Lake George Arts Project

Roots and Branches: Work by Betsy Krebs
2018-06-22 - 2018-06-30 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
June 22 – 30, 2018
Opening Reception Friday, June 22, 5 – 7 pm.
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Roots & Branches: Work by Betsy Krebs
A visual conversation about an unassuming building in Lake George, NY, and its impact on the community.
Betsy Krebs says the genesis of the exhibit “Roots and Branches” evolved from a strong desire to bring attention to the unique humanitarian history and events that have taken place at the Old Stone School House,a historic building located in the Town of Lake George, and her former place of residence. Krebs says this “stoic folk Victorian structure exudes strength and protection as a community strong hold. While teaching locally and living in the school house, my dream was to find out more about the space, since a lot of information was undocumented oral history. Notable Metropolitan opera singer Madam Homer was known to sing at the school house every Sunday during summer months. Georgia O’Keeffe was known to take walks on Middle road, as told by local, Clara Mae Norton. Another notable neighbor was Edward Morse Shepard, the man that Shepard Park, in the Village of Lake George, is named after. He also built and lived in what is known as Erlowest,right down the hill from the school house. The works in the exhibition are a spin off from a recipe book compiled in 1910 by the ladies of the ‘Lend a hand’ club that used the building as a meeting place after hours and on weekends, working to find ways to help the community. The recipes they compiled were the catalyst for each image in the exhibit. Recipes were submitted by local community members, as well as seasonal residents.”
Betsy Krebs earned her M.S. in Art Education from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. Her work has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions throughout the NY North Country, including the Albany Boys Academy in Albany, NY; the College of Saint Rose; the Gibson Gallery in Potsdam College, Potsdam, NY; the Cool Beans Cafe Gallery in Queensbury NY; Valley Artisans Gallery in Cambridge, NY; The Hyde Museum in Glens Falls, NY; the Saratoga Arts Center, Saratoga, NY; Adirondack Community College, Queensbury, The Lake Placid Center for the Arts and L.A.R.A.C. Arts Gallery in Glens Falls, NY.
The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

"Rest Area" A Solo Exhibition of work by Rob O'Neil
2018-05-05 - 2018-06-08 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
May 5 – June 8, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 5th, 4 – 6 pm.
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm
Review online: Albany Times Union

Rob O’Neil finds beauty in unexpected places, particularly Rest Stops, found along highways all through the country. He is fascinated by their variety in size and amenities: some highlight past history; some are peaceful settings with gardens, and are family friendly; others are mall-like, selling goods; some are simple with only a picnic table and a trashcan. They are necessary places, all sharing a common goal: “…off-road spaces with provisions for emergency stopping and resting by motorists for short periods” (A Policy on Safety Rest Areas for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, 1958). After earning his undergraduate degree, O’Neil took a job that had him driving a box truck across the Eastern United States several times a year. Rest areas became a vital part of his driving experience. He says: “Like a draftsman’s line across a white sheet of paper, highways and interstates paint sweeping arcs and pin-straight lines across the landscape. Multiple midpoints exist on these lines; they’re called rest areas, travel plazas, picnic areas, pit stops, or welcome centers. Even with the constant drone of traffic, these are areas of comfort and serenity. There is a structure and plan that makes sense; we breathe, and our weary bodies relax a little bit. These places are interesting and useful physically, sociologically, and emotionally.”
Rob O’Neil earned his BFA with a concentration in photography from the University of Akron, Ohio and his MFA in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. His work has been exhibited at many regional galleries and museums, including Esther Massry Gallery; Albany Center Galleries; Albany Institute of History and Art; Opalka Gallery; University at Albany Museum; and Albany International Airport Gallery, all located in Albany, NY; The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY; Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs, NY; and the Schenectady Museum, Schenectady, NY. His work has also traveled to many universities throughout the country, including Siena College, University of Akron, Florida International University, University of Nevada, and the University Museum Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. His awards include a NYFA Special Opportunity Stipend Grant; numerous College Professional Development Grants, as well as an Artists and Scholars Grant, both through the College of St. Rose. He is a three-time recipient of a Mohawk Hudson Regional Purchase Award, one for the University at Albany University Museum, and two for the Schenectady Museum. He currently lives in Albany, NY and is an Assistant Professor of Photography at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Adirondack Studios, The Community Exchange Foundation, a Professional Development Grant through the College of St Rose, and theNew York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Just Beyond the River, mixed media work by Daesha Devón Harris
2018-03-10 - 2018-04-13 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
March 10 – April 13, 2018
Opening Reception Saturday, March 10, 4 – 6 pm.
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Daesha Devón Harris is a mixed media artist weaving texts with images, historical and current, that often focus on her own home town community of Saratoga Springs, NY. By subtly combining biographic information of her subjects within her mixed media/photographic work, she documents the challenges facing urban neighborhoods, the severe effects of gentrification on many communities, as well as the diverse and rich contributions of many through history that are rarely, if ever, told. She says: “Through my artwork I strive to promote a sincere understanding of the contemporary and historic contributions of people of color … with insight, compassion and protectiveness I endeavor to capture the ‘life’ that continues to evolve amidst struggle and success. And with ardent respect for a profound past, I challenge the viewer to consider the complexity of issues facing communities of color.”
Just Beyond the River features selections from Harris’ series of mixed media pieces, made using a personal collection of unidentified discarded Victorian era portraits. In production over multiple years, throughout every season, her process includes submerging a transparent version of a portrait in a body of water amongst an arranged aquatic still-life and photographing the constructed scene. The resulting image, layered with various visual elements from the past and the present, is in fact a single frame embodying all components in the same space. Also featured are selections from Harris’ newest exploration of underwater imagery that combines time-lapse photography with choreographed movements and reenactments. This work is inspired by Negro Folklore, Slave Narratives and Harlem Renaissance poetry and aims to illuminate America’s enduring legacies of colonialism and systemic racism that defines our nation’s history, while reiterating the central narrative that emerges from the referenced memoirs – the ongoing struggle for Freedom.
Daesha Devón Harris earned her BFA in Studio Art from the College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY, and her MFA in Visual Art from The University at Buffalo, NY. She has been featured in numerous exhibitions across New York State, and beyond. Her work was recently exhibited at the 80th Mohawk-Hudson Regional at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, NY; Many Rivers: Black Dimensions In Art, 40 Years at the Saratoga Art Center; the 37th Annual Photography Regional at the Opalka Gallery in Albany; Reclamation at Collar Works Gallery and Just Beyond The River at the Rensselaer County Historical Society, both in Troy, NY. Along with her work as a visual artist, Harris is active in her community as a youth advocate and cultural history preservationist. Her awards include grants from NYSCA/Saratoga County Arts Funding, and she has been a featured artist and speaker at many art, community and educational events, including the 15th Annual Underground Railroad Public History Conference in Troy, NY (2016), the MDOCS Portrait and Biography Series and the Harry Burleigh Commemoration Event (2016), both at Skidmore College Saratoga Springs, NY. You can learn more about her work at http://www.daeshadevonharris.com.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Adirondack Studios, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, The Community Exchange Foundation, and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Ceramics by Regis Brodie and Paintings by Leslie Yolen
2018-01-13 - 2018-02-15 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
January 13 – February 15, 2018
Artists Reception: Saturday, February 3rd, 4 – 6 pm.
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm
Regis Brodie

