Chronogram August 2023

Rhinebeck | Hudson | Hopewell Junction | Tannersville | Red Hook | Pleasant Valley | High Falls

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DEPARTMENTS

HOME

19 Small Town Symphony

A sound engineer builds a studio and performance space, and the music—as well as the community—follows.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

26 On the Mend: Maternal Health

FOOD & DRINK

12 Restaurant Profile: Mill & Main

Combining decades of experience in the hospitality industry with a lifetime of home cooking, mother-and-son duo Claudia Sidoti and Chris Weathered bring carefully honed culinary chemistry to their new locally sourced, globally inspired restaurant, Mill & Main, in Kerhonkson.

16 Sips & Bites

Recent openings include Betty’s Snack Bar, The Vinyl Room, Union Street Brewing, Hudson Valley Al Forno, and Universal Cafe & Bar.

Black women are up to five times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women in New York. The recently launched Center for Women’s Health Equity seeks to address the causes of maternal mortality.

30 Myriad Modalities

Local practitioners on the secrets to healthy living.

COMMUNITY PAGES

38 Woodstock: Artful Existence

Fifty years after the “Aquarian Exposition” that made the word Woodstock shorthand for a larger (counter) cultural moment, the most famous small town in America contends with 21st-century problems and its storied creative legacy.

Ritual Fire Camp with healer and soul coach Bob Vetter at ESKFF Nest in Woodstock.

Photo by David McIntyre COMMUNITY PAGES, PAGE 38

6 On the Cover Amy Becker’s photos of abandoned pay phones are featured at Garage Gallery in Beacon.

8 Esteemed Reader Jason Stern puts a bookcase in front of a window.

11 Editor’s Note Brian K. Mahoney would rather not floss.

Patrick Lo Re and Sabrina Mitre enjoying the stone patio outside their New Baltimore home. During the pandemic, Lo Re, an audio engineer, converted their three-car garage into a recording studio and performance space that serves as a hub for musical community.

ARTS

56 Music

Album reviews of Ghost Music by Bill Brovold; 666G by Grampfather; and After the Farmers by Wild Weeeds. Plus listening recommendations from Catskill-based musician and writer Amy Rigby.

57 Books

Jane Kinney Denning reviews The Half Moon, Mary Beth Keane’s novel of domestic tumult and the meaning of marriage. Plus short reviews of Our Hospital by Samuel Shem; The Memoir of a Female Soldier by Jan Lewis Nelson; Echoes, or, The Insistence of Memory by Tom Schachtman; The Livingstons of Livingston Manor by Edwin Brockholst Livingston; and Hedge by Jane Delury.

58 Poetry

Poems by Ryan Brennan, Lachlan Brooks, Marisa E. Campbell, Lorri Corry, Agimmeer DeMolay, Maeve Flusser, Jennifer Howse, William Keller, ooznozz, Ramzi Albert Rihani, Natalya Sukhonos, Liam Watt, and Frank Wright. Edited by Phillip X Levine.

GUIDE

60 A profile of Raven Chacon, the Diné-American composer, musician, and artist. Born in Fort Defiance, Arizona, within the Navajo Nation, Chacon became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his Voiceless Mass in 2022. He recently moved to Red Hook.

62 The Dying to Know Film Festival explores death literacy through movies over two weeks this month.

64 Four arts organizations in Warwick have teamed up for the creative extravaganza August for the Arts.

65 Grammy-winning pianist and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill brings his jazz quartet to Maverick Concerts August 12.

66 “Seeds Under Nuclear Winter: An Earth Opera” returns to Widow Jane Mine in Rosendale August 26-27.

69 Live Music: The Hold Steady’s Positive Jam, Fantastic Negrito, Deep in the Valley Festival, and more.

71 The Short List: Paula Poundstone, La Guelaguetza of Poughkeepsie, Ellenville Blueberry Festival, and more.

72 Art exhibits: Shows from across the region, including “Summer Disaster Show” at Private Public in Hudson.

HOROSCOPES

76 Wild Outbursts, Then Redactions

Astrologer Cory Nakasue reveals what the stars have in store for us this month.

PARTING SHOT

80 “The Divine, The Pasion, and The Magic”

Visitor Center in Newburgh showcases the work of Sooo-z Mastropietro, Clara Fialho, and Michela Martello.

Photo by Winona Barton-Ballentine HOME, PAGE 18

Dead Ringers

AMY BECKER'S PHOTOS OF ABANDONED PAY PHONES

Photographer Amy Becker employs today’s technology to interpret the past. As part of the exhibit “What Is Lost” at Garage Gallery in Beacon, Becker and fellow artist Fern Apfel focus on how wired telephones and handwritten letters—two forms of communication that now seem almost archaic— have been replaced by digital devices.

The cover image contrasts an anonymously held mobile phone with the shell of a wired phone unit inside a public phone booth. “This image was photographed on the first floor of the main branch of the Newark Public Library in New Jersey,” Becker says. “There was a teenage girl sitting, caught up with her device, exactly where I wanted to make the image of these old wooden payphone booths. I politely asked her to move, explaining quickly about my project. Her response was to silently get up, sit in one of the several booths, and immediately get back to her device. And voilà! There was my shot.”

While cell phones have undeniably increased the velocity and breadth of communication (Becker captured these images with her iPhone,

adding a meta layer to her work), she also provokes the viewer to remember the recent past and contemplate the advantages of yesterday’s more constrained communication systems. Becker’s work reminds us of the speed at which society embraces technological advances and suggests that we consider the consequences.  Though a whole generation has grown up with seemingly unlimited digital capabilities, many will still remember having to use dimes or quarters to place a call, the urgency to communicate within a limited time frame, as well as the intimacy provided by landlines. Pay phone calls were short, to the point, and rarely ignored. Becker’s work suggests that today’s unlimited bandwidth eliminates the need to consider our words and perhaps that screens have commodified our attention.

For Becker, photography is a way of observing and engaging with the world. She got her first cell phone in the `90s and began to doubt she would ever use a payphone again. “This is when I started to think that as cell phones became more popular, we would need fewer payphones,” Becker says. “Fast forward about 10 years—I

noticed payphones starting to become abandoned. I initially photographed abandoned payphones in black and white with my 35mm camera, but I thought they were just dull.”

Remembering a play she read in high school called “Voice of the Turtle” by John Van Druten, about a young woman in New York City during World War II who oddly felt sorry for things like radios people no longer listened to, she was struck by the personification of abandoned phones. “This led me to thinking about photographing them as environmental portraits,” she adds.

