Sunday, Oct. 27: The Grammy Award-winning member of the Silk Road Ensemble has been called the “ideal musician of the 21st century” by Ensemble founder Yo-Yo Ma. Block has taken a lead role in the fusion of folk, pop and classical traditions, working with kindred spirits like the classical/roots violinist/composer Mark O’Connor and with pop eminences as well, including will.i.am, Stevie Wonder and Bon Iver.
For years, art was hung salon-style. Then it was done the way SoHo galleries did it…with loads of white space surrounding each work. Here in the Catskills we have Varga-style, a cornucopic potpourri of everything blasted all around a series of rooms, with music and performance tossed in to give it all a multi-dimensional experiential sense of oomph. Some (right…me) have labeled it all Energy Art.
Saturday, Oct. 19: Perhaps the only studio of its kind, Kingston’s Brush & Reed Fine Art Calligraphy Studio is devoted entirely to the craft, aesthetics and truly global history of the calligraphic traditions.
Saturday, Oct. 19: See the work of several indigenous artists in collaboration: singers, instrumentalists, dancers and choreographers. Witness traditional Native American dances as Louis Mofsie sings songs from the Haudenosaunee, Southwest and Plains peoples. Rob Mastrianni performs on both double flute and guitar. Matoaka Little Eagle plays indigenous instruments to accompany original songs by contemporary singer/songwriter Sherry Lee. Using a combination of traditional and modern dance, the featured piece Silent Echoes of Time, choreographed by Michael Taylor, depicts the traumatic wartime experiences and subsequent journey of healing of a Lenape Vietnam veteran, Alan Shooting Star, who dances the lead role himself.
Robert Hacunda, who grew up in Marlboro but has been many places since, provides the landscape part of this exhibit, which opens this Saturday, Oct. 12 at the Modern Art Gallery in High Falls with a reception from 5-8 p.m. Michael Nighswonger, born in California and a former North Carolinian who moved into town earlier this year after spending eight years in the Adirondacks honing his craft and building an inventory of work, brings the abstracts.
Friday-Sunday, October 11-13: If you have never been to an O+ before, be prepared for a revelation, a brief interval of civic transformation that will make you proud to be from around here.
Monks perform the sacred music of Tibet and create a sand mandala for the public at UPAC. In addition to the Sunday, October 13 performance, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day from Wednesday, October 9 through Saturday, October 12, the monks will create a sand mandala at UPAC. A translator will be on hand to answer questions, and the community will have the opportunity to engage in conversation with the monks while enjoying the ephemeral artwork they are creating.
Friday-Sunday, Oct. 11-13: Conceived by Manhattan-based interior designer Brad Ford, who weekends in Ulster County, and inspired by the local fairs he attended while growing up in Arkansas, Field and Supply: A Modern Makers’ Craft Fair got started in 2014, attracting notice from various high-end design publications.
Using painting and music as performance Manuel Oliver drove home into our hearts the shock of youth lost to gunfire.
Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 12-13: Conceived and promoted by longtime antiques dealer Frank Gaglio, Barn Star allows antiques professionals to display and sell in a hands-on, approachable atmosphere.