Leslie Yolen

Regis Brodie works in porcelain and stoneware. His colorful, surface-layered ceramics are the culmination of his training as a painter and sculptor. Both painting and sculpture are parallel and overlapping experiences in his works. He says “My methodology of making art is exploratory in nature. It deals with the direct manipulation of materials and processes. My vessel or sculptural forms are elegant and classical. The surface painting, drawing, and textural treatment on the other hand, is out of the Abstract Expressionist and Post-Modernist Schools. I love the interplay that is created between the refinements of the form and the spontaneously decorated surface. It contrasts the elegant with the organic. I am tight and at the same time loose… I do not establish a hierarchy or dominance of the form (mass) verses the surface (decoration). As I consider the form, the surface reveals itself as it becomes intrinsic and essential to the whole.”
Regis Brodie is an Emeritus Professor of Art at Skidmore College. He earned his B.S. and Masters in Art Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. Regis taught for 41 years in the Studio Art department at Skidmore College until his retirement in 2011. In addition to his regular teaching duties he directed Skidmore’s prestigious “Summer SIX Art Program” for 35 years, as well taught in the Summer SIX Art Program for 39 of those years. His work was recently shown at Laffer Gallery and the Saratoga Clay Studio, both in Schuylerville, NY. Regis continues his ongoing body of work with lectures and exhibits worldwide.
Leslie Yolen has worked predominantly in clay until recently, when encaustics became her favored medium. She finds her process of encaustic painting, (beeswax and tree resin mixed with pigments) similar to the additive and subtractive processes of working with clay. Her paintings on wood panels are created using brushes, torches, knives, and scraping tools. Her series of work for this exhibit is titled “Treescapes”. She says “These paintings were inspired by my lifelong fascination with trees and the way they frame our world in different light and through different seasons. The genesis for these paintings was the clearing of brush at the edge of the woods around my home, opening new and inviting views into and through the woods.”
Leslie Yolen earned her B.F.A. from Bennington College and an M.S. in Visual Arts Education from the College of Saint Rose. She is the Arts Education Associate for the New York State Education Department’s Office of Curriculum & Instruction, where she provides statewide leadership in relation to the implementation of the NYS Learning Standards for the Arts, supporting arts teachers, administrators and students across the state. Prior to working with NYSED, Leslie taught Visual Art in the public schools, focusing on curriculum development, instructional planning, and professional development for arts teachers. Her recent exhibitions include a solo show at Carey Institute for Global Good in Rensselaerville, NY, and “Great Places and Spaces”, Albany Center Gallery’s satellite exhibit at the New York State Museum, Albany NY. She lives and works in rural Albany County, NY.
This exhibition is funded in part by Adirondack Studios, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, The Community Exchange Foundation, and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Open Immediately: Collages by Sarah Nicole Phillips
2017-11-11 - 2017-12-15 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
November 11 – December 15, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 11, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Sarah Nicole Phillips is a Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist. Her recent work is a series of collages created with hundreds of recycled, patterned security envelopes. She says: “I began playing with security envelopes when I had an office job. I would tear open the mail every day and started noticing the intricate patterns printed on their insides. Security envelopes are used to camouflage sensitive and private documents. Their decorative patterns make it impossible to read what is inside. For this body of work, the imagery is inspired by naturally occurring camouflage. That’s what the printed pattern is for, to hide documents, and it made sense to echo the botany and camouflage idea in the work… some scenes are benign, such as a square of monotonous grass, suggestive of a wider expanse of more of the same. Recent collages include office and lobby imagery such as cubicles, elevators and artificial floral arrangements. These collages represent a fantasy in which the material of the reliable, boring disappointments of life, are transformed into a means of escape.”
Sarah Nicole Phillips earned her B.A. in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto in 2003, and her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2006, with a concentration in printmaking. From 2006-07 she participated in a year-long artist residency at the Lower Eastside Print Shop where taught monotype. Sarah exhibits widely in Canada and the US and has recently been included in shows at the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and The McKinley Arts & Culture Center in Reno, NV. In 2009 and 2014 she was a recipient of Brooklyn Arts Council Grants. Her other awards include residency fellowships from The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Nebraska City, NE, and Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY. Her work is in the permanent collection of NYU Langone Hospital. For more information about her work, please visit www.sarahnicolephillips.com.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Community Exchange Foundation, Adirondack Studios and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Electron │ Photon
2017-09-23 - 2017-10-27 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
September 23 – October 27, 2017
3 Photographers’ Unique Approach to Image-Making – Dee Breger, Suran Song and Eleanor Sweeney
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 23, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm
Read: Albany Times Union Review Here
Dee Breger
Eleanor Sweeney
Suran Song
Dee Breger’s images stand at the intersection of art, science, education and technology. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) she worked with could magnify a specimen over 300,000 times. The structures seen in her images are preserved, while their aesthetic presentation is manipulated through an array of graphics techniques. She says: “In using a research laboratory’s high-tech visualizing instrument to produce revelatory – and relevant – art, my goal is to offer arresting pictures of the microworld that inspire a sense of wonder at its elegance, astonishment at its diversity, and delight in the stories it has to tell. As a scientist grounded in the disciplines of research, I seek to maintain the integrity – the truth – of the specimens. As an artist, I want my images to speak to the viewer’s heart.”
Dee Breger received a degree in Art from the University of Wisconsin and began her career as a scientific illustrator at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, switching to electron microscopy soon after. She founded Lamont/Columbia’s first professional SEM and X-ray microanalysis facility, which she directed for 22 years. Her work has been exhibited around the world and was featured in the BBC documentary “Hidden Visions.” Her book “Journeys into Microspace: The Art of the Scanning Electron Microscope” was featured in the New York Times magazine. Besides specializing in the technology, scientific application, and artistry of the SEM, Breger also led or participated in several Earth science programs on over 30 field expeditions, with a specialization in Antarctic oceanography. From 2004 to 2009 she served as Director of Microscopy at Drexel University. She retired from academia in 2009 to return to her first love: art. She launched Micrographic Arts that year in Saratoga Springs, NY, where she lived until her death, working as a consultant and artist. Dee Breger passed away in September of 2016 after a battle with leukemia. More information about Dee Breger can be found at www.micrographicarts.com,and her TED Ed talk, “Visualizing Hidden Worlds Inside Your Body,” can be seen at https://ed.ted.com/lessons/visualizing-hidden-worlds-inside-your-body-dee-breger.
Sanskrit and the civics of politics, as well as a routine practice of Yoga, are both strong influences for Suran Song. Her work encompasses printmaking, painting, installation, sculpture, photography, video and performance art. A recent project “There’s More to Life Than Increasing Its Speed! We need each other here!” contains a series of limited edition c-prints depicting flower mandalas projected on to the hands of participants held in various mudras (symbolic hand gestures), while practicing yogic breathing. The work is inspired by her routine practice of Yoga and the Sanskrit Pushpam Veda mantra, a Vedic hymn that expresses water as the basis of the universe and is used at the time of offering flowers to the deities at the very end of the Pujas (a prayer ritual performed to honor one or more deities). Song conceived of the project as a means for participants to practice fasting from cell phones and other screens by returning to their breath and presence, and to experience colors often used in yogic therapy to transmit uplifting and healing vibrations. She says: “I am interested in engaging with the public by making experiential art that transcends the viewer. Working in a multitude of disciplines further allows me to continually test the boundaries of the senses, the embrace of Sanskrit and the breath, all core elements that inform my artistic path.”
Suran Song earned her BFA from University of The Arts in Philadelphia, PA and her MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York, NY. She has received awards and residencies from the Queens Council for the Arts and the New York Artist and Community Council: The Laundromat Project. Her work has been exhibited at numerous venues, including The Villa Terrace Museum of Decorative Arts, Milwaukee, WI; Chashama Windows Project, Harlem, NY; Art in Odd Places, New York, NY; The Walk Exchange, London, England & New York, NY; Southview Co-operative, Queens, NY; Shirin Gallery, Chelsea, NY, NY; Queens Museum, Queens, NY. Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC; The Experimental Space, Long Island City, NY; and Fabio Scalia Art Space, Brooklyn, NY. In addition to being a multi-media artist and performer, she is a student of Sanskrit, and a yoga instructor with an International Teacher’s Certification in Himalayan Yoga. She lives and works in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. More information about Suran Song and her work can be found at www.suransong.com and also at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn2P7snwycY, where she is a featured artist in a brief video describing her work.
Photographer Eleanor Sweeney makes digital transfers on metal, paper, wood and fabric, as well as traditional photographic prints. Her eye is often drawn to small, ordinary things, which she likes to manipulate a bit. She says: “I have been making photographs for a long time, starting out with classic black and white images. Gradually I became interested in color, doing a little hand coloring and working with colored slides. For many years, I made Polaroid transfers, and later began to teach myself to make transfers using digital photographs. This way I can play around with color and shape in the computer. All the photographs in this show are reflections in silver Mylar. I place a sheet of Plexiglas covered by a piece of Mylar against a tree or wall or something, set up the tripod to the side, and photograph what is reflected. The Mylar is not very tight, so it ripples in the slightest breeze, creating the wavy abstract result in the photograph. Some of the photographs are printed on paper, while others are transferred onto metal or wood.”
Eleanor Sweeney, born in Cincinnati, Ohio 1937, earned a BA in Russian from Middlebury College in 1959. She studied photography at North Country Community College from 1974-1976, and took various photography workshops around the country. In 1997 she co-founded Adirondack Artists Guild in Saranac Lake, NY. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the Northeast, and featured in solo exhibitions at Adirondack Artists Guild and Pendragon Theatre, both in Saranac Lake; St Louis Artists Guild; Visitor Interpretive Centers in Paul Smiths and Newcomb, NY; Geonomics Center at Middlebury College, VT; and For ArtSake in Malone, NY. Recent group exhibitions include “Catching Water,” Bluseed Studios, Saranac Lake and “Imagined Landscapes,” Lake Placid Center for the Arts. She is the recipient of three NY decentralization grants, and was awarded Best In Show at Frederic Remington “Members’ Show” (2017) and First Place in Photography in “Central Adk Art Show” at View Old Forge, NY (2017). She lives and work in Saranac Lake, NY.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Community Exchange Foundation, Adirondack Studios and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Story Time: Children and Young Adult Authors and Illustrators
2017-07-07 - 2017-08-11 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
Featuring the work of Bruce Hiscock, Marika McCoola, and Jennifer Sattler