For her series “Dead Ringers: Portraits of Abandoned Payphones,” Becker put aside her usual cameras, and used her iPhone camera. “The great thing about shooting this project with my iPhone is that I nearly always have it with me, so I can shoot the nonworking payphones anywhere I find them,” she adds.

“What Is Lost” will be exhibited at Garage Gallery in Beacon from August 12–27. An opening reception will be held on August 12 from 4–7pm. Portfolio: Amybecker.com.

—Mike Cobb

Newark Public Library, Amy Becker, iPhone photo, 2018 Bayard Street, Amy Becker, iPhone photo, 2017

Ladders, Amy Becker, iPhone photo, 2018

EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Brian K. Mahoney brian.mahoney@chronogram.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR David C. Perry david.perry@chronogram.com

DIGITAL EDITOR Marie Doyon marie.doyon@chronogram.com

ARTS EDITOR Peter Aaron music@chronogram.com

HOME EDITOR Mary Angeles Armstrong home@chronogram.com

POETRY EDITOR Phillip X Levine poetry@chronogram.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Anne Pyburn Craig apcraig@chronogram.com

contributors

Winona Barton-Ballentine, Jason Broome, Mike Cobb, Michael Eck, Dan Epstein, Jane Kinney Denning, Abigail Gierke, David McIntyre, Cory Nakasue, Jeremy Schwartz, Sparrow, Jamie Stathis, Taliesin Thomas

PUBLISHING

FOUNDERS Jason Stern, Amara Projansky

PUBLISHER & CEO Amara Projansky amara.projansky@chronogram.com

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Jan Dewey jan.dewey@chronogram.com

BOARD CHAIR David Dell

sales manager

Andrea Fliakos andrea.fliakos@chronogram.com

media specialists

Kaitlyn LeLay kaitlyn.lelay@chronogram.com

Kelin Long-Gaye kelin.long-gaye@chronogram.com

Kris Schneider kris.schneider@chronogram.com

Sam Brody sam.brody@chronogram.com

ad operations

Jared Winslow jared.winslow@chronogram.com

marketing

MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER

Margot Isaacs margot.isaacs@chronogram.com

SPONSORED CONTENT EDITOR

Ashleigh Lovelace ashleigh.lovelace@chronogram.com

administration

FINANCE MANAGER

Nicole Clanahan accounting@chronogram.com; (845) 334-8600

production

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Kerry Tinger kerry.tinger@chronogram.com; (845) 334-8600x108

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Kate Brodowska kate.brodowska@chronogram.com

interns

Lily Anninger, Sophie Frank, Nola Storms office

45 Pine Grove Avenue, Suite 303, Kingston, NY 12401 • (845) 334-8600

mission

Founded in 1993, Chronogram magazine offers a colorful and nuanced chronicle of life in the Hudson Valley, inviting readers into the arts, culture, and spirit of this place.

All contents © Chronogram Media 2023.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS AND HIS WORLD

WEEKEND ONE Victorians, Edwardians, and Moderns

AUGUST 4–6

WEEKEND TWO A New Elizabethan Age?

AUGUST 10–13

Tickets start at $25

Opening Night Social August 4

FALL 2023 SEASON

Tickets on sale August 9

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE

Ulysses

SEPTEMBER 21–OCTOBER 1

World Premiere/Fisher Center Commission

Created by Elevator Repair Service

Directed by John Collins

Codirection and Dramaturgy by Scott Shepherd

Text by James Joyce

Bread and Puppet Theater

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

The Orchestra Now 2023–24 Season

Bard Conservatory of Music

SEPTEMBER 23, 24

Film with Live Orchestra, Singin’ in the Rain AND MORE!

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esteemed reader by Jason Stern

Information can be true or untrue, but knowledge is always true—within the context of having been personally verified.

Robin Bloor, To Fathom the Gist

I did the thing I swore I would never do—put a bookcase in front of a window. It is a low bookcase that only obscures the bottom panes, but a threshold has been crossed. All available wall space suitable for bookcases was full and the step was necessary.

To be clear, I am not a hoarder and regularly scan the shelves for books I no longer need, but there are so many that are rare and out of print that I feel I am providing a needed service to the electronic future by keeping a physical library. My criteria for keeping a book is that it gives practical indications for answering the question: “What is a human being for?”

This is the information age arguably inaugurated in the last century with the invention of the microfiche and expanding at a parabolic pace with the development of electronic storage. Next year there will be 150 zettabytes of data stored worldwide, the information equivalent of 135,000 stacks of printed books stretching from the Earth to the Sun.

The current popular view suggests that everything in the universe from minerals to consciousness is material, albeit of varying degrees of density and vibrational conductivity. I further suggest that knowledge is included in this spectrum and there is a limited quantity available on Earth. In most epochs, that knowledge is concentrated in esoteric groups, but during stages of planetary transition it disperses and spreads like a fine, impotent dust or informational smog into the ecosystem.  On the qualitative spectrum, what is the difference between data and information, information and knowledge, knowledge and understanding, understanding and wisdom? Here’s an attempt to answer the question.  Data is quantitative. For instance, “the average time spent by users giving their attention to media platforms and different devices is 6 hours 37 minutes per day.” Information gives context, e.g. “Screens and their contents have come to dominate all other objects of attention and modes of relating to the world, attracting nearly half the average person’s waking hours.”

Knowledge gives a practical application and potential for verification in experience. For instance, “attention is a vector of consciousness that is available to be intentionally directed to an outer or inner object (or both), provided if it is not captured.”

The shift to understanding is a movement into a personal and subjective, though arguably no less empirical, realm. What one has verified in experience is indubitable, requiring neither defense nor promotion. Though a unit of understanding is always open to expansion and revision, it is truly one’s own because it has been tested in the crucible of application. For instance, with observation and effort I see that I do in fact have the power to direct my attention; that directing attention is a fundamental choice, even the key to freedom; that in dividing my attention between my inner and outer life I come in contact with a deeper sense of the meaning and purpose of my life.

In this schema, wisdom is the result of acting from one’s understanding in myriad circumstances and over time and becomes a permanent center of gravity. Given the example of attention, I work to keep a more or less continuous awareness of my attention for I know that where my attention is, there I am also. I remember that this awareness is as vital for my inner life as breath is for my body; that conscious attention over time affords the freedom to perceive and respond to larger patterns at work in myself and in the world.

Knowing what information has potency is work of continual discernment. Like the prospector up to his knees in the stream, we plunge the pan into the informational sediment again and again scouring the screen for a glint of viable knowledge.

OFFICES IN SAUGERTIES, MARLBORO, HIGHLAND & NEW PALTZ

At Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, our teachers inspire independent and insightful thinking, empathy for all, and a lifelong love of learning.

