Monthly Archives: July 2022

art, art festival, art for sale, Arts & Crafts, Karen Tashkovski

The A & C

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The AmeriCU Syracuse Arts & Crafts Festival has returned to Columbus Circle and surrounding roads in Syracuse, NY. It began on Friday and continues tomorrow from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM.

Here is a sampling of the artisans represented this year. I was there today and mainly walked through the circle and down Montgomery Street.

Susan Shannon is a potter from Vermont. She had an incredibly cohesive display. All of her porcelain ceramics are handmade on the potter’s wheel – no molds! She said there is a beauty to the zen of creating a familiar shape and it never gets boring. The glaze is a type of high fire stain and the colors are wonderfully rich. This is the type of functional art that must be purchased in multiples.

It is all microwaveable and dishwasher safe. Really great! She is located in front of the church on the circle.

Her website is suchipottery.com. For more information call (970) 529-3029.

Charlie Sam has really upped his game since I first met him several years ago. Again, the word is cohesive. He creates these original graphic characters and represents them on T-shirts, sweatshirts, glassware, mugs and buttons.

He is from Syracuse. His booth is on Montgomery Street. Find him on Instagram and Facebook.

So great!

I enjoyed meeting the Hadfields of CH Woodcraft. Craig Hadfield creates these Americana paintings on pine. I love the flag motif! And of course, I work in “bear country”, which is what we call Chittenango. Love!

They are from Syracuse. The booth is on Montgomery Street. If you don’t make it out tomorrow, you can call (315) 558-0201. They also do custom projects.

Joelle’s Dolls are so full of whimsy. Joelle McAndrew from Lewiston, NY creates her own designs and patterns. Each doll has a backstory, which is so delightful. There is so much detail in the clothing! Everything is original.

This is another example of needing more than one. Someone should buy her whole collection.

Again, this booth is on Montgomery Street. Also find her at joellesdolls.etsy.com.

Johanna Wall is a lovely person! She is a retired teacher from Syracuse. She and her husband worked the booth today, which is located on Montgomery Street. Her collection includes jewelry and decoupage items – birdhouses, canisters, coasters and wreaths.

Call (315)382-5262 for more information.

John Oneal Heard is a man of many hats – professor, model, musician, art teacher and artist. He had a small collection of original paintings (I believe they are abstract paintings on glass mounted on canvas). He literally paints music. He said his favorite thing about meeting the public as an artist with a business is answering questions from children – it is rewarding to share his work with an audience.

Call (315) 992-3267 for more information.

And that is what this festival truly embodies – the spirit of the collective creative energies flowing through these business men and women and fusing with the community in such a joy-filled positive way. Hurray for the artists and art patrons of Syracuse, New York!

Really, really soooooo great!

art for sale, art museum, museum, store

The Thirty Dollar Ridlon

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Jim Ridlon has donated these amazing prints to the Everson Museum of Art. They are located in the museum gift shoppe – for sale – and they are priced between $30 and $50. They are embossed. I’m not sure if this is true but the young man at the sales desk said he’d created them when he was a student and since he is not known for etchings or prints he decided to price them low.

I mean, they are a steal, really. They are created on a thick archival paper, probably Arches, not sure. You’d have to get them framed, but wow!

This is incredibly cool.

art, art education, art exhibition, art museum, Karen Tashkovski, museum

In Scale

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I’ve been reminiscing about Dawn Dolls. They were manufactured for only three years in the early ’70s by Topper. Dawn, Angie, Gary, and company. they were only six-and-a-half inches tall, so they were incompatible with Barbies because they were so small. But they were so pretty with silky long hair and “real” eyelashes, and of course, with very awesome 1970s fashions. I loved them and I love them still.

I’ve been stalking them on the Internet – Ebay, Etsy and Mercari mainly. I don’t really want to buy them, do I? I want to be the Dawn doll. Haven’t I always? So funny that my hair resembles hers now. All I need is an Alice & Olivia dress and I am good to go.

What struck me as I viewed Sharif Bey’s art exhibit at the Everson Museum of Art is that he too seems to be enamored with doll collections albeit his are quite large scale especially the necklaces!

