artist

On Saturday, August 13 at 6 p.m. at The Old Dutch Church in Kingston, New York, Amanda Palmer will play a benefit concert for O+ with special guests Holly Miranda, Chris Wells, Sophi Strand, Father Nathan Monk, and Gracie and Rachel. This is Palmers’ only major solo show this summer and her first in the United States in three years.

Founded by Saratoga residents Spencer and Katrina Trask in 1900, Yaddo was the first artist residency in the United States of America. It went on to welcome some of the most famous figures in the world from Sylvia Plath and Truman Capote to Walter Mosley, Laurie Anderson and David Sedaris. 7000 artists, which include winners of the Academy Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, and the National Book Award, and many, many more. We have been very fortunate to be invited into the mysterious inner sanctum of Yaddo to discuss the recent changes after a multi-million dollar stabilization and restoration of the public face. We welcome Yaddo President Elena Richardson; artist, singer, songwriter, author and performing artist Joseph keckler, and writer, performer, and visual artist James Hannaham. Both Keckler and Hannaham are on Yaddo's board and have been artists in residence.

This morning we get a preview of the Hilltown 6 Pottery Tour - a sampling of the work of a group of nationally recognized potters based in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. Each summer, they open their studios for a coordinated tour, inviting neighbors, friends, collectors, and the curious to see their workshops, kilns, showrooms, and new work.This year’s tour is their 16th annual and runs July 23 and 24 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. We welcome two of the potters - Christy Knox of Natural Elements Pottery and Maya Machin of Maya Machin Pottery.

“Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau” is a memoir and travelog by Ben Shattuck, published by Tin House.Living through a dark period of early adulthood, Ben Shattuck, in quiet desperation, began to trace 19th century writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau’s hikes around the northeast. Many miles and several years later, Shattuck has written a meditative journey toward personhood - expressed by placing Thoreau’s writing alongside Shattuck’s writing and illustration.

Art Omi in Ghent, New York presents the works of contemporary artists and architects, and offers a range of large-scale works in nature, plus a 1,500 square foot gallery. The Sculpture & Architecture Park currently offers more than 60 works by artists and architects on view, with pieces added or exchanged each year.“Raven Halfmoon: Ancestors” is the current exhibition on view in the Newmark Gallery at Art Omi through June 12. A member of the Caddo Nation, Halfmoon was born and raised in Oklahoma, and has always been strongly connected to the arts and her heritage. This is the first solo institutional exhibition of Raven Halfmoon’s work. The gallery is host to six recent large-scale ceramic sculptures. Halfmoon’s sculptures examine entanglements between past and present, sampling from an array of sources including graffiti, Caddo tattooing and mythology, and her own family history. I visited Art Omi recently and spoke with Senior Curator of the Sculpture & Architecture Park Sara O’Keefe and with artist, Raven Halfmoon.

David Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer living with his Upper West Side family in the age of JFK and Sputnik, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his meticulous father and the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother. With wry and brilliantly observed prose, Sipress paints his hapless place in the family, from the time he is tricked by his unreliable older sister into rocketing his pet turtle out his twelfth-floor bedroom window, to the moment he walks away from a Harvard PhD program in Russian history to begin his life as a professional cartoonist. His book is "What's So Funny?: A Cartoonist's Memoir."

Through his print-based collages and sculptures, Yashua Klos explores the intersections among the human form, natural elements, the built environment, and social hierarchies. His practice employs a process of collaging woodblock prints to engage ideas about Blackness and maleness as identities that are both fragmented and constructed.His recent work takes on personal histories of race, identity, and familial ties. For the exhibition Yashua Klos: OUR LABOUR, curated by Johnson-Pote Director at The Wellin, Tracy Adler, the artist is creating an entirely new body of site-responsive collages and sculptures, and collaborating with Hamilton College students on a large-scale, collage-based wall installation at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY through June 12.

The North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show - or NBOSS - is one of the region’s premiere arts events of the summer/fall season, featuring work by some of the best artists from southern Vermont and throughout the northeast for the last 23 years.

The Hilltown Open Studio Tour takes place this weekend, giving art lovers the opportunity to visit the studios of nearly two dozen local artists. The tour will be held Saturday and Sunday, October 2nd and 3rd from 11AM to 5 PM both days and is organized by the Hilltown Arts Alliance.

There is a new exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown - Believe in Yourself: What We Learned from Arthur - an inside look at Marc Brown’s artwork and stories.