Pre-K through 8th Grade

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“WE’RE REALLY TRYING TO DEVELOP A CAPACITY FOR REVERENCE IN OUR STUDENTS. WE WANT OUR STUDENTS TO FEEL A SENSE THAT THERE MIGHT BE SOME SORT OF MYSTERY…JUST BEYOND WHAT THEY’RE UNDERSTANDING YET…SOMETHING THAT’S MUCH BIGGER THAN THEMSELVES.”

KARIN ALMQUIST, SCHOOL DIRECTOR

On a fine spring morning a few years ago, a coworker arrived at my desk, clearly distraught. “Coworker, whatever is the matter?” I asked in my most avuncular voice. “What worldly trouble shadows your countenance?” While my reputation is not that of an empath, I have it in me to behave nonsociopathically, offering to those in need, if not the whole milk of human kindness, then at least the low-fat variety.

“I just found out I have a cavity,” she said, almost in tears, her sparkling white teeth two rows of perfectly aligned Chiclets. She was in her late 20s, and this was her first cavity. Clearly a calamity. I did what was necessary to suppress a spasm of laughter. For a walking dental ruin like myself, a cavity is a trifle, a pothole on the rough road of tooth decay. But I imagine that for someone who had made it nearly three decades without one, a cavity could portend dark forces massing on the borderlands of their anxiety.

It could signify loss of innocence, that dividing line between youth and experience that we learned about in those wretched novels about teens on the verge of something like A Separate Peace or The Outsiders that we were made to read in English class. (What was it with those books? They all could have been named Teens on the Verge of Something, Volumes I-CMXCIX.) Perhaps the cavity was a symbol of something even bleaker, a harbinger of her own mortality— the tiny hole in her tooth a stand-in for the person-sized hole in the ground she would one day occupy.

Whatever it was, I didn’t have time for it. “Well, at least you don’t have my teeth,” I said, and returned to my work.

Let me tell you about my teeth.

I have 26 teeth. It’s common for adults to have 32 teeth, but I’ve lost a few along the way.

(If I’m being honest, I should probably state that I have 24 teeth—my two front upper teeth were mostly knocked out in a bicycle accident in the ’90s and I have a bridge over their spiky nubbins.) The missing teeth are not in the front, so I still can smile in photos. My brother Paddy, rest his soul, had a missing incisor that he didn’t take care of for almost two years. Think of it: A man with a public-facing job and great dental benefits didn’t attend to a missing tooth in the front of his mouth. But I mean, I get it—to fix it, he had to go to the dentist. And who wants to go to the damn dentist?

My teeth are crooked—not comic, British crooked but slanted at enough jaunty angles that they might be described as rakish. My teeth are yellowing, but in a way that seems appropriate for my age and habits—the body keeps the score, to borrow a phrase.

I’ve suffered a variety of dental misfortunes, from five years of wearing braces as a child in the care of a casually sadistic orthodontist to emergency root canals to molar extractions gone sideways to toothaches so bad I had to knock myself out with vodka. There’s not a tooth in my mouth without some form of intervention, be it filling, crown, or bridge. I’ve also had many hilarious dental cleanings, including one in which the hygienist’s pick emerged from the back of my mouth with a marble-sized beef fragment on the end of it. Talk about your awkward silences as the gray bit of gristle sat there on the tray for the duration of the cleaning.

I know very well that there are other terrible afflictions of the mouth I’ve yet to encounter— dry socket, oral thrush, gum disease, getting the remainder of one’s rotting teeth ripped out for a full set of dentures—but given my track record, some of them are in my future. Indubitably. I associate dentistry with anxiety, loss of control,

and pain. In a review of a vegetarian restaurant I penned in the late ’90s, I described the sound of a juicer, whose whine pierced the small dining room like a shrill klaxon as “dental drill unsettling.” That’s the harshest criticism I’ve ever written, and it’s connected directly to my teeth. My teeth are…well, my teeth don’t get a great deal of my attention. I brush twice daily and use floss when something is stuck in my teeth, but they’re only on my mind when I’m in some form of dental distress. My dentist would tell me that my teeth demand more of my time, but that I am not giving it to them.

I have been going to the same dentist for 10 years now, a record for me. In the past, I’ve changed dentists every couple of years—it’s easier to just ghost them after a while instead of constantly postponing appointments. (One of my favorite things is to postpone cleaning appointments. It stands to reason that each time I push out an appointment a few weeks, I’m gaining time. At this rate, I might miss half a dozen cleanings before I die.) In between dentists, a couple of years might go by without a dental visit at all. I don’t think I saw a dentist at all in the halcyon decade from 1995 to 2005.

Let me tell you about my dentist. My longstanding dentist, the one I can’t quit.

My dentist loves my teeth. She loves my teeth way more than I do. I imagine that she thinks of my teeth the same way Suzanne Vega thought about Luka: She knows my teeth are being neglected, but there’s very little she can do. She can’t call Cuspid Protective Services on me. She gives me deep, searching looks and asks me how often I Waterpik, and I’m obliged to lie to her for both of our sakes. She doesn’t want to quit me either. And I love her for caring so much about my teeth. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t keep postponing my cleanings.

by Brian K. Mahoney

Not Run of the Mill

MILL & MAIN IN KERHONKSON

By Marie Doyon

At Mill & Main’s newly opened restaurant in Kerhonkson, “mother-son duo” is more than a cute gimmick, it’s a functional partnership in the kitchen and at the concept level between Claudia Sidoti and her son Christopher Weathered.

Sidoti, a nearly 50-year veteran of the hospitality industry, has a heavy-hitting resume that ranges from New York City restaurant owner to test kitchen director at the Food Network to culinary director at HelloFresh. Christopher’s kitchen skills are self-taught, honed in the family home, though he has ample front-of-house experience, including at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. At Mill & Main, the two are sharing creative and cooking duties, collaborating to produce a seasonal, farm-to-table menu that showcases Hudson Valley producers.

In fact, it’s a whole family affair. Sidoti’s husband, Paul Weathered, a prop master currently out of work due to the WGA strike, helps out wherever he can, shucking oysters, pouring wine. Chris’s wife Lily, pops down from their upstairs apartment to lend a hand, bussing plates and waiting on tables. In a rare twist, they all seem

to truly enjoy each other’s company, and the ambience has the cozy feel of a bustling and happy family home, where friends and kids and partners of kids come and go, and all are welcome and fed.  It’s not unlike their actual home, which has always had a revolving door of dinner guests and house guests. Both in the city and upstate at their erstwhile Margaretville weekend home, and now in Kerhonkson, theirs is the perennial gathering place. Paul describes double-digit guests sleeping on couches and under tables, on the trampoline out back. It’s this no-frills, peoplecentric approach to hospitality, honed at home, that radiates through Mill & Main and draws both blue-collar contractors and city transplants together under one roof.