Opening July 7 and running through August 11, 2017, the Lake George Arts Project’s Courthouse Gallery will present “Story Time: Children and Young Adult Authors and Illustrators”, a 3 person exhibition featuring the work of Bruce Hiscock, Marika McCoola, and Jennifer Sattler. The opening reception takes place on Friday, July 7, from 6 – 8 PM. We will also present a panel discussion with the artists on Tuesday, August 1st at 6 pm at Northshire Bookstore, 424 Broadway in Saratoga Springs, NY. Our exhibiting artists will discuss their creative process and relationship between visual illustration and storytelling. All events are free and open to the public.
Bruce Hiscock is the author/illustrator of many natural history books for children. His stories, like “The Big Rock” and “The Big Tree,” are based on actual objects, near his home, and contain enough information to enlighten grade school kids as well as most adults. These books, among others, have been designated as Outstanding Science Trade Books by the Children’s Book Council. “The Big Rock” and “The Big Storm” were honored on the John Burrough’s Riveby Award List of Books for Young Readers. Well versed in many aspects of science, Bruce studied chemistry in college and graduated from the University of Michigan, B.S. 1962 and Cornell University, Ph.D., 1966. At age 40 he decided to combine his artistic talents with science and begin a career in children’s books. His journeys across the North American Arctic from Alaska to Labrador form the basis of several works, including “Tundra,” “The Big Caribou Herd,” and most recently, “Ookpik- the Travels of a Snowy Owl,” a finalist for the Charlotte Award of New York State. Bruce lives in Porter Corners, NY, in a house he built by hand using the native rocks and trees. He often gives programs in schools and libraries, teaching kids to draw and encouraging them to read and write stories for themselves. You can learn more about his work at brucehiscock.com.
Marika McCoola is an illustrator, educator, and the New York Times bestselling author of “Baba Yaga’s Assistant.” She studied illustration, art history, creative writing, and ceramics at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland and received her BFA in Illustration in 2009. Marika then went on to study creative writing and children’s literature at Simmons College, receiving an MFA in Writing for Children in 2012. In addition to writing and illustrating, Marika teaches Studio Art, Illustration, and Children’s Literature online for the State University of New York, Empire State College, works as an indie bookseller, and teaches classes through the Emerson Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA. She’s also taught Children’s Literature for the K-6 Classroom for Skidmore College’s Education department. Her awards include a 2016 Ivan Gold Fiction Fellowship from Writers’ Room of Boston; 2015 Finalist for JP Reads Flash Fiction Contest; Rusty Drugan Scholarship from New England Independent Booksellers’ Association, 2012, and CHIRP Scholarship for Winter Institute 7 from Candlewick Press, 2012. Marika grew up in Glens Falls, and currently resides in Somerville, MA. You can learn more about her and her work at marikamccoola.com.
Jennifer Sattler is the award winning author and illustrator of several children’s books, including “Sylvie,” which won the Mockingbird Award and the Georgia Children’s Book Award, “Uh O DoDo,” and her newest book “Frankie The Blankie.” She is also the author of the popular “Chick-N-Pug” and “Pig Kahuna” series. Jennifer earned her BFA in painting from the University of New Hampshire and MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington. In 1996, she won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Although she has worked as a landscape painter and professor of painting and drawing, her real passion is creating books for children. After her first daughter Mayzie was born, she found it harder and harder to get out to the painting studio. “I couldn’t wait to read to Mayzie. She slept most of the time, but I kept reading, silly voices and all! The magic of picture books excited me so much more than making pictures to hang on the wall.” Jennifer began drawing elephants, Mayzie’s favorite animals at the time. A year later her first book was published, “Bella’s Saratoga Summer,” starring Bella the Elephant (named after their 100 lb. dog). The following year her second book was published. “All Aboard Owney! The Adirondack Mail Dog” was based on the true story of a scruffy dog that rode the rails in the early 1900’s. She says: “I’ve been asked why I only use animals as my characters in my books. It’s simple, really. I want children to identify with the personalities of my characters, their situations, worries and joys… When the characters are animals, it’s much more universally relatable.” Jennifer lives and works in Saratoga Springs. You can learn more about her and her work at jennifersattlerbooks.com.
This exhibition is funded in part by Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs, Adirondack Studios, Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

