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Annual Spring CelebrationDate: Friday, May 09, 2008 The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is delighted to invite the entire community to join us for our annual Spring Celebration at the Kleinert/James Arts Center on Friday, May 9th at 7pm. Under the direction of Nancy Chusid, Byrdcliffe’s Musical Director, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild’s Community Choir and Children’s Chorus will merrily sing songs from around the world to illuminate our spirits and warm our hearts. This glorious evening also features stories, art, poetry and dancing. Come and take part in our evening of spring cheer! Admission is free, but we welcome all donations to support the Guild’s ongoing roster of quality arts classes for children and adults throughout the Hudson Valley. Nancy Chusid has been collecting songs and playing music on the recorder and oboe her whole life. She has worked with choruses for over twenty years and performed at various venues, including Lincoln Center Out of Doors. In addition, Nancy is the author, illustrator and producer of a series of songbooks and tapes for children titled “Sing-along for Little Ones: Folk Songs, Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes”. "blue"Dates: Saturday, May 10 - June 15, 2008 An exhibition curated by Portia Munson. Brings together artists who work in a variety of media and incorporate this primary color into their work in very different ways. Resulting in a diverse group of works having the quality of “blueness” in common. Curator: Portia Munson. BLUE is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440-490nm.
The exhibition "blue" brings together artists who work in a variety of media. Each of the artists incorporate this primary color into their work in very different ways, resulting in a diverse group of works having the quality of "blueness" in common. Ann Agee's blue-and-white Delft porcelain ceramic interpretation of everyday modern life. Rudie Berkhout's blue laser installation and blue hologram. Andrew Dupont's abstract paintings emerging out of blue enamel surfaces. Richard Edelman's photographs of deserted Kingston landscapes with blue skies and a blue point of view. Donald Elder's oil paintings of ethereal landscapes blue in both color and atmosphere. Betsy Friedman's scratch art drawings and painting, all circles of blue. Marsha Ginsberg's photographs of previously inhabited places focusing on a blue subject: a couch, an empty pool, a room. Valerie Hammond's mysterious indigo works on paper. Heather Hutchison's large-scale translucent blue encaustic painting. Eva Melas' photographs of advertisements featuring women. Dina Palin's photographs taken through wet blue windshields. Fran Willing's layered and oozing blue-pigmented abstract paintings.
Dina Palin, "Blue", 2008 Mother’s Day Celebration with The Mother-Daughter String BandAbby Newton, Lyn Hardy, Ruth Ungar Merenda & Rosie NewtonDate: Sunday, May 11, 2008 The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is pleased to present a unique Mother’s Day celebration with The Mother-Daughter String Band: Lyn Hardy & Abby Newton and their daughters Ruth Ungar Merenda & Rosie Newton. The band plays fiddles, cello, guitar, ukulele, banjo and sings old and new folk repertoire. This Mother's Day weekend, these four spectacular women will be joining musical forces to perform beautiful mother-daughter harmonies and play old-time, Celtic and contemporary tunes that they love.
Lyn Hardy and Abby Newton performed and recorded together in the 1970's with John Cohen and Jay Ungar in "The Putnam String County Band." It was in this decade that Ruth Ungar Merenda was born, into a great old-time string band resurgence in New York's Hudson Valley. In the 1980's, Lyn moved to Western Massachusetts and toured with the all-female folk band "Rude Girls". During this era Abby began playing Celtic music while touring Scotland and the US with Jean Redpath. Rosie was born around this time and also raised on many of the same tunes that Ruth had absorbed earlier, such as Lyn and Abby's beautiful versions of "Black Jack Davey" and "Turtle Dove." Currently, Abby performs with the Celtic folk group "Ferintosh," Ruth plays in the contemporary string band "The Mammals," and Rosie has been fiddling with a new trio "The Pearly Snaps", where she goes to college in Ithaca. Lyn plays in several local bands & repairs guitars and banjos. This show is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Marc Black and BandDate: Saturday, May 17, 2008 The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild proudly presents Marc Black, Warren Bernhardt, Betty MacDonald and Mike Esposito, performing Wheel in a Wheel, an original, multi-media song cycle, at the Kleinert/James Arts Center on Saturday, May 17th at 8pm. The evening will feature songs, poetry and improvisations on guitar, piano, balafon, electric bass, bicycle wheel, violin, and found objects. Songs about coffee, cows, sex and Martha Stewart, among other subjects. Music influences from Shostakovich to Tim Hardin. Also featuring stunning bird photographs by Peter Schoenberger. Last Fall, Marc made international news (33,000 hits on YouTube) with a video of a live performance; his ritual of visiting a local coffee shop just recently inspired a tune that's been getting lots of attention across the Country, 'Ooh, I Love My Coffee'. And last year, Marc, with a big assist from Warren, completed a CD/film project with songs based on the poetry of a stroke survivor who woke up from a 21 day coma... After doctors had pulled life support! 