A Drawn-Out Renovation

If the restaurant’s name is ringing bells, that’s because Mill & Main opened the first prong of their business—a cafe and market—back in 2021 in the storefront next door to the restaurant. “The cafe is going very well. It just continues to improve and get busier,” Sidoti says. “We have developed such a nice core group of customers.”

Menu favorites at Mill & Main include Colombian-style wagyu hot dog sliders with spicy slaw, cod fritters, and cumingarlic roasted chicken thighs.

Photo by Marie Doyon

Opposite: It’s a family affair at Mill & Main with mother-and-son duo Claudia Sidoti and Christopher Weathered in the kitchen.

Sidoti and Paul bought a weekend house in Kerhonkson in 2015, often driving past the spot that would become Mill & Main. Though they’ve both had careers in the food and hospitality industries, they didn’t move upstate to start a business. “Food finds me,” Sidoti says. “It keeps drawing me in. I couldn’t help myself.” Urged by hungry neighbors and friends who were tired of driving 30+ minutes north, south, or east for a decent meal and a drink, they bought the building that now houses both the cafe and restaurant for a song at auction in 2017. The circa 1971 building had been flood damaged and neglected for years when they purchased it, and restoring it has been a costly, drawn-out, multiphase process.

“Once the cafe was self-sufficient, then we put all our efforts into getting the restaurant open,” Sidoti says. “Oh my gosh, we hit one roadblock after another—every possible thing that could hold up a job. But here we are, finally.”

At a press dinner in early July, a small group huddles around Paul in the sun-dappled back patio as he holds forth about the renovation process. Market research? He scoffs. Due diligence? Ha. Emotion, Weathered says, is what has driven every real estate purchase he and Sidoti have ever made. “This was not a logical decision,” he says. “If we had looked at it as investors, we would have run away. But I always say we have a real estate angel on our shoulder.”

Adventuresome But Familiar Mill & Main’s restaurant opened for sit-down dinner service in May with a curated menu of early-harvest eats. “A lot of things weren’t ready. It was kind of chilly, so we had a heartier latespring menu to open, but it felt as we went into Memorial Day that it was time to switch,” Sidoti says of the menu, which changed over to more early-summer-themed offerings in early June.

Where the opening menu featured first-blushof-spring offerings like burrata and beans with ramp pesto; charred asparagus; and a strawberry rhubarb pie, the latest iteration features fun, summer-forward flavors like the adorable wagyu beef hot dog sliders topped with coleslaw and a bright mango chutney (three for $16). Or the Caribbean codfish fritters, which pack a delicious, doughy punch of flavor—squishy, fishy, and reminiscent of crab cakes in the best, most summer-on-the-coast way—served with a Pickapeppa lime mayonnaise ($16). Very shareable.

The menu, which is separated into snacks, small plates, and big plates, does a good job of touring the flavors of Italy, the Caribbean, and South America with dishes that are at once adventuresome but familiar. This approach is eloquently embodied in the Peruvian-inspired chicken thighs, which are rubbed in cumin and garlic, served with a perfectly crackly skin, drizzled with cilantro-lime sauce, and accompanied by a purple potato mash ($25).

“We try to lean into things that feel familiar,

comfort food for us—things we might’ve grown up with, recipes passed down from my mom or mother-in-law, something Christopher likes that was inspired by something that I made when he was growing up,” says Sidoti, who is of Colombian and Italian descent. Her husband has Caribbean heritage, their son a blend of all of it. “We’re leaning into family tradition recipes that we put our twist on. Chris and I collaborate on what would be fun ways to spin something.”

The menu also includes more gluten-free and vegan options. “We are trying to have fun with the things that we know how to do well and also trying to meet what people are asking for,” Sidoti says. “We made accommodations that don’t feel like a compromise on the food, like the vegan Caesar panzanella. We felt really, really confident that it was a fantastic vegan Caesar dressing.”

Their community responsiveness is not limited to dietary restrictions. They also introduced a wings dish based on customer feedback, though still on their own terms. The spicy mango

barbecue wings are wildly popular ($15). “If people say, ‘Listen we just want to go out for a couple beers and a great big ol’ plate of wings and a salad,’ that’s fine! We love making them.” People have already been requesting the sauce be bottled and sold in the market, so their first wings offering is off to a roaring start.

Synergies Happening

Looking forward, Sidoti expects the menu to shift every two months with the cycling of in-season produce from local farms and producers, like Flowering Sun, Catskill Wagyu, La Salumina, Willow Sheep Farm, and Veritas, to name but a few. Specials will be used to feature limitedavailability dishes with transitioning ingredients. It’s also a place to test out new menu items and offer a rotating selection. “Every item on the menu needs to do something for us otherwise there is no point in taking up the space,” Sidoti says, reflecting with a touch of wistfulness on the lukewarm performance of the opening menu’s

charcuterie platter. So as a solution, they’ve moved an ever-changing cheese and charcuterie board to the specials lists, where they can continue to have fun with it.

That’s one of the synergies happening with the market and cafe next door. “We get to highlight products from the market,” Sidoti says. “We have a tinned fish platter now with sardines and mussels. Sometimes people don’t want to make the full purchase without tasting it first. It’s nice to have a way to get familiar with a product. Then, if they like it, they can go into the retail shop and purchase it.”

The restaurant has come a long way from the waterlogged building it was not four years ago. The bright space has large streetside windows, a long bar, and royal blue leather banquettes. The lush, tree-draped backyard, with a gravel patio, overlooks the Rondout Creek, offering a place for cafe customers to take their lattes and breakfast sandwiches during the day, and sit-down dinner service at night. “The backyard is such a nice little nook, kind of like a hideaway,” Sidoti says. “I think that is a really nice added bonus for cafe users, and low maintenance for us since it’s self-serve.”

Hot Fun in the Summertime

The cocktail list, developed in consultation with Brendan Casey of traveling pop-up Catskill Cocktail Club, features a half-dozen threeingredient options, which will also shift seasonally.

Current highlights include a delightfully tart tamarind margarita with a tajin rim ($15). The shaken colada keeps it simple and surprisingly light with white rum, pineapple juice, and cream of coconut ($15). There are also two mocktails including one with house-made Jamaican sorrel ($12). Casey will be onsite bartending on Thursday evenings, with occasional Catskill Cocktail Club pop-ups on Friday nights throughout the year.