"Shifting Perceptions" a solo exhibition of new work by Jenny Hutchinson
2017-06-07 - 2018-08-10 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
July 7 – August 10, 2018
Opening Reception Saturday, July 7, 4 – 6 pm.
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm
Review online: Get Visual

Jenny Hutchinson’s work is informed by her love for drawing from life. Her recent work is inspired by time spent outside in the natural world, as well as the plants residing in her house, observing changes that come through the course of a day, as well as through the seasons. She says: “Each artwork draws inspiration from my passion for the beauty of the outdoors and plants. The selected color palette is informed by different times of the day and the lighting effect that impacts our apprehension of color. I avidly spend time outdoors watching the world slowly change around me. The plants drawn from my own household evolve too, throughout the year, and they have served as additional inspiration. The artworks mimic this interplay of encounters, observing something unfold and change… which is representative of the enthusiasm and curiosity I feel for these plants and places.”
Jenny Hutchinson earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from Clemson University and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Plattsburgh State University. Her work has been shown at many venues, including The Shirt Factory Gallery and LARAC, both in Glens Falls, NY; Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY; Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY; Laffer Gallery, Schuylerville, NY. She currently works as the Head of Museum Education at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, NY. She formerly worked as Gallery Curator and Marketing Coordinator at LARAC in Glens Falls, and taught Basic Design and Introductory Drawingat SUNY Adirondack, also in Glens Falls, NY. Her private studio space is located at The Shirt Factory in Glens Falls, NY. You can learn more about her work at www.jennyhutch.com
This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Adirondack Studios, The Community Exchange Foundation, and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Linear Landscapes: Solo exhibition of work by Rachel Kohn
2017-05-06 - 2017-06-09 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
May 6 – June 9, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 6, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Rachel Kohn’s imagery comes from real and imagined landscapes inspired by cycles of growth and decay. She will exhibit a series of miniature three-dimensional paintings that are carved and built up from layers of plaster, foam, and aquaresin. A final layer of either encaustic wax or acrylic medium is added to create a deep and luminous surface. Kohn will also exhibit a series of drawings on handmade paper. In addition to making the paper herself, she uses a variety of drawing media, including charcoal, graphite, watercolor, paper mache, and acrylic. By deconstructing and reconstructing paper pulp, rough and torn areas create images that appear to be fragile and deteriorating landscapes. She says: “My work has a focus on nature, and is also inspired by human fragility. I am influenced by cycles of deterioration, devastation, and renewal. These perpetual cycles are a natural process, and in my work I attempt to find beauty in these sometimes harrowing experiences. I look for balance from the unbalanced, control from chaos, and light from darkness.”
Rachel Kohn earned her Bachelor of Arts from Skidmore College, and Her Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in NYC. Her recent solo exhibitions include Ground Gradation, Azarian McCullough Art Gallery, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, NY; Harmonious Decay, Crossing Art Gallery, Queens, NY; Moments in Weeds, Greenport Art and Design, Greenport, NY; Existing Caves, Tarryn Teresa Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA. Her work has been included in many group exhibitions, including Mile Square Exhibition, Roig Gallery, Hoboken, NJ; Salon Art Mora, Art Mora Gallery, New York, NY; Existential Navigation, Omni Gallery, Uniondale, NY; Paradoxes, Mooney Center Gallery, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY; Your Presence is Requested, Resobox Gallery, Long Island City, NY; The Right Amount of Wrong, ISE Cultural Foundation Main Gallery, New York, NY; Waxing, Denise Bibro Fine Art, NY. Her awards include an Artist Residency at Coohaus Art, New York, NY, Kenise Barnes Fine Art Award, Larchmont Arts Festival and a Going Green Award from Crossing Art, Queens, NY. She currently lives and works in New York City, and teaches in the Graduate Art Department at The College of New Rochelle.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Community Exchange Foundation, Adirondack Studios and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Sol Survivors: Solo exhibition of work by Andrea Hersh
2017-03-11 - 2017-04-14 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
March 11 – April 14, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 11, 4 – 6 pm
Click HERE to see performance choreographed by Andrea Hersh, with dancers Liz Fillipone and Louisa Barta
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Andrea Hersh is a painter and multi-media artist examining the relationship between nature and humanity. In “Sol Survivor” she has created a world where strange hybrid, “post human” creatures have inherited an over populated and polluted planet. Her colorful paintings combine her love of the natural world with her alarm over society’s destructive disposable culture, where these anthropomorphic creatures are caught in a drama, fighting for resources. She says: “My work represents fragments of dreams, fantasies, and moments in time. My protagonists are part human, part vegetable. By insinuating these fanciful hybrids into precarious and toxic situations, I can explore themes of vulnerability, desire, greed, and industry gone awry… This work hopes to balance the beauty I see in nature with the ugliness that I have contributed to it as an active member of a disposable culture.”
Andrea Hersh earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University at Albany, and her Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from Skidmore College. Her solo exhibitions include “Celestial Bodies” (2016) and “Flora & Fauna” (2011) at The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY; and “Community Garden” at the Masery Gallery, College of St. Rose. She was recently voted “Best in Show” at the Laffer Gallery’s 2016 juried Upstate Artists exhibition, and was an exhibiting artist in the 2016 Hudson-Mohawk Regional at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls. Her work has also been shown at Clement Gallery in Troy, NY, the Albany Center Gallery, the Albany International Airport Gallery and the Saratoga Arts Center. Her awards include a Painting Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts, two NYFA Special Opportunity Stipends, as well as Artist Residency awards from The Arts Center for the Capital Region, the Millay Colony in Austerlitz, NY, and a Boreas Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland. She lives and works in Slingerlands, NY, and has taught mixed-media, painting and drawing classes as an adjunct professor for the past 15 years in and around the Capital District. You can learn more about her and her work at www.andreahersh.com.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Community Exchange Foundation, Adirondack Studios and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Still, a solo exhibition of work by Sarah Sweeney
2017-01-28 - 2017-03-03 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
January 28 – March 3, 2017
Curated by Rachel Seligman, Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs, Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College.
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 28, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