'Stroke of Genius' includes performances by Art Garfunkel, John Sebastian, and Steve Gadd, among others. He performed these songs at last year's Sundance Film Festival. The long term friendship and creativity of Marc, Warren (recently with Simon & Garfunkel and Steely Dan), Betty (touring with David 'Fathead' Newman) and Mike (founder of the Blues Magoos) will certainly put an exclamation point on spring in Woodstock! This show is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Byrdcliffe Afternoons at White PinesA Lecture by Nancy Green: "Woodstock in Summer: The Art Student's Life at Byrdcliffe" featuring Byrdcliffe painter, furniture designer and potter, Zulma Steele and metal worker, Bertha Thompson.Date and Time: Saturday, June 14th at 2:00 pm. Byrdcliffe Afternoons, held in the Byrdcliffe Theatre, began in the summer of 1938, long after the death of Ralph Radcliffe-Whitehead whose vision it was to found a spot dedicated to the life of the spirit and appreciation of things of beauty. Byrdcliffe Afternoons was the inspiration of Professor Martin Schutze, who lived in Byrdcliffe, and his colleague and friend, James T. Shotwell. They programs of conferences and discussions covering varied fields of intellectual and artistic interest. In 1939 the program was lengthened to cover the two months of July and August and dealt with literature and various forms of art. In 1940, the last summer of these fascinating afternoons, the series was devoted to the culture of Latin America. The lectures were published and today, one can still find copies of Byrdcliffe Afternoons on Ebay and in rare book shops.
Desk designed by Zulma Steele We hope that this new series of Byrdcliffe Afternoons held at the newly restored 1903 White Pines historic home of the Byrdcliffe founders, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead, will generate new interest in and develop new friends for Byrdcliffe. Nancy Green is Senior Curator at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. She was the editor and a contributor of Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony catalog and curator of the 2003-05 traveling Byrdcliffe Centennial Exhibition. Nancy has written and lectured extensively for the past 22 years. She has written on Byrdcliffe for several publications, including the British Decorative Arts Journal and Style 1900. Her book, Arthur Wesley Dow and American Arts and Crafts sparked her interest in Byrdcliffe. Byrdcliffe Afternoons is funded with a generous grant from the New York Council for the Humanities. Authentic Writing Retreat At Byrdcliffe Arts ColonyA five-day Authentic Writing retreat with Fred Poole and Marta SzaboDates Monday, June 16 to Friday, June 20, 2008 The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild proudly presents a five-day Authentic Writing retreat with Fred Poole and Marta Szabo, from Monday, June 16th to Friday, June 20th. This intensive writing studio is for all writers - the experienced and the brand new. Here, each person is committed to the search for her or his truest version of reality, writing is treated as art, and each person’s story is sacred. There will be long periods for writers to actually write during the workshop, followed by sessions to read out loud what they have written if they wish, something that most participants quickly become comfortable with and value as a vital element in the Authentic Writing process. Fred and others in the group will offer each writer supportive response - words that will help writers see what they have accomplished through their work and galvanize them towards further writing. Each participant will have a great deal to show for their time here. They will leave with pages and pages of written materials - much of it finished, some of it luring them into further writing and deeper self-exploration. To write beautifully and with a sense of fulfillment it is necessary to turn fearlessly to one’s most precious material - the vibrant textures of actual experience. No one but you can author your story. No one else knows it. Writing our stories down, using raw concrete detail, free of loyalty to anyone else’s version of what happened, is an act of exhilarating rebellion. We will do it this week. Fred and Marta, partners in art and marriage, have been leading Authentic Writing groups for many years. Their unique workshops bear amazing fruit. Experienced or professional writers expand and deepen their work as they are led into territory they may have avoided or ignored for forgotten. For those just setting out, Authentic Writing will ground them in their essential material and give them a solid experience of themselves as writers. Each person will leave with pages of work, material to be polished and transformed into finished pieces, or to leave just as it is, like a bunch of wild flowers pulled up from the ground, the soil still clinging to their roots.