The wine list, curated by Chris, leans heavily natural with options by the glass and bottle. Bottle prices range from a $38 Tempranillo to a $98 Champagne, and glasses run $13 to $16. Chilled summer highlights in the middle range include Wild Arc’s pet nat, Aurora, ($68) and Si Rose, a skin-contact Gewurztraminer-Pinot Gris blend from importers Jenny & Francois ($78).

Dessert ranges from a simple Jane’s ice cream sorbet ($6) to a caramelized banana split, which with its warm banana and cold ice cream, is as much a tactile experience as a flavor one ($9). The panna cotta comes in a ramekin with a split top of blueberry granite and crumble ($9).

Sidoti lists off any number of other things they’d like to do with the space in future months: visiting guest chefs, pop-ups, live music, cooking demonstrations, wine tastings, themed events, and trivia nights. “It’s hard to find variety in Kerhonkson,” Sidoti says. “So that is what we’d do when we activate the visiting chef pop-ups—look

for some missing groups. Whether that is Thai food or Korean food or Indian food, those are just some of the things we hope to be able to bring here as pop-up events.”

In the meantime, they’ve started with open mic nights on the first Wednesday of the month and karaoke on the second Wednesday. “We’re really excited to be here. We have so many ideas. This is proving to be a really fun time for us,” says Sidotti. Bisected by Route 209, which is flanked by functional, small-town businesses—a diner, a pizza place, a liquor store, two gas stations— Kerhonkson’s original layout, along the Rondout Creek, has long since been disrupted. Mill & Main’s location—at the end of a comically short Main Street (different from the main drag, which is inexplicably called 42nd Street)—is an unlikely spot for a community gathering place. You probably won’t happen upon it by accident unless you’re cutting through town to or from Route 44/55. And yet, the cafe, and now the restaurant, has drawn flocks of people. Mill & Main is, perhaps, the first sit-down dining restaurant Kerhonkson has had in decades, and the people are here for it.

Mill & Main

317 Main Street, Kershonkson

Eatmillandmain.com

Dinner is served Thursday to Sunday, 5-10pm. An abbreviated menu is served 10-11pm.

The dining room at Mill & Main in Kerhonkson.

Homegrown & local fruits & vegetables picked everyday!

Featuring:

• Our famous sweet corn!

• 20+ varieties of heirloom & traditional tomatoes

• Sweet & hot peppers

• Melons

• Strawberries

Homegrown flower bouquets

Beautiful greenhouse filled with garden & house plants

sips & bites

Betty’s Snack Bar

97 Liberty Street, Newburgh

Betty’s puts the bar back in snack bar. By day, the Liberty Street establishment, which opened in early June, is a bakery and eatery serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Dessert goodies include heart-shaped raspberry Linzer cookies, orange yogurt cake, nectarine scones, and chocolate chip and walnut blondies. The globetrotting menu spans chorizo breakfast tacos, spicy sesame noodles, and New England lobster rolls. Betty’s also has a small grocery section stocked with essentials. After dinner—until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays—the spot transforms into a bar with craft beer and signature cocktails. The intimate space, decked out with cowboy-print wallpaper and a U-shaped bar, serves up summery drinks like watermelon margaritas, as well as local brews.

@bettysnewburgh

The Vinyl Room

396 Main Street, Beacon

After a move from Wappingers Falls to Beacon this spring, an expanded space and menu can be expected at the Vinyl Room 2.0, with the same beloved record store-meets-bar concept. Drink options abound, from 12 rotating craft beer taps and an extensive cocktail menu to wine and cider, not to mention a small plates menu and bottle service. The Paloma and Moscow Mule (both $11) cater to classic cocktail lovers. Or try something new, such as their Laced Violet ($11), with Earl Grey-infused gin, lavender syrup, and hints of lemon. Happy Hour runs Wednesday to Friday, 6 to 8pm. The Vinyl Room also sells and buys records. Reservations are recommended, especially on their popular live music weekends and vinyl DJ nights. Tvrny.com

Union Street Brewing

716 Union Street, Hudson

In Union Street Brewing, which opened in July, owners Emma and Paul O’Donnell have created a place to share their “obsession for craft beer with the greater Hudson Valley.” This brewery, taproom, and beautifully landscaped beer garden is located in historic downtown Hudson, only steps away from the bustling businesses of Warren and 7th streets. The focus is on hoppy, juicy brews, along with an ever-changing selection of seasonal beers, and a wide range of New York State wines and spirits, all supporting the O’Donnells’ commitment to local, Hudson Valley ingredients. Bites and beers will work hand in hand, with CIA graduate chef Joel Somerstein making plates like lamb koftas with tzatziki ($10) to shrimp tacos ($16) and sausage bites in puff pastry ($15). Union Street Brewing is open Thursday to Sunday. Unionstreetbrewing.com

Hudson Valley Al Forno

7 East Main Street, Beacon

Fresh out of the oven, Hudson Valley Al Forno brings a new menu of woodfired pizzas to its summer home at Hudson Valley Brewery. The farm-fresh, locally sourced ingredients elevate their simple recipes. The limited menu, from co-owner and CIA-trained chef Robert Kelleher, includes perfectly seasoned classics like the OG cheese pizza ($16) and the Pauli’s Pepperoni ($17). The Ragazza Bianca ($17) best showcases seasonal produce with fresh spinach and blistered cherry tomatoes that burst in your mouth. Another standout is “We are the Champignons,” ($17) whose creamy combination of whipped ricotta and creme fraiche even out the strong flavors of the herb-roasted mushrooms ($17). In addition to their brewery location, Al Forno caters events throughout the Hudson Valley with their mobile pizza oven.

@hudsonvalleyalforno

Universal Cafe & Bar

220 Main Street, Germantown

After 20 years of running Universal Cafe in San Francisco, Leslie Carr-Avalos returned to her Hudson Valley roots and brought the concept of her former eatery along for the ride. The new iteration, Universal Cafe & Bar, opened in March within Germantown’s Central House Hotel, which she and her sister, Julia Carr, jointly own. With a focus on small plates and distinctive cocktails, the cafe’s seasonally revolving, local-when-possible menu offers inventive comfort fare like chicken liver parfait ($15), a spicy fried chicken sandwich ($18), or chilled Gulf prawns with ricotta, lemon, caper, and herbs ($19). Pair your meal with a spirited cocktail or one of 10 beers on tap.