In her work, Sarah Sweeney explores the space between information that is stored in our memory and the information that is captured by documentary technologies, such as cameras, phones, stereoscopic images and home videos. She explains: “When a photograph is taken, or a voice is recorded, or a video is captured, there is a duplication that occurs. One is a memory stored internally by the body to be reconstituted later, while the other takes a physical form and enters into the archive of memory objects. It is the relationship between the two forms – one living and malleable, the other rigid and enduring – that my work takes as its subject.”
Still, Sarah Sweeney’s recent series of work, comprises large scale archival pigment prints and animations created from video footage and photographs captured at different sites in Iceland. Each work is constructed from dozens of images of the landscape combined with images of tourists taken at the same location. Sweeney digitally repositions bodies like theatrical props or mannequins among the the waterfalls, glaciers, and lava fields. Sweeney says: “Iceland’s tourism board describes their natural landscapes as a contrast between majestic mountains, picturesque lagoons, catastrophic glaciers, and raging torrential rivers. Close to a million tourists overrun Iceland every year hoping to capture and bring home these landscapes in the form of photographs. In the photographic series Still I explore the paradox that arises when hundreds of tourist bodies armed with cameras around their necks invade these remote landscapes hoping to capture a sense of wilderness, isolation, and untouched space.”

Sarah Sweeney earned her BA in Studio Art from Williams College and MFA in Digital Media from Columbia University School of the Arts. Her work has appeared nationally and internationally in exhibitions at locations including the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, the New Jersey State Museum, the Black and White Gallery, and the UCR/California Photography Museum. Her work was recently featured at Laughter and Forgetting, Bucharest Art Week, Bucharest, Romania; Screening Scholarship Media Festival Exhibition, Annenberg School Of Communication, University Of Pennsylvania; and Slingshot Festival of Music, Electronic Art, Tech, Film & Comedy, Athens, Georgia. Other recent exhibitions include Re-Picturing Photography, Union Street Gallery, Chicago Heights, Illinois;This into That: Found Object Art, Assemblage, and Other Transformed Work, Nave Gallery Annex, Somerville, Massachusetts; The Dam Show, Reservoir Art Space, Ridgewood, New York; Selected Art Faculty Exhibition, Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York; public media, private media, curated by Nick Montfort, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts. She is currently Associate Professor of Digital Media and Interactive Design in the Art Department at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.
You can learn more about her at sarahelizabethsweeney.com.
Sarah Sweeney in Conversation with curator Rachel Seligman:
RS: Could you start by sharing a little about your background as an artist?
SS: I grew up with photography because my grandfather was a serious collector. I was a photographer in high school and I wanted to be one in college. My junior year I went to the Museum School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. There I studied digital photography for the first time and I was introduced to the computer. That was first time I had any type of experience with a computer and I made a piece that was really important to me. My father died when I was 17, right before I went to college. I loved photographs but I felt that in the time after he died photographs let me down. They had been promised to be memories, and I was terribly disappointed because I used the same photographs over and over and they stopped bringing back my father. And I just felt very much like it was photography’s fault that I was losing my memories. With the computer, I could do things that reflected the way I was thinking about memories, so my first real piece was called My Father Died Four Years Ago and it involved removing him from all the photographs I had of him. And one of the ideas was that you could see the hole that he left, which was a much more present reality than actually seeing his body, which was no longer here. So it was a way to alter the photographs to reflect the present reality, as opposed to something that was in the past.
Since that time, all of my work has been about exploring photography without taking photographs. Instead, I work mainly with found photographs, slides I buy from eBay, things like that. I hadn’t taken photographs in 10 years before the Still series, and I haven’t taken them in any of my projects since.
RS: What do you think about the relationship between the photograph as a perceived document – we like to think they are snapshots of reality – and the fact that your work involves altering or fabricating the photograph?
SS: My work relies upon that perception – of photography as reality – because it allows for a sense of wonder when seeing my work. But I believe that all photography is completely constructed. While we consider photographs to be really near and dear (they’re the first thing you grab in a fire, right?) I actually think that photographs are really problematic. I think that they’re false and artificial in ways that we don’t readily perceive. And I think that’s one of the reasons all my work is in photography, and is why I alter them, because I think that when we see photographs, we don’t think about all the ways that they don’t actually equate to reality or memory…
RS: And do you feel like your personal experience of loss was the moment that you had that realization?
SS: Yes. I think because I love photography so much, and felt so betrayed.
RS: I’m interested that you had such a powerful and emotional feeling of betrayal, but that instead of completely rejecting photography and going in another direction, you ended up diving in deeply, creating your own path into photography.
SS: Every one of my works questions a different aspect of photography and our relationship to it. Not to suggest that people shouldn’t love photography, because I think photography is incredible. But to see how strange and awkward photography is, instead of just familiar, and warm, and cuddly, and all those things people generally feel about it.
RS: Tell me about the current series: how did you come to make this work, which is different from all your previous work in that you’ve actually taken these photographs yourself?
SS: People are not still in reality. We don’t see that. We don’t know what that looks like. But in photographs, we totally accept that moment. Stillness is weird and strange, but to make people see that, I rotate people 90°, because then the awkwardness seems more obvious. Also, when you’re vertical you don’t notice how rigid our bodies are, but when you turn them, they’re so rigid, almost like rigor mortis. And there are all these postures and gestures that we’re not even conscious of, because they’re so familiar. So by turning people on their side it becomes unfamiliar, and we start thinking a little bit more about what it is to be still. The other thing that really got me excited was taxidermy, and thinking about photography as visual taxidermy. Because taxidermy has all the same things as rigor mortis, it’s unnatural, but very lifelike.
The related artifice with photography is this sense… (and that goes back to my dad) …that it can bring someone back. I think our culture is very obsessed with this.
RS: Did you go to Iceland with this particular project in mind?
SS: I did. I’d been working with old slides for a long time and I decided I wanted to work with contemporary images. For this project I started looking at Flickr, but none of the photographs were a big enough size for me to use. I decided Iceland was the best place to go to make my own images because I was looking at a lot of Caspar David Friedrich, and thinking about the Rückenfigur [a figure placed in a landscape painting, seen from behind, contemplating the view]. I knew that Iceland looked a lot like some Caspar David Friedrich paintings. And one of the best things about Iceland is that it’s so compact, with many different kinds of landscape. I had a map that I had planned out with 28 sites that I would visit in 14 days. I would visit a site, and just sit there and wait for tourists to come. And it was a very odd experience of feeling like I was hunting tourists, because I’d get very excited when they would show up en-masse, armed with cameras around their necks, swarming into these remote landscapes. And then I would “shoot” them. I also took a lot of photographs of the backgrounds, so I could put them together piece by piece, because I wanted some of the work to be really big.
RS: I want to talk a little bit about the role of humor in this work.
SS: My work is not usually funny; I don’t intend it to be funny.
RS: Why do you think that people think this work is funny?
SS: I think maybe because it’s kind of uncomfortable. If you’ve ever been to a place and been one of these people, I’m somewhat poking fun at you. If you’ve ever been a tourist, you’re somewhat implicated through these people. I also think there is irony in the images: that masses of tourists descend on these sites to capture a sense of wilderness, isolation, and untouched space.
RS: It seems to me that this is a critique of how we flock to places that have been designated as being special, and we try to capture them in some way, to own them, to possess them.
SS: Yes, and I don’t understand that. I guess that’s one of the weird parts for me about this series, is that I don’t usually do this. If I go to a foreign country, I don’t take images. I don’t take pictures of my children (my husband does). I don’t take pictures of myself, I don’t take pictures pretty much at all. So this is very foreign to me.
And there’s this sense that because we’re taking all these photographs with cameras that we’re not taking anything away from a place.
RS: What do you think about that?
SS: I do think that we are taking something away from a place. I do. And I think it’s strange that on a given day in Iceland, hundreds of people have the same exact photograph. It seems incredibly wasteful. It’s digital so nobody thinks it’s wasteful. And so part of this trip was a lot about me coming to terms with, “Is it Okay? Is it not Okay? What does it mean when all these people travel through this place? What does it mean when you take something? What does it mean to own a digital piece of a place?” And so I guess one of the things that occurred to me about this is that I really think photographs are not necessarily just for memory. I think they’re a lot about communicating what it is we’re doing at a given time. I guess I’m interrogating the act and the culture of it.
RS: So you think – because you started to allude to this – that it’s about both the moment of taking it, but also the moment of sharing it with others? Maybe even more about the sharing?
SS: Yes, I think a lot of it is sharing. And I think the sharing is, on one level, tied to capitalism and colonialism. “I went to this place. You should see it… These are the most amazing things…” People who have enough money go to a country that’s not theirs, take photographs (among other things) from that country, and bring them back as a way to show off their wealth and power.
RS: Photography as a mode of conquest…
SS: It is a mode of conquest and that’s the part that is very intriguing to me. I’ve read a lot on tourism and conquest. To be in someone else’s country to “experience” it… I’m interested in what that means, and how the camera becomes a tool in service to the impulse for control and possession.
But I also don’t take photographs of my life now because I find it to be a really strange practice. You have this very odd moment where everyone is stopping, becoming still, to take the photograph. At least for me, that’s very odd. But I love photographs. That’s the paradox for me, because I love photography. And in my work, I’m trying to bring to the surface some of the paradoxes that exist for me in photography. We hold photography very close but I feel it needs to be more closely examined.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Community Exchange Foundation, Adirondack Studios and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.<

