I love attending exhibition openings but don’t always get the chance to do so.
So it was not only rare but especially rewarding this past weekend when I got to attend two within three days.
Friday night found the WAG Watch team at Gallery 66 NY in Cold Spring for the opening of “Designer Challenge,” while I stopped by Rockland Center for the Arts in West Nyack Sunday afternoon for the reception for “Nature Inc.”
In Cold Spring, gallery director Barbara Galazzo had issued a challenge that resulted in something unique. Inspired by the ArtFull Living Designer Showhouse — which she orchestrated in Cold Spring back in the summer of 2012 — Galazzo had three interior designers use artwork as inspiration and create a room or vignette around it. Using three distinctive spaces in the gallery, the designers crafted one-of-kind spins on the idea of living with art.
Visitors first encounter “The Garden of Sumptuous Silence” by Maryann Syrek of M Studio Gallery in Garrison. Her restorative scene, complete with rainforest sounds, incorporated photographs of insects and small animals by Jane Marcy.
The gallery’s middle room, “Elements of Nature,” is by Lisa McTernan of Lifestyles & Interiors by Lisa in Croton-on-Harmon. (Remember our feature on her from the December issue of WAG?). Her signature chic style was complemented by paintings by Rick Thurston, stone sculpture by Bob Madden and mixed-media work by Carla Goldberg (an artist whose work I’ve long admired and whom I finally had the chance to meet).
Nicole Ashey of Burlock Interiors in Beacon’s creation, “Humans for Breakfast,” fills the last room of the gallery. The goal, she explained, was to spotlight the importance of human connections and working together – so artfully demonstrated by the collaborative wall covering incorporating the artwork of Rebecca Darlington and Donald Alter.
It’s quite a show, one that continues through March 29.
As mentioned here last week, the opening of “Nature Inc” at RoCA in West Nyack was re-scheduled (because of snow) to this past Sunday. I wanted to say hello to Catherine Latson, the Tarrytown artist we profiled last September. It was a thrill to walk into the gallery and see her “Sea Urchin Tutu.” The piece, in its earliest stages when we visited her Yonkers studio late last summer, is part of her “Garment Series” and features shells Latson collected along the Maine coastline and a deconstructed Victorian bodice.
In a twist, Carla Goldberg is also featured in the RoCA show, so I got to say hello to her again. The show, which explores nature in so many ways, features Latson and Goldberg joined by Deborah Davidovits, Loren Eiferman, Marina Fridman, Joan Harmon, Pat Hickman, Bill Hochhausen, Tatana Kellner, Norm Magnusson, Laura Moriarty and Jackie Schatz/John Morton. “Nature Inc” continues to April 12.
For more on “Designer Challenge,” visit gallery66ny.com; for more on “Nature Inc,” visit rocklandartcenter.org.
– Mary Shustack