@universalcafe_ny

—Lily Anninger, Marie Doyon, Melissa Esposito, Sophie Frank

We are the Co-op Team

Berkshire Food Co-op was created by and for families in the Berkshires to bring real food to our friends and neighbors

Everything we sell is thoughtfully chosen so you can rest assured it’s good for you and for our community

www.berkshire.coop

(413) 528-9697

34 Bridge Street, Great Barrington, MA @berkshirecoop

Join the Fun on the Farm

Sunflower Festival: Sun., Aug. 27 · featuring Probable Cause Band

Complete Opening: Saturday, Sept. 9

“Family comes first at Minard’s Family Farm. The heart and care of farming is the perfect blend of family, strong roots, and hard work. The most beautiful gift we can give to your family starts from the ground up, and we pride ourselves on the joy we bring to your family from the fruits of our labor.”

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Patrick Lo Re and Sabrina Mitre walk by their former three-car garage, now a performance venue and recording studio. Once an orchard, part of the appeal of their six-acre property was the quiet and the sense of being enveloped by both nature and the hamlet of New Baltimore. “It’s an intimate space that offers the possibility of going inward and outward,” explains Lo Re. “Just like the creative process: you can withdraw, feel the protection of nature, and then be open and share by being in community.

When you ask Patrick Lo Re why he decamped from the wilds of Manhattan for the rolling bucolic hills of the Hudson Valley, his answer is to the point. “In one word, the sound experience of New York City is: noise,” explains the audio engineer—who, in his quest to perfect the art of recording music, has learned to play several instruments, as well as studied architecture, material science, and a bit of physics. In 2006, when he found his architecturally inspired raised ranch nestled on six acres in the quiet hamlet of New Baltimore, he relished the calm. “Coming back to nature was about opening up,” he explains of his move upstate. “I found in Manhattan I was unconsciously protecting myself. The experience is not harmonious. Here, nature offers sounds you want to hear. “

Small Town Symphony

A sound engineer builds a studio, and the music—as well as the community—follows

By Mary Angeles Armstrong

Photos by Winona Barton-Ballentine

Lo Re loved the modesty of the 2,200-square-foot house, which is clad in dark brown cedar shingles and blends with the surrounding landscape, once part of a larger orchard, and still filled with gnarled apple, pear, and cherry trees. To invite more of the park-like setting inside, he installed walls of picture windows and sliding glass doors leading to a wooden deck, a wisteria arbor, and pool. “Part of the American dream for me was the appeal of the wood cabin,” says Lo Re, who grew up in Europe. “After Manhattan, disappearing into nature became vital. I loved the chance to reconnect with the Earth.” The three-bedroom home became a haven for Lo Re, who travelled the world designing and building recording studios for clients. In 2010, he met his wife, Sabrina Mitre, a writer and former fashion executive who quickly saw the appeal of the property and joined him in his pursuit of quietude.

In 2020, when construction on a studio in Maine was halted by the pandemic, Lo Re saw an opportunity to fulfill a long-held dream. “ The first time I came up the driveway here I had deja vu,” he says. “I knew that at some point I could make the perfect sound studio and retreat.” Originally Lo Re had searched for a home with a barn to convert. “But the acoustics of barns aren’t actually conducive

to sound recordings,” he explains. The raised ranch didn’t have a barn, anyway—but it did have an architecturally uninspired three-car garage. “I had my team together and none of them wanted to go back to the city,” he remembers.

“So I spoke to Sabrina about them staying awhile and designing a new studio.” Mitre agreed. “ We became like a family,” she says. “ With me cooking and taking care of the team over the next six months. It was fun.”

But Lo Re’s inspired pivot and Mitre’s good-natured hospitality didn’t just transform a garage into a worldclass recording studio and performance space. It also inspired their New Baltimore neighbors into a kind of spontaneous harmony, with locals stepping up to help coproduce a musical retreat and performance series. Local videographers, hometown cooks, volunteer valets, and a few good-natured hosts all play their part in the hamlet of New Baltimore’s evolving musical workshop.

Soundscaping in the Woods

To convert the garage, Lo Re collaborated with his acoustic design team of Jean-Jacques Bacquet and Maria Anne Bacquet from Klinger-Favre Audio in France, Bendi Kovacs of K2 Design in Queens, and Andras Gipp from

The interior of the performance venue looks out onto the landscape. “We placed and designed the buildings so you don’t see any other structure when looking from the windows,” says Lo Re. “The intent is to promote the landscape outside and the soundscape inside.”

Lo Re had a longtime dream to build a recording studio on his property and share his home with other musicians. Since 2021 the studio has been the home to L’atelier Musical, a workshop and residency space that culminates in a live recording session series open to the public.

Upstairs Lo Re carefully crafted a dynamic recording studio from a variety of wood, each piece chosen for its acoustic properties. The 20 degree angled ceilings throughout the space were also carefully designed to distribute sounds evenly. The varying thickness of the interior wall paneling help control the different sound frequencies. “It was designed so that the room actually disappears and the listener can hear the music,” says Lo Re.

Hudson Workshop in Hurley. The team decided to create a barn-inspired structure that matched the rustic nature of the property but concealed a recording studio, concert venue, and audiophile listening room. “ We focused on minimizing the human footprint and the visual impact on the landscape,” explains Lo Re. “ We transformed the structure into something you’d normally see in the countryside—basically a barn.”

They hired New Baltimore-based Randio Builders to remove the eight-foot roof of the garage and then construct a vaulted gabled roof, 25 feet high at its apex. Van Elten Excavating poured a new foundation for the expanded space. Then the team installed Loewen windows throughout—including a full glass wall in the performance space. The windows were chosen for their acoustic insulation but also to enhance the studio’s interior-exterior flow. “ The big windows let nature in,” explains Lo Re. “But they also reflect nature back to onlookers when they ’ re outside walking around the building.”

Cedar shingle siding matches the main house, giving the structure the same wood cabin vernacular and similarly helping the building meld with the landscape. Horizontal cedar siding wraps around the structure’s second floor, which houses the audio room. Sound proofing was achieved

by creating a “ box within a box”—which also insulates the structure’s temperature. “ We need very little heating or cooling in here throughout the year,” Lo Re explains.

Breathing Rooms

The idea of turning his property into a retreat and live performance space first came about gradually, but soon gained steam with local support. “Over my time in the hamlet I became involved with the local land conservancy,” explains Lo Re. “ They would often ask me to bring musicians to play at events.” He noticed how much local interest there was in the performances. “ The concept of mixing a live venue within a recording studio up here made total sense,” he says.

By the end of 2020, the team had finished with the studio’s construction and he and Mitre began sharing the space with New York City-based musicians interested in recording in the arboreal studio. The couple quickly noticed how much the setting influenced their musician-guests to slow down and take a breath. “Musicians would come up and start working, and then inevitably I’d see them noticing the wildlife out the windows, taking pictures on their phones, and wandering through the nearby woods,” says Lo Re. “ They ’d always ask if they could stay a bit longer. We

realized spending time in the natural world was a big part of their creative process.”