Epicurious @ UpRiver
2016-11-19 | UpRiver Cafe, 29 Main Street, Lake Luzerne, NY, 12846, United States
A Celebration of Fine Food & Art

UpRiver Cafe
29 Main Street, Lake Luzerne, NY

On November 19, 2016, UpRiver Cafe served up an amazing variety of delectable culinary delights, and throughout the restaurant walls, open kitchen, and heated back porch, LGAP organized an exhibition of food-themed art from regional artists. The event was a benefit for the Lake George Arts Project, with proceeds from the sale of art work benefiting both LGAP and the exhibiting artists.
THANK YOU UPRIVER for a wonderful evening celebrating Fine Food & Art!
Because of scheduling difficulties we were unable to present this event for a couple of years – BUT – stay tuned! We hope to bring this popular event back in 2019!

"A Certain Romance": Paintings by Fabian Lopez
2016-11-12 - 2016-12-16 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
November 12 – December 16, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 12, 4 – 6- pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Fabian Lopez’s paintings overlap representation with abstraction, weaving together stories he has either heard or read with his own personal experience. There are elements in his paintings that refer to various places he has lived: Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Rome, Philadelphia, as well as narratives of family history, epic period movies, comic books, music and western history, literature and imagery. He says: “My paintings function in this regard, at the intersection of fabricated narratives based on physical experiences within a place.” Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, he was the eighth child out of twelve. Lopez says, as a kid, “The house was never empty and always crowded to maximum capacity leaving no room for privacy. Drawing became a necessity and an entrance point into a world of imagination and exploration. Further, with Spanish being the primary language at home and the influences of both my parents that came from Mexico and my older siblings, who embraced popular American culture in their love of music, this provided me with a rich bilingual and bi culture framework.”
Fabian Lopez earned his Bachelor in Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from California State University, Long Beach, CA, and his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. His paintings were recently featured in solo exhibitions at Temple Gallery, Rome; PØST, Los Angeles, CA; and Artspace Liberti, Philadelphia, PA, and group exhibitions at Icebox Projects, Philadelphia, PA; Schick Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY; Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Gallery 102, Philadelphia, PA; I-5 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; University Art Museum – CSU Long Beach, CA; Project Space, Los Angeles, CA. His work has twice been included in the publication New American Paintings, 2015 and 2013. He is currently Assistant Professor in Painting in the Art Department at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY. You can learn more about him at http://www.fabianlopez.com.
This exhibition is funded in part by the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Lake George Kayak Co. and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Oatman & Father, Signmakers: Gordon and Michael Oatman
2016-09-24 - 2016-10-28 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
September 24 – October 28, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 24th, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm
“The Convenience Effect”historic book cuttings on map on boardwith custom frame by the artist’s father, Gordon Oatman
Michael Oatman calls his practice ‘the poetic interpretation of documents’. His collages and installations integrate thousands of found, modified and handmade components, including artifacts of material culture, painting, drawing, video, and food. With a focus on animals, this exhibition will feature Michael’s working drawings and other studies for his large scale collages, as well as the collages themselves, presented within frames created by his father, Gordon. Gordon Oatman will exhibit a selection of his frames (unfilled) and his studies and drawings for those frames. The frames are a geometric abstraction of animal forms (thunderbird, butterfly, bat, fish), with some up to 8 feet in length. Michael says “there is a connection between the two bodies of work – in my mind this relates to the early lessons I received from my Dad about nature via hunting, fishing and general fascination with the animals around us growing up in rural Vermont.”
Gordon Oatman was trained at Keene State Teachers’ College and taught Industrial Arts in the South Burlington, Vermont School System for over 30 years. His many subjects included woodworking, metal fabrication, photography and printing in three areas: offset, silkscreen and hand set type. He earned a Master’s Degree at RIT and the University of Vermont, finishing his career teaching architectural drafting and the newly invented CADD. A lifelong outdoorsman, he custom manufactured steam-bent fishing nets for the Orvis Corporation in the 1970s. He later produced hand carved dealership signs for the H. L. Leonard Rod Company, a rival fishing goods firm. For over 30 years Oatman and his wife, Shirley Oatman (a retired home economics teacher and cooking school owner) have produced material works for the many art projects of their son, Michael. At 79, this is his first art exhibition.
Michael Oatman earned his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and his MFA from the University at Albany. He has exhibited extensively in galleries, museums and public spaces throughout the US and abroad. Recent projects include All Utopias Fell, a permanent commission for MASS MoCA, open until October 2020; the 52-artist extravaganza “An Armory Show” for the Opalka Gallery at Sage College, Albany; and “ABECEDARIUS” with Colin Boyd at the Arts Center of The Capital Region in Troy. He is represented by MillerYezerski in Boston, MA; Lenore Grey in Providence, RI; Mayson Gallery in NYC and Stremmel Gallery in Reno, NV. His accolades include the Nancy Graves Foundation Award for work in new media; the Brown Fellows Award from the School of Architecture at RPI; Purchase Awards from the University Art Museum at U-Albany and the Albany Institute of History and Art, as well as grants from the New York State Council on the Arts. In 2009 he was voted Best Artist of the past 30 Years in the Capital Region by editors of the Metroland newspaper. He has taught at Harvard, UVM, University of Albany, St. Michael’s College and Vermont College. He has been a visiting critic at RISD from 1986 to the present. Since 1999 he has been a faculty member in the School of Architecture at RPI. He is the juror for the 2016 Mohawk Hudson Regional and is currently working on a solo project for the Bell Gallery at Brown University.
Exhibition Review online: Albany Times Union