Like Vanessa German’s work and Vanessa Johnson’s too, Bey has added his take on the African experience by way of the doll.

This show is housed in two of the four upstairs galleries and spans the artist’s thirty-year career. I mean, he’s only forty-eight, which indicates that some of the pieces in this collection of works were created when he was only eighteen. It is a lot of work – from functional ceramics to these large figurative pieces and finally the accessory wall. It is incredibly impressive for sure.

These necklaces in particular are really something. In the accompanying pamphlet prepared for a Junteenth visitation, it is revealed that he used toilet paper over glaze in the kiln to manifest the charred pattern on the “beadwork”. It is genius.

The scale speaks volumes about who this man is as an artist and as a human. It is a combo of continued visual exploration and ethnic pride coupled with a desire to both learn and teach.

Bey is a professor at Syracuse University in the Art Education department. The brochure professes to take children on a journey to discover themselves as he serves to explore ideas to carry him on his own path.

The exhibition is titled “Facets”. It works so well here because the Everson has always been first and foremost a ceramics museum. Knowing that these massive pieces are also fragile lends itself well to that idea that we are all fragile beings in a way, always seeking that strength of character in our true identities while harboring thoughts of doubt, worry and stupid fears that can easily break our spirits.

I wonder if that thought crossed his mind? No matter what doll one identifies with – big or small, black or white, etc., etc., we are all that creative spirit looking for a way to connect and feel that blessed feeling of validation as we develop our crafts/psyches in order to continue the ascent through life.

The Everson Museum of Art is located at 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, NY, 13202. Call (315) 474-6064 for more information or find them at www.everson.org.

Sharif Bey: Facets continues through August 14, 2022.

fish fry, ISO - fish fry, Karen Tashkovski

ISO Fish Fry – Swifty’s

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After viewing the Norman Rockwell exhibit at Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute yesterday, Penny Santy and I had lunch down the street at Swifty’s Restaurant & Pub.

Since it was Friday, I decided to try their fish fry.

Presentation: Pub style beer-battered fish fry is always welcome! It arrived in a basket with homemade hot potato chips, coleslaw and a big helping of tartar sauce.

Taste: In the ’90s I used to love the beer-battered haddock at the Empire Brewing Company in Armory Square in Syracuse. This fish tasted exactly like it – OMG, it was so familiar and wonderful. I didn’t have many of the chips because I wasn’t that hungry and I loved that it was such a small portion of coleslaw. Everything was delish!

Restaurant Experience: We picked the restaurant because it was close to the museum and it was open. There wasn’t anyone sitting in the outdoor seating section and no one was dining in the restaurant. A handful of regulars were seated in the bar area. So – this is not often a good sign, lol, that the food would be good. But, it was around 3:30 PM, which is that in between time, between lunch and dinner. We sat inside near the front windows. It was very clean and comfortable. The waitress was extremely welcoming and friendly. It was such a positive place!

The food came rather quickly. It was an excellent restaurant experience.

Location: Swifty’s Restaurant & Pub is located at 257 Genesee Street, Utica, NY 13501. Call (315) 733-6611 for reservations and hours of operation or visit their web-site. They offer catered parties, take-out orders, live music and a children’s menu. They also have locations in Delmar, NY and Albany, New York!

Parking: We parked on the street in front of the building. It was one of those easy parking manifestations, the way it always seems to happen in movies, so that was nice. There is no parking lot.

art exhibition, art museum, illustration, Karen Tashkovski, magazine covers, oil painting

Norman

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There is an art exhibition of original paintings, posters and magazine covers representing the career of illustrator Norman Rockwell at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, 310 Genesee Street, Utica, NY 13502. This show was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

All of the Saturday Evening Post covers are represented here! It is amazing to see them all together like this – they hold court in two of the three gallery rooms on the second floor of the museum.

I won tickets to see this show. Thank you, Sullivan Library, Chittenango, NY for this wonderful gift. And thank you, Penny, for accompanying me on this wonderful summer art excursion. So fun!