The layout of the couple’s main house is conducive to this sort of hosting. With the primary bedroom suite, large eat-in kitchen, and lounge all on the main level, the couple can maintain their privacy. Downstairs, two guest bedrooms and baths enjoy a separate entrance through a renovated mudroom to the woods and recording space— giving musicians the opportunity to practice or enjoy outdoor activities according to their own creative muses. Lo Re and Mitre extended the driveway between the home and the recording studio so that guests could safely drive through the property and also park. This facilitated Lo Re’s next idea: Inviting local residents to come and participate in some of the live recording sessions.

L’Atelier on the Hudson

Through 2021, Lo Re fine-tuned the acoustics of the space as well as its mission. He hosted a series of free live recording sessions and loved watching the interaction between the audience and the musicians. He noticed how that camaraderie influenced the musicians’ creative process as much as the natural setting. “It ’ s very

inclusive,” explains Lo Re. “ The audience is on the same level as the musicians, and after the recording there’s lots of informal discussion. Everyone is talking to the musicians and commenting and asking questions. It takes the hierarchy and elitism out of the process.”

In February of 2022, before beginning the current season, Lo Re decided to hold an impromptu meeting with his neighbors to see who might be interested in participating in the growing workshop series. “I thought, let ’s just see what happens,” he remembers. “It was 5pm on a Thursday and I’d only given people an hourand-a-half ’s notice.” Twenty local volunteers showed up—all offering their skills and services to help grow the workshop series. “ We now have volunteers who pick musicians up from the airport, volunteers who take care of valet parking, neighbors who host surplus musicians, and a local lady who cooks meals for everyone on the day of the performance so we can focus on rehearsing,” explains Lo Re. One neighbor conducts interviews with the musicians and another is now the official videographer. Someone else is helping develop L’Atelier’s website. “It ’ s really creating a community,” says Mitre. Lo Re agrees: “Music is really about sharing a moment together.”

Lo Re and Mitre chose a minimalist interior for their home. The large living room looks out through a variety of windows onto the deck and grounds, and includes very little art. “The decorating is meant to avoid any type of style, which would come as an imposition to our guest musicians,” says Lo Re. “We want people to be at ease and be creative in their own way. Our paintings are the constantly evolving wall size windows framing the park, the trees, the animals, and the sounds.”

In the competitive world of real estate development, Chuck Petersheim of Catskill Farms is embarking on a high-stakes venture with Ashokan Acres, nine new homes sited on 68 acres in Olivebridge. Despite a 20-year-track record of building best-in-class homes with robust resale values, in a rapidly changing local real estate landscape Petersheim’s big bet on new development is not without risk.

Ulster County, known recently for its dynamic and robust real estate market, presents a distinct challenge for Petersheim. The lack of available properties has made it difficult to gauge the current demand and price points. “Ashokan Acres will be an exploration into what the Ulster County real estate market can and will support currently,” he says.

While some may perceive this project— combining rural seclusion with Catskill Farms’ time-tested designs—as a sure thing, Petersheim cautions against such assumptions. He points to existing properties in the area that have been on the market for months without selling, and spec homes priced at over a million dollars that remain stagnant. “Is this a sure

thing? It will be, because I know what I’m doing and will pivot as the market demands, but there’s a lot of people not getting their homes sold right now,” Petersheim says.

The Ashokan Acres project marks a departure for Petersheim in terms of land acquisition and development. Typically, he purchases building-ready parcels or existing subdivisions. However, due to the scarcity of land and rising prices, he took a gamble and acquired the Ashokan Acres property. A year of study and engineering, along with close collaboration with the Town of Olive Planning Board, has ensured the project’s adherence to the community’s comprehensive plan.

The project’s homes are priced from $699,000 to $1.3 million, offering privacy, large acreages, and sought-after amenities. By studying the resale market and observing buyer preferences, Petersheim aims to align the pricing of his homes with current market trends.

Petersheim emphasizes the value, experience, durability, and warranty that his homes offer. He believes in providing a product that not only functions well but also holds its value over

Navigating Uncertainty

Catskill Farms’ Gambit in the Ulster County Real Estate Market

time. The resale value of his previous homes has consistently validated their initial pricing and provided significant return on investment for owners who later sell. The design of the homes remains true to his established style, with constant improvements and adaptations based on buyer feedback.

With this development, Petersheim aims to cater to a demographic he has successfully targeted for two decades—the New York City metropolitan family. Additionally, he has witnessed a shift toward more full-time residents and remote hybrid workers in the market. Through this venture, Petersheim aims to deliver quality homes that meet the evolving needs of buyers while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. “Even after 20 years in business and building 300 homes, we are still learning every day and committed to delivering a durable and good-looking home to our clients,” Petersheim says. “And judging by the continued demand for our new homes and our resales, we still seem to be inspiring families to pull that fateful trigger of Catskills homeownership.”

On the Mend

NEW CENTER FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH EQUITY BRIDGING GAPS IN MEDICAL CARE

By Jaime Stathis

While the Hudson Valley is a great place to live—we have an abundance of outdoor space, fresh food, and beautiful views—we fall short when it comes to healthcare. If you have job flexibility and financial means, you can travel to Albany, Westchester, or New York City to see a doctor, but only some have that freedom. Others wait months, many go without.

Economic status and geographic location are two social determinants of health (SDH), which the World Health Organization says account for between 30 to 55 percent of health outcomes. To help bridge healthcare gaps and eliminate clinical silos, Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth) launched the Center for Women’s Health Equity to address the SDH that can result in increased maternal morbidity and mortality among Hudson Valley women.

“The SDH that specifically affect rural populations can be very different from but also similar to those in urban settings, and two of those are healthcare access and healthcare coverage,” explains Ashanda Saint Jean, MD, chair

of Obstetrics and Gynecology at HealthAlliance Hospital in Kingston. Dr. Saint Jean leads the Center for Women’s Health Equity and is passionate about leveling the playing field.

Maternal Mortality Rates

Are High in New York State

A March 2023 report published by the Centers for Disease Control stated that 1,205 people died of maternal causes in 2021, up 40 percent from 2020 and one of the worst maternal death rates ever recorded in the United States. This uptick can be correlated to both the pandemic and abortion restrictions—in 2021, the mortality rate was 32.9 deaths per 100,000, up from 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019. The numbers look even worse when comparing the United States with other high-income countries such as Australia, Austria, Israel, Japan, and Spain, which report two and three deaths per 100,000. Maternal mortality rates are significantly worse for women of color. “Not only are these rates increasing, the survival gap for Black and Indigenous women continues

to widen,” says Mary-Ann Etiebet, MD, AVP for Health Equity at Merck and lead of Merck for Mothers. For Black women, the maternal death rate in 2021 was 69.9 per 100,000, 2.6 times the rate for white women.