Corwin Levi and Barbara Price
2016-07-09 - 2016-08-12 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
July 9 – August 12, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 9, 4 – 6- pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm
Barbara Price

Corwin Levi

Corwin Levi is project-based artist using a variety of media including painting, drawing, children’s books, sculpture, and video. He finds inspiration in the “ordinary” moments and exchanges of life, from waking up each day, to conversations with other people. He says: “Because my art is rooted in experiencing life, my interactions often find their way into what I create. Whether it’s collaborating with other artists, working a dinner conversation into a painting, drawing a Fukurokuju mask onto a character, or borrowing a thought from Camus, it all works its way into the making.”
Corwin Levi earned his BA from Rice University and MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. After art school he went on to law school at the University of Virginia. After practicing law for several years in 2009 he decided to return to creating art full time. He says “I think practicing law was a way for me to see another world, or another side of the world and it made me both appreciate and understand art making so much more.” Levi has shown across the country in solo shows at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, OR, James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, and Hillyer Art Space and Fridge Gallery, both in Washington, DC. He has been awarded a number of residency fellowships at prestigious institutions such as Pyramid Atlantic, MD; the Millay Colony, NY; Willapa Bay, WA; Ucross Foundation, WY; and a yearlong residency at the Roswell Artist in Residence Program, NM. You can learn more about his work at www.radiosebastian.com, and view his video work on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/corwinlevi.
To explore notions of “seeing” and “not seeing” equally, Barbara Price has created a series of work resembling palimpsests, documents where the original writing is obscured, yet traces of the original show through. Instead of scrapping or rubbing, the characters from the original are covered through stitched thread or yarn. She says “Looking at something very closely is both a necessity and the result of my process that includes piercing, punching, threading, knotting and weaving through paper. Looking so closely that the thing itself disappears metaphorically and on a certain level, quite literally.”
Barbara Price has exhibited her visual art work in solo exhibitions at North Main Gallery in Salem, NY, and the Small Gallery in Cambridge, NY. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Spring Street Gallery in Saratoga Springs, NY and The Chapel and Cultural Center at RPI, Troy, NY. In addition to making art she has worn many hats: she has served as a book editor, a curator, a hospitality manager for concert venues in New York City, a professional caterer, a baker, a waitress, a party planner, an artist manager, a booking agent, and a gardener. She is a founder of Battenkill Time Traders, a community based time bank, and writes articles on cooking, foraging, healthy eating and buying local. She lives and works in Greenwich, NY, and currently divides her time unevenly between being a visual artist and writer, a community activist, as well as a freelance book editor. You can see some images of her work at https://birdlit.wordpress.com/.
This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Lake George Kayak Company and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

New Work from Antarctica - Vincent Woolley
2016-06-16 - 2016-06-18 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
June 16 – 18, 2016
Artist’s Reception: Saturday, June 18, 4 – 6 PM
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: June 16th and 17th: 12 – 5 PM, and Saturday, June 18th, during the artist’s reception: 4 – 6 PM

Landscape Photographer Vincent Woolley was the 2015 recipient of the Antarctica XXI Grant from the Luminous Endowment. The Endowment awards grants to assist photographers in pursuing special projects related to their photography. Through this grant Woolley was able to travel to Antarctica in the fall of 2015. He will exhibit a portfolio of recent work resulting from this trip.
Vincent Woolley says that photographing during the trip was challenging, since most of the time he was shooting from a moving ship or Zodiac craft. Using a tripod was impossible unless he was on shore. Although he spent months preparing and researching for his expedition to Antarctica, he says: “nothing really prepared me for the experience and landscapes I was about to see. The days were very long, which allowed for more pictures. The light was gorgeous and the colors in the ice were unlike anything I have ever seen. Words cannot describe the beauty and solitude of Antarctica. I hope in some way the pictures I brought back will. I know this place will live in my mind and in my memories forever.”
Over his forty years as a photographer Woolley’s work has become more abstract. His recent subjects include ice, water, reflections, and river foam. During much of his career he worked with a 4 x 5 view camera, but now shoots digitally. You can learn more about his photographs by visitinghttp://www.vincewoolleyphotography.com/ and the Luminous Landscapes Website. He lives in Hudson Falls with his wife, two dogs and cat.
The Courthouse Gallery hours during this special exhibition are June 16th – 17th from 12 – 5 PM and on Saturday, June 18th we are open during the artist’s reception from 4 – 6 PM, and also other times available by appointment (please call ahead: 518-668-2616). The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Laura Gurton
2016-05-07 - 2016-06-10 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
May 7 – June 10, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 7, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Laura Gurton’s paintings evolve from a refined process that balances chance and control. The artist’s method, refined over many years, makes use of both oil paint and resin. Because the interactions of these two media are complex and sometimes difficult to predict, Gurton’s way of working requires a deft touch and an acute sense of timing. The resulting images are composed of multiple layers of translucent glazes, imparting levels of depth and revealing patterns analogous to microscopic cellular forms. With the addition of each layer, these forms begin to overlap, evoking a passage of time. Biomorphic shapes reminiscent of visual information gleaned from x-rays, CT scans, and electron microscopes float across the surface of the artist’s canvases. Gurton states that her work reflects her admiration for all scientific investigations.
Laura Gurton studied art at the Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, PA, the Brooklyn Museum School, Brooklyn, NY, and earned her Bachelor of of Fine Arts from The School of Visual Arts, NYC, NY, and her Masters in Supervision and Administration in the Arts from Bank Street College of Education at Parsons School of Design. Her paintings were recently featured in solo exhibitions at Theo Ganz Studio, Beacon, NY; Beacon Short Wave Gallery, Stone Harbor, NJ; Bau Gallery, Beacon, NY; Van Brunt Projects, Hudson Beach Gallery,Beacon, NY; Woodstock Artists Association and Museum; and Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art, Kingston, NY. Her work was recently included in group exhibitions at the Kleinert James Center for the Arts, Byrcliffe, Woodstock, NY; Denise Bibro Fine Art, NYC; 13 Forest Gallery, Small Works, Arlington, MA; Fresh Paint Gallery, Culver City, CA; B.B.Contemporary Art – Project Art Space, NYC; Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY; and the 55th VENICE BIENNALE: Personal Structures, Time Space Existence – Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Italy in 2013. She is currently lives and works in Woodstock, NY.
This exhibition is funded in part by Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation, the Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Lake George Kayak Company and the New York State Council on The Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Formation Proposal - A solo exhibition of work by Susan Meyer
2016-03-12 - 2016-04-15 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 12, 4 – 6- pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