Fred Poole was a writer and journalist working in dangerous lands. He wrote over a dozen books, including a novel “Where Dragons Dwell” (Harper’s Magazine Press) and, with the journalist Max Vanzi, the influential first-person exposé “Revolution in the Philippines: the U.S. in a Hall of Cracked Mirrors.” Responding to growing dissatisfaction with a career that was seeming predictable, Fred allowed his life to take a more spontaneous and introspective turn: he became an art student and then pursued progressive theological studies. Drawing from his most meaningful experiences as a writer, teacher, artist, and seeker, he created the Authentic Writing Workshops in 1993. Steadfast and sure in assailing the academic traditions that shut down real writing in the name of promoting it, he is undauntingly committed to supporting the writer in each person After a career as a writer, journalist, and magazine and book editor Marta Szabo began a serious pursuit of yoga and meditation. She lived in a yogic monastery for over ten years, including a year and a half in India. Since meeting Fred, she’s pursued her own writing art relentlessly, earning an MFA in Creative Writing, completing two book-length memoirs and several hundred short pieces. She is an imaginative, dynamic, sincere teacher who created “Ink in the Air,” a creative writing radio show, and she edits Friction, a bi-annual journal of writing from the Authentic Writing workshops. She frequently goes beyond the workshops to mentor writers as editor of their manuscripts. "Being a part of Authentic Writing and the invaluable guidance and inspiration of Fred and Marta has brought my writing to a deeper, richer, more fulfilling level which continues to manifest in a myriad of ways outside the workshops--personally, creatively and professionally." - Suzanne Bachner, Playwright, director, founder of the John Montgomery Theatre Company “From my work with Authentic Writing, I’ve gained not only a sharpening of my writing skills, but a substantially deeper awareness of and insight into my life experience - the core material of my writing.” - Mel Rosenthal, retired Production Editor with a leading NYC book publisher Date and Time: Saturday, July 5th at 8:00 pm. Doors at 7:30 pm. The Woodstock Chimes Fund presents the 17th annual 2008 Woodstock BeatA benefit concert for the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, featuring the Canadian ensemble NEXUS and special guest Peter SchickeleNEXUS will be performing at the Maverick Concert Hall in West Hurley, NY on Saturday Evening July 5th at 8 PM with special guest performer Peter Schickele. Many of the compositions from their newest recording, “WINGS”, will be presented with narration by Schickele. The music featured on the CD includes original arrangements by NEXUS members of popular songs written by the distinguished Japanese composer, Toru Takemitsu. In addition to the Takemitsu songs, NEXUS will be playing a newly discovered work of John Cage titled Dance Music for Elfrid Ide (1940) as well as accompanying the Silent Movie Classic, "TEDDY AT THE THROTTLE" (A Mack Sennett Silent Film – 1916 with music arranged by NEXUS member William Cahn), staring Gloria Swanson, Wallace Beery, Bobby Vernon, and "Keystone Teddy" the dog. Peter Schickele will narrate this entertaining action film.
NEXUS at Bard College performing the US Premier of John Cage's "Dance Music for Elfrid Ide", September 27, 2007.
NEXUS has been credited with expanding the modern percussion ensemble's world of possibilities. Since the group's first all improvised concert in 1971, the Toronto-based percussion quintet has performed its music in solo recitals and with symphony orchestras worldwide. NEXUS has captivated audiences with an eclectic mix of music that includes contemporary percussion masterworks, novelty ragtime, world music, group improvisations and compositions by the members of NEXUS themselves. Their virtuosity and innovative programming have inspired compositions from some of the greatest composers of our time. Peter Schickele is widely known for his “discoveries” and performances of the music of PDQ Bach as well as being a prolific composer of his “own”. The highly regarded Schickele Mix, distributed by Public Radio International, won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 1993 and also received the Gold Award for Programming Excellence from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that same year. Quick NEXUS facts:
Byrdcliffe Afternoons at White PinesA Lecture by Tom Wolf on "Byrdcliffe Photographer: Eva Watson-Schutze"Date and Time: Saturday, July 12th at 2:00 pm. Byrdcliffe Afternoons, held in the Byrdcliffe Theatre, began in the summer of 1938, long after the death of Ralph Radcliffe-Whitehead whose vision it was to found a spot dedicated to the life of the spirit and appreciation of things of beauty. Byrdcliffe Afternoons was the inspiration of Professor Martin Schutze, who lived in Byrdcliffe, and his colleague and friend, James T. Shotwell. They programs of conferences and discussions covering varied fields of intellectual and artistic interest. In 1939 the program was lengthened to cover the two months of July and August and dealt with literature and various forms of art. In 1940, the last summer of these fascinating afternoons, the series was devoted to the culture of Latin America. The lectures were published and today, one can still find copies of Byrdcliffe Afternoons on Ebay and in rare book shops. We hope that this new series of Byrdcliffe Afternoons held at the newly restored 1903 White Pines historic home of the Byrdcliffe founders, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead, will generate new interest in and develop new friends for Byrdcliffe.
