.

Doug Clow

June 14 through July 12, 2008 - Opening Reception June 14, 6-8 pm

An exhibition of his series of small scale, 8"x10", oil on linen paintings by artist Doug Clow. Doug began painting in the early 1970's and now lives and paints in his studio in Hudson, NY. His work has been shown at the Westbeth Gallery in New York City, The Woodstock Artist's Association, the Woodstock Framing Company and the ADD Gallery in Hudson.

He studied at the Westbeth Studios and the Arts Student League in New York City and has a Liberal Arts Degree with concentrations in painting, drawing, and anthropology from Plattsburgh State University.

His range of work travels from a gestural representation to pieces that are completely non-objective. He considers himself to be a formalist and when working thinks about line, form, color, tone and edges.

The Center Hall Gallery is open every day, 12 to 5 p.m. The Hudson Opera House is located at 327 Warren Street. For further information about this exhibition, please call the Opera House at (518) 822-1438.