My friends and I had a lot of fun in the journey of traveling through the labyrinth that is the Delavan Center. It is a building west of Armory Square that houses artist studios. There was open house last night. The party continues today until 4:00 pm. The Delavan is located at 509 W. Fayette Street in Syracuse, New York, 13204. (315) 476-9001
You will find lots of treasures! Artists are selling paintings, ceramics, sculpture, clothing and jewelry – buy something for yourself or to give as gifts this holiday season.
Point of Contact gallery is located in The Warehouse building, 350 W. Fayette Street (near the intersection with West Street) in Syracuse, New York. It is an annex of Syracuse University located in the Armory Square area of town. Its mission is to provide an arts dialogue with the community focusing on Latin American culture.
In the summer, however, the gallery opens its doors to a juried exhibition, welcoming all local artists to participate. Currently, Sum Art 2017 is up until mid-August. The art reception was last night.
For some reason, every time I enter this gallery, it starts out feeling like Dr. Who’s Tardis – bigger on the inside. Last night, as I winded my way around the exhibit taking quick snapshots here and there around the many patrons who attended finding myself in the second room and nearly impaling myself on a tall wooden sculpture, I realized that idea is an illusion.
It isn’t so big and yet, this show really packs a punch. So much to delight in – to see. Large scale works and tiny collage pieces. Realism in both painting and ceramics juxtaposed with pricey abstracts. There was something for every individual aesthetic.
Last year I bailed on this show, lol. I made up for it last night, even getting an Instagram fashion post out of the dealio – thanks to contributing artist Penny Santy (photo cred)!
BCBGMaxAzria romper, belt and clutch, BCBGeneration booties
Maybe next year I will go a step further and enter my artwork…. (???)
Gallery Hours: The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 12-5 PM to the general public.
Dolce Vita World Bistro is across the street from Syracuse Stage – at 907 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse, New York. The restaurant serves international cuisine, hosts musical and theatrical events in collaboration with Syracuse University and promotes local visual artists via monthly art exhibitions on the walls of its dining room.
Friday night I attended the opening reception for What’s Left, an art show combining the talents of Le Moyne College colleagues Erin Davies and Penny Santy. The title is derived from a Robin Williams quote –
What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.
The show features wood collage pieces by Erin and oil paintings by Penny.
Meredith Cuddihy on violin provided the musical entertainment. There was wine and cake, and other yummy fare, as well as friendship, camaraderie, and lots of fun! It is always very special to support my friends in all of their endeavors and of course, any excuse for a party is a good one, especially now – we are weathering a severe cold spell in Syracuse, New York and no one really wants to hunker down in their respective shelters to wait it out.
According to their web-site, Dolce Vita is open Monday – Thursday 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm, Wednesday – Friday 11:00 am – midnight, and Saturday 4:00 pm – 11:00 pm. They schedule private events on Sundays. If you are interested in scheduling one, making a reservation or checking out the wonderful art, call (315) 475-4700 for the deets.
By day, Penny Santy is a graphic artist. By night and weekends, she becomes a powerhouse superhero – an oil painting phenomenon who captures the essence and beauty of (as well as the struggle to find) the perfect relationship in a work of art.
I love having conversations about art with Penny. She was recently in Baltimore for the Diebenkorn and Matisse show and spoke passionately about the brush strokes and the artists’ implied intention resulting in their ultimate successful choices on canvas. It is this attention to things that Penny brings to her own work, a constant questioning of what instinctively works at any given time.
This is reflected in her literature.
My motivation for creating art is a search for what makes humans tick, and for finding emotion in the painted image. My work is derived from an exploration of human strengths, struggles, accomplishments or destruction. What is great about making art is that it goes much deeper than the outward appearance of things. I’m always searching through the process of painting for what is below the surface. The process allows me to discover, and I am excited by what I find. My paintings aren’t trying to present answers, but to ask questions.
Penny reworks paintings until they are to her satisfaction, whether it is the better choice of blue for a sky or the slightest value change in a complementary color scheme to tweak the flow of rhythm that is constantly in her vortex. Her presence as an artist is truly captivating.
I am really impressed with this new body of work, how it defines her vision, a place hovering between reality and abstract, which generates considerable movement with breathtaking perfection.
She sold several of these paintings at the opening last night at the Wilson Art Gallery in the Noreen Reale Falcone library at Le Moyne College (1419 Salt Springs Road, Syracuse, New York 13214). I observed patrons fighting over pieces (“okay, I’ll get that one and you can have that one” type stuff). It was really magnificent to witness her success. She is the real deal and I encourage anyone who wants to acquire her work to do so now before she skyrockets to the fame she deserves.