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute is open Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 AM -5:00 PM and Sunday noon-5:00 PM. They have guided tours of the exhibit – call (315) 797-0000 for more information.

P.S. They are having an arts festival through Sunday, July 17, 2022. There are outdoor events including a music stage, local art display and food trucks!

art teacher, found object, interior decorating, Karen Tashkovski, still life, store

Sweet Salvage Gift Shoppe

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This is a house turned into a store full of treasures both inside and outside. It is Sweet Salvage Gift Shoppe, 6483 E. Seneca Turnpike, Jamesville, NY 13078. Proprietor Kathy Hastings certainly has the gift of merchandising. She’s created a series of vignettes in each room of the house, combining old and new products for that rustic charm that speaks of nostalgia, as though you could take something home and claim it as your own personal heirloom.

Outside, you can find a multitude of objects for your yard – tables, birdhouses, birdbaths and objects d’arte for the garden.

Her eye for placement is impeccable! I love this store!

This is the perfect place to photograph a grouping to use in a still life assignment at school (and maybe it will be!). It’s all about the layering, the texture and the repetition of elements, I think.

There are several of these affirmation blocks (above). This place is filled with positivity!

And you can even find a bathroom sink! Yes, it is for sale!

They are open Monday-Friday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM and Saturday-Sunday 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM. For inquiries call (315) 492-1266 or email info@ssalvage.com.

They are also on Facebook. I’ve been following them for years and I finally stopped in for a visit! So fun! <3

art of fine dining, fish fry, ISO - fish fry, Karen Tashkovski

ISO Fish Fry – Golden Spike Pub

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Three of us had lunch at Golden Spike Pub in the village of East Syracuse last Friday. It is a family-owned and operated restaurant. It used to be called Marko’s Golden Spike after Marko Klapan, a dear friend of my father’s. Dad even worked there, briefly. Now it is run by Marko’s daughter Mary Celletti and her husband Jim, and their children.

Presentation: Jim designed and made all of the tables in the dining room! The room has a rustic feel to it, very welcoming. There is an entrance to the dining room but you can also access it through the large bar area (think Cheers!). We all ordered the fish and different sides. As you can see from the pictures, the presentation is inconsistent – plates used depending on the order. So Mom’s fried fish had the french fries on the plate and my broiled fish had the sweet potato fries in a separate basket.

Kathy had ordered onion rings as an appetizer as well as clam chowder soup for herself. The rest of the food came at the same time. The waitress had to make two trips. We were there around 1:00 PM and it wasn’t crowded. There were three other groups dining at that time.

Taste: This is hands down THE BEST broiled fish in town. It is mouth wateringly good. Buttery, hot, fresh. Mary removes the skin from every piece of haddock in the morning then the fish is cooked to order. They never have leftovers. They order a certain amount, have the fish delivered for Friday-only lunches and dinners, so it is not an every day thing. I came here once with my friend Joey, but we’d arrived after 7:00 PM on a Friday night and they were out of the haddock. That is why Joey thought The Retreat was his favorite fish dinner – because he’d never tasted this!

Everything else was fabulous as well. The sweet potato fries are served with maple syrup on the side and they are delish! I also had the coleslaw. I didn’t try to poach Kathy’s cucumber salad or the macaroni and cheese but I should have! It looks so good, doesn’t it?

Restaurant Experience: It was pretty quiet in the dining room. The waitress was lovely. She came to get our orders right away. I just felt so happy there!

Location: Golden Spike Pub is located at 411 West Manlius Street, East Syracuse, NY 13057. They also do parties and catering. You can contact them by phone (315) 565-5691 or by email GoldenSpikePub315@gmail.com.

They are not open on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in the summer. Call them for updated hours of operation.

You can also find them on Facebook. That’s where they post the daily specials menu. I love everything! They do a superb roast beef sub with homemade chips. In fact, everything is homemade! They have the best food – and you know what a picky eater I am! <3

Parking: There is a parking lot adjacent to the building. I parked at the post office across the street because I was approaching via East Road and the parking lot appeared full. But when I crossed the street I saw plenty of room behind the apartment building next door. Oh well, next time I will know better.