Photo of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead by Eva Watson-Schutze Tom Wolf is currently Art History Professor at Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. He was also a contributor to Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony and has worked extensively on Woodstock artists for the past 20 years. Tom Wolf has written widely about 20th-century American art, including studies of the arts colony in Woodstock, New York, and the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United States. Byrdcliffe Afternoons is funded with a generous grant from the New York Council for the Humanities. Byrdcliffe Afternoons at White PinesA Lecture by Cheryl Robertson on "The Architecture of Byrdcliffe"Date and Time: Saturday, August 9th at 2:00 pm. Byrdcliffe Afternoons, held in the Byrdcliffe Theatre, began in the summer of 1938, long after the death of Ralph Radcliffe-Whitehead whose vision it was to found a spot dedicated to the life of the spirit and appreciation of things of beauty. Byrdcliffe Afternoons was the inspiration of Professor Martin Schutze, who lived in Byrdcliffe, and his colleague and friend, James T. Shotwell. They programs of conferences and discussions covering varied fields of intellectual and artistic interest. In 1939 the program was lengthened to cover the two months of July and August and dealt with literature and various forms of art. In 1940, the last summer of these fascinating afternoons, the series was devoted to the culture of Latin America. The lectures were published and today, one can still find copies of Byrdcliffe Afternoons on Ebay and in rare book shops. We hope that this new series of Byrdcliffe Afternoons held at the newly restored 1903 White Pines historic home of the Byrdcliffe founders, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead, will generate new interest in and develop new friends for Byrdcliffe.
Archival photo of White Pines Cheryl Robertson is a Cambridge-based independent scholar and consultant who has served the museum field for over 25 years as an American decorative arts curator, exhibition director, public historian, program coordinator, and teacher. She is the author of works on architecture, interiors and design history, material culture and domestic life. She wrote the architectural essay for Byrdcliffe: An American Arts & Crafts Colony. Byrdcliffe Afternoons is funded with a generous grant from the New York Council for the Humanities. BYRDCLIFFE ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM RECEIVES NEW FELLOWSHIPSThe Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild announces three Fellowships available for the 2008 Byrdcliffe Artists In Residence Program at the Villetta Inn in the Byrdcliffe Art Colony. Continuation of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Byrdcliffe Master Artist Program, a new William R. Ginsberg Visual Arts Fellowship and the continuing Bernard and Shirley Handel Playwright Fellowship. March 3, 2008 is the new application deadline (postage). For the second year the Pollock- Krasner Foundation has awarded the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild’s Aritist-in-Residence Program at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony a grant for our new Byrdcliffe Master Artist Program. The $14,000 grant will fund five visual artists, a Byrdcliffe Master Artist and a public lecture. The 2008 Master Artist is landscape artist Jake Berthot who currently teaches at School for Visual Arts in New York City and lives upstate . He will work with the “Pollock-Krasner Fellows” during their July residency giving them advice, guidance and critiques. Interested visual artists are encouraged to apply for this prestigious award. Details and an application form can be found on the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild’s website: www.woodstockguild.org. The first year's Byrdcliffe Master Artist, funded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation was former Byrdcliffe resident and current Woodstock resident, Devorah Sperber who is now recognized worldwide for her innovative thread installations. The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild recently received a bequest from former Board member and environmental lawyer, William R. Ginsberg (1930 - 2006). This bequest is establishing the William R. Ginsberg Byrdcliffe Visual Artist Fellowship and will be inaugurated for the 2008 Byrdcliffe Artist-in-Residence program. Establishing this Fellowship reflects Bill’s undergraduate interest as an artist which was little known. As a member of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, he proudly entered his work in a recent WBG Members' Exhibition. The Board is deeply pleased to honor Bill’s contributions and legacy to the WBG with this named Byrdcliffe Fellowship. Continuing its second year, the Bernard and Shirley Handel Playwright Fellowship will be awarded to a playwright selected by a panel of peers. Playwrights are obliged to fill out a separate application available on our website at www.woodstockguild.org. The Artist In Residence Program offers writers, visual artists and composers one-month residencies from June through September. Our goal is to provide solitude in community and undisturbed time in which to concentrate on independent, creative work in company of follow artists. Artists stay at the Villetta Inn, a 1903 Arts and Crafts building, originally opened in 1903 to house students at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony's Art School. The AIR will be 17 years old in 2008 and will have served over 650 artists. The Byrdcliffe Art Colony, a National Register Site, was founded by Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead to establish an environment in which artists could return to making works by hand while inspired by their natural surroundings. Over 30 buildings still remain of the original 40. Today, Byrdcliffe cottages, its Barn and Theatre (originally the Byrdcliffe School of Art) are a haven for artists and their work. The founder's home, White Pines, an exquisite example of Arts and Craft architecture, serves an interpretation center for the history of Byrdcliffe and is open May - October on Second Saturdays from 1-4pm. Byrdcliffe is open to the public for walking tours from sunrise to sunset throughout the year. BYRDCLIFFE CERAMIC ARTIST MEG OLIVER
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