The show is titled Between Us. In addition to the butterfly series, Penny is sharing works she’d made for juried exhibitions including the winning entry from that Adirondack show and the Bowie-inspired one from the Tech Garden show last year. Her hen and sunflower paintings work as well here, as they reflect her proficient technical skills while fulfilling her criteria to share rhythm with respect to relationships between objects, nature and people.
The exhibition continues through February 24, 2017 and can be viewed during library hours. Call (315) 445-4153 for more information.
Make it a Penny Santy day today! Head over to see this show then take a drive out to Earlville, New York. You can meet Penny at the Earlville Opera House Art Gallery (18 East Main Street, Earlville, New York 13332) where she is exhibiting her series of bull paintings. There is an art reception from noon to 3:00 pm today!
Penny Santy’s bull paintings are currently hanging on the walls of the Chittenango Middle School library. She will be visiting us on Tuesday, November 15, 2016 for an artist talk during 10th period! In honor of her visit, four of my Art-8 classes created cows and bulls in both acrylic paint and oil pastels.
I have them hanging on the walls of the hallway outside of my art classroom.
The oil pastels are done on black Strathmore paper. Students created the drawings on white paper, transferred them onto the black using graphite paper (which introduces a bit of magic, and you all know I love magic!). Then they painted out the lines in black acrylic and went to town with the pastels – creating rhythm and texture via their own individual styles.
The acrylic paintings went through the same initial process – drawn on white paper, transferred with magic . Students were also encouraged to create their own styles, although I did have a handout to give what I call Ms. Tash Pearls of Wisdom. These are pointers to mixing colors so that one color ends up permeating throughout the canvas. Raw Sienna is that color.
Black outlining was an option. Penny Santy utilizes complimentary color schemes. Most of the pieces she is exhibiting have an orange/blue color scheme. I was pleased to see so many colorful animals, purple cows and red bulls, lol, as well as the rest of the rainbow.
I wonder which ones I should enter into the Scholastic Art Awards competition? I like them all! Thank you, Penny Santy, for being such a marvelous inspiration to my kids!
I am back to work and school! It is fun getting dressed up, not so fun going into a building with no air conditioning, but I adjusted to it within days. And today – it actually felt cold in here!
Trina Turk dress, BCBGeneration sandalsMichelle DaRin jewelry, Trina Turk top and skirt, BCBGeneration sandals
I spent the summer in exercise clothes, bikinis and shorts. I hiked seven miles a day and did pilates twice a week or so. Working on fitting teaching into my exercise schedule, lol.
Vintage necklace, Bailey 44 top and skirt, BCBGeneration sandalsBCBGMaxAzria top, Trina Turk skirt, BCBGeneration sandals
As for artwork, I took down my art show at the Sullivan Library in Chittenango, New York, and I plan to exhibit the Talisman paintings in October at the Half Moon Bakery and Bistro in Jamesville, New York. Eight paintings are still on display in the Lawrence Pavilion at Summit Medical Group in New Jersey. They will be there until January, I think, unless the show gets extended.
Penny Santy is showing her paintings in the Chittenango Middle School library! She will give a presentation about them on November 15, 2016. I am planning to do some projects based on her work. Four classes will be doing oil pastels or paintings of cows and bulls as part of my SLO tests.
In addition, I’m planning lessons on George Rodrigue, Jasper Johns, Keith Haring, Wolf Kahn, Japanese wood block prints and Greek mythology. So fun!
Bailey 44 top, BCBGMaxAzria skirt, Nine West sandalsBanana Republic top and skirt, Michelle DaRin jewelry, BCBGeneration booties
Yes – Joyce, Penny and I were gallery hopping Friday night. Here we are at the Edgewood Gallery for the Mixed Media show! (216 Tecumseh Road, Syracuse, NY 13224)
This show is comprised of Clare Willson’s whimsical mixed-media pieces combining metal found objects with a painted under-structure, Arlene Abend’s metal sculptures and copper jewelry, Talking Trickster Studio’s pottery by Amy Komar and Sheila Roock and Terry McMaster’s abstract art.
Clare sold four small pieces before she even arrived for the opening, which is so great and worth the wait. Cheryl Chappell, gallery owner, curator and framer extraordinaire, books her artists well in advance, sometimes as much as five years in advance!
It is really very impressive how each exhibition is so different from one another, and each pairing of artists works so well together. That, combined with the punch Cheryl packs in terms of breadth of works fitting so nicely in the space, the great spread of wine, grapes, hummus, crackers and Brie, and the always amazing conversations with all my cool artsy friends, made for a great time!
Clare’s boyfriend bought her one of Arlene’s fabulous necklaces. Arlene Abend always surprises me with something new. Although she prefers to work in steel (“I hate copper – it doesn’t fight back” was what she said with a smile on her face), the copper jewelry appears simultaneously delicate and strong (or feisty more-like, lol). Arlene is such a spit-fire. I just love her to death. I am always telling my students the story of how she was in art school, took a metal-smithing course on a whim and fell in love with it. You never know where art will take you is the point of that story, and a result of Arlene’s journey are these wonderful reasonably-priced pendants and pins.
