6 minute read
The Ritamary Legacy At Sugar Maples
How To Build A Castle in the Mountains
“…and don’t let anybody choose your path for you.”
Montano-Vining
By Bruce Dehnert, Head of Ceramics, Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts
Accolades find uneasy perch with Ritamary Montano-Vining, who has shepherded two generations of the Catskill Region’s children in the Art Explorers Program at Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts in Maplecrest, NY. The unique Art Center is nestled against the Batavia Kill as it meanders downhill from several of the highest summits the Catskills have to offer. Poetically, one of those mountains is named after the famous painter, Thomas Cole, and from its fertile meadows along the valley floor Ritamary has ignited young creative spirits for 20 summers. Just as the Batavia Kill winds its way to the powerful Hudson River and onward to the vast Atlantic, so too have her students navigated their own journeys towards accomplishing immeasurably interesting lives here in the mountains and beyond.
In the summer of 2003, Ellie Cashman, the first Director of Sugar Maples, enlisted Ritamary to help establish a youth arts program at the Center. Any worries about whether the program would fly quickly dissipated when in its first year Ritamary introduced a unique curriculum: a potpourri of creative adventuring, interacting with Nature, unbridled movement, all in a spirit of exploration. The weekly sessions were an instant hit with parents and children who sensed that they were part of something special. The sheer joyfulness with which Ritamary teaches is now legendary stuff and has been the driving force of SMCCA’s children’s program, now in its 20th year.
Ritamary’s joy in creating art goes back to her early childhood. When she was three years old, her mother would drive her to Woodstock [Montano-Vining was originally from Saugerties] for art lessons with Jean Worlsen. Meeting at noted artist Harvey Feif’s studio, Ritamary recalls the feeling with warmth her own parents’ support for her creative longings, when most every other adult in her life encouraged careers in medicine or other pursuits. “This didn’t necessarily make me a better artist. It made me a stronger person who could stand-up for myself.” It was this stalwart strength of purpose that longtime mountaintop arts advocate Phyllis Parrish, and the Catskill Mountain Foundation, recognized through their significant support for the Art Explorers Program. Their “meeting of minds” knew that Ritamary’s approach would sculpt more than artists, it held the potential for making happy and productive lives. Ritamary’s philosophy is that she doesn’t “teach,” rather she “builds” relationships with people, an approach that fits with the Catskill Mountain Foundation. Musing on a recent spring afternoon, Ritamary offered that “one of the simplest lessons in life that leads to a child’s happiness is their knowing they have someone in their corner.” It’s virtually impossible not to be convinced by Montano-Vining when her smile becomes laser focused, adding “every single child deserves to be encouraged.” It is also important to this longtime teacher that children be guided through that inevitably gnarly conversation about their spending time complaining about a situation. “It is so important that parents and teachers show children how to do something about a problem they are having. That’s where making art comes in because fundamentally art is about problem solving.” There is a long tradition of self-reliance in Catskill culture, and childhood is where this quality of taking charge of one’s challenges begins. The hand-in-hand approach is purposefully reflected in the Art Explorers regimen. Every day on Big Hollow Road, children are taught how to think for themselves yet be cognizant of their fellow Explorers and what obstacles they may be facing.
Combining art, nature, and physical activity, Ritamary has for many years believed that when those three ingredients are mixed into a day’s experience, children stay engaged enough so that time melts away under the gaze of Thomas Cole Mountain. In Ritamary’s Catskills, boredom isn’t part of the equation. “No two children learn the same way. I want to keep kids engaged on their own terms, that’s why I bring science, or music, or mathematics, history, and physical activity into my beloved art. And vice versa. I know this works for a lifetime. I’ve seen it. When kids go through our program they go out into life and accomplish crazy wonderful things.” Starting with the moment a child joins the program, Ritamary keeps a “library” on each child. Never far from her mind, the child’s library gets jam-packed with simple observations about what inspires and what unique approach will serve them best. For Montano-Vining, teaching is like performance art where so many elements are at play that a summer’s classroom becomes a sun-kissed cornucopia of excitement and that childhood experience of what it means to be ‘yourself.’
During the recent pandemic Ritamary didn’t pause for a minute. Immediately she developed an online curriculum for her Art Explorers, one that she knew would help her mountaintop children navigate the challenges they were experiencing. Arranging free access for families, she committed to making sure that any child who wanted to participate would have that opportunity. Organizing shoe boxes from her family’s Montano Shoe company, Ritamary filled each with materials with art making supplies and distributed these “kits” to all comers. Each week, Monday through Friday, children logged on to a hastily devised Art Explorer platform, taking lessons in papier-maché sculpting, and going to work on their dreams. During the arduous weeks of isolation came Show-and-Tells, there was problem solving and much needed conversations, conversations in this weird new world of who knows what comes next. Montano-Vining remembers it as being difficult because families were unsure of what steps were necessary to take in order that loved ones stayed safe. The young artists, paying no heed to what was to them an abstract awfulness, expressed themselves in what were yesterday’s ‘normal’ ways. For Ritamary there was no turning away and her students’ efforts were eventually presented at an exhibition at the colorful Pancho Villa’s restaurant in Tannersville, NY, appropriately named “The Painted Village.”
“Kids today are living in a time when the internet can be so easily mistaken for ‘experience.’ But it’s more proxy than it is a truly visceral thing. When you open up a discussion you sense experience and connect.” Ritamary Monanto-Vining mentions something called a “Stoop Story,” one that conjures warm summer evenings when young people gather around what will become their own folk tales on the front steps of family homes. There they hash-out ideas, problems, rumors, and shared experience. Gathering steam Montano-Vining explains “I’m the furthest person from having this ‘living thing’ figured-out. Being polar opposites at things is actually beautiful and yet completely unappreciated. People don’t have to agree but they can come together to make something quite beautiful. Children need to know this.” Making art keeps children going. It keeps them thinking and moving and full of passion and yet “I can’t put my finger on it” the indomitable Ritamary Montano-Vining says through her knowing smile.