Susan Meyer’s glowing and colorful futuristic sculptures and installations reference architecture, landscape and the figure. Utopian communities and Modernist architecture are amoung her influences. The works are composed of acrylic and wood shapes that make reference to futuristic architectural models, stalactites, crystal formations and Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes. She says: “My works are mash-ups of architecture and landscape. The sculptural elements combine to create fantastical, sci-fi environments. Suggesting architectural concoctions – part topogrophy, part commune, part disaster waiting to happen – the components create a dialogue between a glistening model environment and discordant details, suggesting a tension between the communal and the individual. The pieces explore landscape and architecture as embodiments of and catalysts for our desires and aspirations… I use several processes for making the work. For some pieces I stack and sculpt, responding to the form as I build it. For others, I find small rocks that are interesting, digitally scan them, and then alter the form using digital drawing. I cut layers on a laser and further alter the original form as I build the piece.”
Susan Meyer earned her Bachelor of Science from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, and her Master of Fine Arts, Boston Museum School/Tufts University, Boston, MA. Her recent solo exhibitions include Incident #69 at Incident Report Viewing Station, Hudson, NY; Plato’s Retreat at Plus Gallery in Denver, CO; and Together, a sculptural installation exhibited at Artspace in New Haven, CT. Recent group exhibitions include Odds and Ends, take one at Valley Variety in Hudson, NY, co-organized with Jeff Starr, with exhibition essay by Cydney M. Payton; Exquisite at LABspace, LABspace Gallery, Hillsdale, NY, a collaborative piece with Gina Occhiogrosso and Jeff Starr; Small Works 2015, Shirt Factory Gallery, Glens Falls, NY; Organic Chemistry, KMOCA, Kington, NY; 2014 Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY, Juror: Stephen Westfall, catalogue, received A. Grindle Custom Framing Award; and Imaginary Worlds, The Art Center Gallery, Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs, NY. Her awards include a Fellowship from the Institute for the Digital Humanities, University of Denver, Video Production Workshop, and residencies at Redux Contemporary Art Center, Charleston, SC; PlatteForum, Denver, CO; Pilchuck Glass School – Emerging Artist in Residence, Stanwood, WA; Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass, CO; Ucross Foundation, Sheridan, WY; and Sculpture Space Residency in Utica, NY. She is currently an Assistant Professor at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY.

This exhibition is funded in part by The Alfred Z. Solomon Charitable Trust, Lake George Kayak Company and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.
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Three Hundred Sixty Five: An Idea And The Reality
2016-01-23 - 2016-02-26 | Courthouse Gallery, 1 Amherst St, Lake George, NY, 12845, United States
January 23 – February 26, 2016
a solo exhibition / installation by Eric Nelson
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 23, 4 – 6 pm
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri 12 – 5 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

After several years of making large sculptures, Eric Nelson decided to revisit his early interest in small scale work. He began a new project with the aim of creating one small carved wood sculpture a day for a year, with each piece carved from a 2 x 2 x 4 inch mahogany block. In reality it took almost twelve years to complete the project, which he titled Three Hundred Sixty Five. The work is inspired and informed by memory, direct observation and drawings. He says: “Some of my earliest memories are playing with toys, figures and decorative objects. The materials, texture, color and method of manufacture of these objects interested me. Most of them held a sense of intimacy and imaginative power that was transformative. Also, the accessibility and tactility of these objects gave me great satisfaction and lasting pleasure. The sources for the sculptures are derived from invention, ancient, modern, and decorative art (including pottery, jewelry and amulets), plants, animals, geometric structures and ordinary objects. The first several pieces were feasible to make in one day. As the project progressed the sculptures became more complex and time consuming. This progression is evident as one views the whole project.”
Eric Nelson earned his B.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Chicago, IL, an M.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA. He recently had a solo exhibition at Jackson Gallery, Town Hall Theater, Middlebury, VT, and his sculpture has been installed in public sculpture parks at James Madison University in Harrisonburg,VA; Navy Pier in Chicago, IL; and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including In Grain: Contemporary Wood Sculpture, Fleming Museum of Art, The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT; Flowers, Trees, Birds, Bees: Nature Explored, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT; and A Cause for Art: Alonzo Davis Fellowship Exhibit, Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. His awards include Fellowship Residencies from Moulin à Nef, Auvillar, France; Virginia Center for the Arts, Sweet Briar, VA; and Sculpture Space Inc., Utica, NY. He received The Albert Jacobson Memorial Award from Silvermine Guild Arts Center, New Canaan, CT and has twice received Fellowships from the Vermont Council on the Arts. He recently retired from Middlebury College where he taught sculpture and drawing for thirty-three years. To learn more about Eric Nelson visit www.ericnelsonfineart.com.
This exhibition is funded in part by Lake George Kayak Company and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. The Courthouse Gallery hours during exhibitions are Tuesday through Friday 12 – 5 pm, Saturday 12 – 4 pm, and all other times by appointment. The Courthouse Gallery is located at the side entrance of the Old County Courthouse, corner of Canada and Lower Amherst Streets, Lake George, NY.

Black Velvet Art Party
2014-11-22
Until further notice the BVAP is on hiatus.
The last BVAP party took place on Saturday, November 22, 2014 at the Georgian Resort in Lake George.
It was the 26th Black Velvet Art Party, and the theme was “GNARLY”
The event was known for its out-of-the ordinary presentation of black velvet art and over-the-top apparel, and featured a silent auction of original black velvet art, art and fashion awards.

2014 Awards:
Fashion Awards:
1. The Joan Reid Award (most inappropriate attire) – Mike Vittengl
.2. Tres Tacky – Mel Ostberg
3. Velviagra – Billijo Meader
4. Svelte – Ray Perry
5. Velvelicious – Cathy DeDe
6. King BVAP 26th – Brian Landenburger
7. Queen Velveteen – Denise Perry
Art Awards:
1. Best of Black Velvet – Gary McCoola, “Gimme Shelter”
2. Velveeta (the cheesiest) – Armon Art Brown, “Gnarly”
3. Velveluminous (the brightest) – Joy McCoola, “Grate Openings”
4. Velveluptuous (the sexiest) – Kat Griffin, “Gnarly Fairy Chair”
5. Velvet Underground – Betsy Brandt, “After Rousseau”
6. BV Amoeba Art Award (Best Amoeba Art) – Sam Bowser, “Amoebas on Parade”