Amy Komar is another one of my Facebook friends who until last night, I hadn’t actually met. As with social media though, we seemed to know a lot about each other and ended our conversation by hugging it out. I loved her positive energy! She glazes the collection of pottery while her Talking Trickster Studio partner Sheila Roock is the wheel-throwing expert. Many of the pieces are created in porcelain with a fun-loving cat-(dog? no whiskers so…)man and other whimsical imagery decorating the surface. I believe these pieces may be cash and carry while the wall art will remain on display until the take-down date of September 23, 2016.
I met Terry McMaster for the first time Friday night. Lol, I didn’t get a selfie with him – oh well, next time! He is known for his photography – I purchased a print from a basket of cards he was also selling. These new paintings are somewhat of a departure for him. He agreed to a future exhibition in the library gallery at Chittenango Middle School. I am looking forward to working with him in the future! Exciting.
Call Cheryl Chappell at (315) 445-8111 for more information including the contemporary art and frame shop’s hours. Check out the web-site too!
The Adirondacks is such a mythical place, isn’t it? The last time I ventured into that neck of the woods I was a child meeting the real Santa Claus, because as you must know, the North Pole is an actual place in New York State…in the Adirondacks.
So imagine my surprise (and major lack of geography knowledge) to realize that Old Forge’s View Art Center is only an hour and a half drive from my house! Like what? Seriously, I did not realize it. Thought it was further north, lol.
Penny Santy won an award – best landscape painting – at the juried exhibition, 2016 Central Adirondack Show on view until June 12, 2016 at View.
According to the literature, this show is “a long-standing Old Forge tradition, showcasing some of the finest artists from throughout the Central Adirondack region and beyond. Held for the first time in 1952, by View founder Miriam Kashiwa, the Central Adirondack Art Show is a testament to the significant place the arts hold within the hearts and minds of the residents and visitors to the Adirondacks.”
There are seventy-six artists represented here in varied media – ceramics, glass, mixed media, paintings, drawings, pastels and photographs. Most of the work is representational with landscapes making up the majority. Sandra Hildreth was the juror.
If you have never been to this gallery, you will be surprised by its modern elegance. It is a hop, skip and a jump from Enchanted Forest. (Seeing that sign again after all these years was like something out of a dream!)
I love these road trips to see art! I was more than happy to be at the opening to support my friend, and grateful to have my cousin Jackie as a carpool mate for the friendship and great conversation, and to watch out for numerous deer hovering at both sides of the highway on the way home!
View is located at 3273 Route 28 (P.O. Box 1144) Old Forge, NY 13420. Find them on the web at www.viewarts.org or call 315-369-6411 for gallery hours. They have numerous events coming up – lectures, workshops and more exhibitions!
And with that comes the answer to the question I have been asking myself – what happens when I exhaust all the art venues in my area and I have to start duplicating them – I mean, where’s the spin, the angle? How do we make the old new again?
I haven’t technically exhausted venues. There are plenty around this town that I haven’t written about or ventured to yet! But then, there are certain places that I seem connected to, as if they are the set decoration to my personal reality show and the Syracuse Tech Garden is, apparently, one of those spaces.
Steve Nyland chose this time out to curate a seven-artist show, which to my delight, makes this show new and different. I prefer this to juried shows or the free-for-all themed show (anyone want a bunch of abstract watercolors with baseball-themed titles? because I have fifty I can sell you today, lol). You know what I’m talking about. 🙂
April Showers: Technically Irrelevant is at the Syracuse Tech Garden until July 8, 2016, which offers you plenty of time to get down there. It is on Harrison Street (235 Harrison, Syracuse, New York 13202) right across from the Hotel Syracuse, which is currently being renovated for a spectacular re-opening in June.
The artists in the show include my work colleague Sherry Allen, plus Facebook and personal friends Penny Santy, Lauren Bristol, John Fitzsimmons and Ken Nichols along with Robert Kasprzycki and Stephanie Roeser. Each offers a strong sense of character and style – all different, and so the show is very cohesive.
According to the literature/curator statement, Steve chose the artists based on comraderie, friendship and inspiration. There is definitely a positive vibe to the artwork here, a mutual admiration society of artists complimenting and encouraging each other to provide us all with a footprint of their souls, as seen in color, texture, brushstroke and commitment to their respective visions.
I have showcased Penny’s work before, but in this space these bulls have enormous presence. The large canvases give credence to her sweeping brushstrokes and color combinations. Really breathtaking stuff.
