News stories tagged with "art"

(05/07/12) This week, we're continuing our conversations with artisans in the North Country who do traditional work. These are industries, and skills, that have been a way of life in our region for a century and more. This morning, we visit a forge operated by blacksmith John Scarlett in Rossie for thirty years.

Scarlett uses fire and metal to create everything from tools to works of art. On the day we visited, he was working on a sculpture of Asian poppies, forged out of steel and copper.

(04/12/12) Participants in a series of dance workshops tomorrow and Saturday will help create the mood for a final dance concert Saturday night in Potsdam. The St. Lawrence County Arts Council has invited the Sasha Soreff Dance Theater to bring their interactive dance piece, titled "The Shoelace Project," to the North Country this weekend.

Director Sasha Soreff told Todd Moe that audiences will participate by writing their hopes and fears on wide shoelaces before the show, and during the performance the company's dancers will use the shoelaces and translate the thoughts into movement. She says the workshops will be open to people of all abilities.

(02/03/12) Artists Matt Burnett and Scott Fuller are known for creating several large scale outdoor art installations from Long Lake to Canton in recent years. They're back again this winter, and despite a lack of deep snow, they've put together an outdoor show at SUNY-Potsdam that combines elements of winter, nature and projected images.

Matt Burnett, who lives in the Adirondacks, and his collaborator Scott Fuller, from Maine, used large snow sculptures as a canvas for video images in a large scale outdoor exhibit at St. Lawrence University last year. They worked on similar outdoor art projects in Saranac Lake and Long Lake.

They launched their outdoor "E-Fraction" show last night on the SUNY Potsdam campus. It will be illuminated nightly on campus through the middle of next week. Todd Moe has a preview. more

(01/04/12) Todd Moe talks with Linda Weal, curator of the newest exhibit at View in Old Forge. The show, Adirondack View Finders, is on display through early March and includes dozens of photographs from four of the most celebrated photographers in the Adirondacks.

(11/30/11) Steuben glass officially closed its doors on today, 108 years after its founding in Corning, New York. As the Innovation Trail's Matt Richmond reports, the company's history closely mirrored the rise of the United States during the 20th century.

(08/19/11) Many Adirondack artists will tell you that our region offers nearly all the elements a landscape painter looks for - mountains, trees, waterways and ever-changing hues of green, gray and blue. You'll find dozens of artists outdoors this week in the Adirondacks painting "plein air" during Saranac Lake's Third Annual Plein Air Festival, part of the "Great Adirondack Days" celebration.

It's a time-honored tradition, particularly by artists who want to convey a sense of immediacy. They'll find a spot with a great view of a mountain or along a stream, prop up an easel and paint just as they see it. Most works are completed within hours on the spot. Spontaneity is key. Bugs, rain and fleeting sunlight are challenges.

Todd Moe tagged along when Lake Placid artist Jackie Altman returned to a favorite spot with views of some of the High Peaks.

(08/18/11) Saranac Lake is taking the arts to the streets again during its summer "Third Thursday Art Walk" tonight. One of the attractions you'll find downtown is a vintage vending machine that's making it easy to collect original art. The Art Vending Machine is filled with miniature works -- watercolors, prints, photos, poems, theater tickets and music.

Like a lot of things, the cost for the original art has gone up, from one dollar last summer to two dollars this year. That's eight quarters for an original work of art. The Saranac Lake Artworks group is hoping the vintage vending machine will help connect members of the public with local artists. Todd Moe found it last summer and spent a handful of quarters at an Art Walk event.

(08/04/11) Some very large watercolors by Saranac Lake artist Tim Fortune will be on display at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, starting Friday, August 12th. Watercolor Encounters is a one man show that will include 15 large format watercolors that Tim has worked on over the last four years. He spoke with Todd Moe about the sheer size of the paintings and their impact on viewers.

(08/02/11) Crane School of Music professor of piano Paul Wyse has mastered two art forms. He's a classically trained concert pianist and also paints portraits. Two of Wyse's recent portraits of pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher have become part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian.

He's performed at the piano on the concert stage around the world, and his oil portraits hang in public and private collections and appear in national publications.

So, how does a classically trained concert pianist become an award winning visual artist? "It's hard to explain," says Wyse. But he adds that it's not uncommon for musicians who study the structure of a symphony to use those same skills in the visual arts.

During a visit to his portrait studio in his home near Prescott, Ontario, he told Todd Moe that the mystery of transforming cloth and pigment into something that is looking back at you is powerful, alluring, and part of the compulsion to paint.

(07/07/11) The St. Lawrence County Arts Council and the State Council on the Arts are offering grants to artists and schools for the coming academic year. St. Lawrence County Arts Council Executive Director Hilary Oak says the new "ArtStart" program is designed to get artists and teachers to develop art programs with their students, and get local artists into classrooms on a regular basis. She spoke with Todd Moe about the new grant opportunity and previews some of this summer's events.