I know that John Fitzsimmons will paint your portrait if you head over to his studio at the Delavan Center on Fayette Street in Syracuse (and if you have several hours to spare!) His portraits are done with straight painting – no drawing it first with pencil or charcoal, and yet they are so proficient with accurate placement of proportions and an uncanny ability to capture one’s essence.
Here, he is showing ethereal landscapes with magnificent mastery of color choice. They are simultaneously deliberate and spontaneous and seem to represent the sky’s fickle ability to change on a dime. A dark cloud approaches on the horizon with hurricane force, and yet, with the smaller works, they are sized to the give the appearance of a landscape at rest – long and narrow horizontals.
I absolutely love the texture in Sherry Allen’s work. There is dimension as well, the idea that the painting jumps into space and becomes a part of your life. Her work certainly does not sit back passively waiting for anyone to notice.
She is retiring from her teaching job at Chittenango High School at the end of the school year. I am really looking forward to the direction her artwork will take once she has more time to devote to it!
I know Ken Nichols as a potter. We keep running into each other at events. His mugs are also being sold at Natur-Tyme in Dewitt, New York and at the Clayscapes gallery, even though he isn’t mentioned in either gallery’s literature. It is because his work sells. It’s in and out the door in a flash due to exceptionally perfect price points and of course, quality.
Here, he introduces us to his paintings, which are so colorful. It’s almost as if he is a kid in a candy store with the control he can get out of acrylic paint – very different than the you-get-what-you-get attitude that comes with glazing pottery.
Hopefully, I can connect with him to share these paintings in my middle school library gallery next year. They are delightful confections that remind me of zentangles.
Lauren Bristol can crochet! She creates the pattern on large point graph paper and I have never seen this before. Loved it! My grandmother tried to teach me to crochet, but that was a disaster, as she couldn’t slow it down enough for me to understand what she was counting out in her Vlashki language (una, dow, tre, patrou, cin-cee, sha-cee, shap-tee, optou, now, zhad-cee…)
Lauren uses crochet as an art form. She includes abstract paintings in her display as well to fill her space. I cannot imagine where she finds the time to create all of this, as I know from watching my mom now and my grandmother years ago, how long it takes to string together that work.
I don’t know anything about Stephanie Roeser except to say that her artwork is whimsical. Very youthful and alive.
And Robert Kasprzycki’s giclee prints have the attitude of technically proficient. Not at all irrelevant.
The Syracuse Tech Garden is open to the public Monday – Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. Contact the gallery at gallery.ttg@gmail.com for more information.
40 Below is a group that is making a difference in the city of Syracuse, NY. Of course, anyone over forty thinks it’s a stupid name, lol. I remember when they started the group – I was already not the target audience. The point was to get the younger generations – were they Generation Xers then? I can’t remember – to stay here. To remain in Syracuse following graduation from college. Most people who grew up here wanted to move anywhere else and I would imagine getting a downstate New Yorker to want to live life in this slower lane is a bit of a tough sell.
And I can’t blame them, as I did it myself for a time, moving to Florida when I was in my twenties.
So yeah, it was/is a task force established to improve the arts culture and promote Syracuse as a happening cool place to live.Syracuse, New York is more of a sports-town. I think the world pretty much knows that via the amount of people we can get to go to the Carrier Dome for a college hoops game in 23 below zero weather (more than 30,000). It’s definitely an astonishing feat by any stretch of the imagination. The arts are always just short of emerging and it is funny (read: sad) how most successful Syracuse artists are finding their success elsewhere.
Our most famous artist is Carrie Mae Weems. She lives here but rarely shows her work here. There was that Everson Museum of Art exhibition, but other than that she is strictly a grant recipient and sells in New York City.
But 40 Below keeps trying and I commend them for it. I attended their most recent pop-up art exhibition. Last year’s coincided with Winterfest activities. This year the one night only event happened on Tuesday, February 23, 2016 from 5 pm – 8 pm at the Redhouse Art Center, 201 S. West Street, Syracuse, NY 13202.
All local artists were invited to exhibit by dropping off a piece at the Point of Contact gallery across the street. I did not participate since the time for drop off was the exact time I was buying my new car from the Fox-Honda dealership in Auburn, NY.
My friend Penny Santy participated, as did my Facebook friends Charlie Sam and Renee Fair. In attendance were a lot of artsies over forty. I mean, I didn’t see many or any twenty-somethings. But it was a decent-sized crowd, and it was a lot of fun!
Not sure if anyone sold anything, but manifesting exhibitions sometimes leads to sales down the line so it’s all good. You just never know when the next opportunity will present itself. I know my friend Angela connected with some people about a possible new art venture and we all enjoyed the carrot sticks and dip, wine and cheese spread.
If you’ve never been to an art reception – there is always free food and wine.
Not sure when the next event will take place. I am sure 40 Below would welcome your support! Here are some links to find out more about this organization –