According to a series of studies published in the journal JAMA, the racial health gap hasn’t improved over the past 20 years, and maternal health is no exception, but it’s even more dire in New York, where Black, non-Hispanic women are up to five times more likely to die of pregnancyrelated causes than white non-Hispanic women. “We are seeing more and more deaths occurring in the community after women have been discharged from the hospital,” Etiebet says. “Community-led solutions, like the Center for Women’s Health Equity, address discrimination, systemic and cultural barriers to care that are vital to reversing this trend.”

Cardiovascular complications—such as heart disease, embolism, and hemorrhage—are the leading cause of death among pregnant African American and Latina women, and the New York

State Department of Health reports mental health disorders and diabetes as other leading causes of maternal mortality. According to the New York State Department of Health’s report, “78 percent of these deaths were preventable, and 100 percent of the deaths caused by hemorrhage, mental health conditions, and cardiomyopathy were preventable.”

Sean Tedjarati, MD, director of Obstetrics/ Gynecology at Westchester Medical Center, says the socioeconomic and racial determinants of health that result in the premature death of women of color across the Hudson Valley is one of the greatest public health challenges we face.

Can We Fix It?

“We know why maternal mortality rates are so high: structural racism, discrimination, and inequities in care access and quality,” says Dipal Shah, chief external affairs officer, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York. “These deaths are largely preventable, and it’s critical we examine these gaps with a racial equity lens,” Shah says. “We applaud the opening of the Center for Women’s Health Equity in the Hudson Valley. This is a critical investment in improving outcomes for pregnant people in our state, especially women of color, who bear the brunt of the burden of skewed maternal mortality rates across New York and the nation.”

In Kingston, Dr. Saint Jean and the WMCHealth team created a strategic approach to meet the needs of patients and assembled their teams accordingly. “What we’re doing differently at the Center for Women’s Health Equity is that we understand the big drivers of maternal mortality and why this impacts women of color disproportionately,” Dr. Saint Jean says. Services include midwifery and mental healthcare services that will be life-saving and critical to Hudson Valley mothers having safe, positive birthing experiences.

Because this center is the first of its kind in New York State, Dr. Saint Jean and her team hope that others will replicate their blueprint and adopt a unified approach that addresses both maternal and infant mortality. “When I first came to work in Kingston, I recognized that I was in a medical desert for women’s health services,” Dr. Saint Jean says. “I didn’t have maternal-fetal medicine, I didn’t have urogynecology, I didn’t have minimally invasive gynecologic surgeons, nor did I have gynecologic oncology,” she explains. “We’ve basically brought water to the desert.”

What Does Health Equity Look Like?

Kingston now has a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who can do high-risk ultrasonography so patients don’t have to travel over an hour away. “When we look at the social determinants that impact rural settings, one of those is transportation, and there may be only one vehicle for the whole family household,” Dr. Saint Jean says, “And if that person who is the

breadwinner has to go to work, then our patients are rendered without transportation get their medical needs addressed.”

Instead of making pregnant women travel, the Center for Women’s Health Equity has leveled the playing field by bringing specialists to the patients, and they also provide everything from cardiology to mental health services under one roof so it’s easier for patients. “It’s almost like  one-stop shopping,” Dr. Saint Jean says, “We want our patients to get everything they need in one place so that there are no medical deserts anymore, not in Ulster County and not in the Hudson Valley.” Having all the care providers in one place eliminates confusion about the larger healthcare picture for every woman, and this streamlined care and communication will help save lives.

Dr. Saint Jean explains that they’re using a patient-centered medical home model, which means that the care is built around the patient, and it’s not only patient-centered but also highquality, cost-effective, culturally appropriate, and team-based. “I have so many patients concerned about having a baby or who don’t even want to get pregnant because of concerns around pregnancy and childbirth,” St. Jean says, “I have Black women that come to me saying, ‘I don’t wanna die having this baby.’”

The Center for Women’s Health Equity is supported by a $750,000 New York State grant secured by New York State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and with the support of New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the members of the New York State Legislature, and Governor Kathy Hochul.

The new HealthAlliance Hospital Mary’s Avenue Campus opened last December with the Family Birth Center that features eight spacious labor and delivery rooms with picturesque views along with midwives, 24-hour anesthesia, 24hour neonatology, tubs for water births, wireless monitoring, individual refrigerators, and lactation specialists. “We want to optimize the birthing experience so our patients can enjoy the experience and have the best outcomes,” Dr. Saint Jean says, adding that they want to expand to Poughkeepsie and Newburgh. “I have patients who specifically want to see a Black provider because they often feel their voices are unheard,” Dr. Saint Jeans says. “We take care of everyone, and we put the humanity back in medicine for all of our patients across the Hudson Valley.”

While the Center for Women’s Health Equity is a great start, improving health outcomes for pregnant women in the Hudson Valley will take time, sustained effort, and cooperation. “Everyone deserves the right to bring a child into this world safely, with care and dignity,” Shah says, “and we commit to continuing to work with partners across New York to close these gaps in maternal health and sexual and reproductive health care access.”

TRESSE TRANSFORMATION

ANNEMICHELLE RADCLIFFE HAS A PASSION FOR HEALTHY HAIR

Over the course of AnneMichelle Radcliffe’s career as an Emmy Award-winning hair stylist for films and television shows, including “Saturday Night Live,” she noticed that many of her clients suffered from hair loss, also known as alopecia. “I saw its devastating effects and I wanted to be able to help,” she says. “So I left showbiz and began offering services to the private sector with a focus on hair loss help.”

Today, Radcliffe is a certified trichologist—a specialist in scalp and hair issues—who helps clients regain their hair mojo at AnneMichelle Hair Solutions & Scalp Studio in Rhinebeck. After an initial assessment, she introduces her clients to an innovative spectrum of restorative and regenerative solutions, as well as preventive care and maintenance. Her studio is the only one in the area offering the stateof-the-art Alma TED, the latest technological advancement in nonsurgical hair restoration. The ultrasound therapy is quick, painless, and effective without surgery or needles, working to regenerate hair and improve its appearance. Her studio’s other world-class solutions include 3D-printed custom hair systems that are undetectable and stay put even through swimming and showering, 3D hair extensions, scalp micropigmentation, traditional wigs, and specially formulated trichological products that support healthy hair and scalp.

“My goal is to take the fear out of hair loss by sharing my expertise and instilling hope and optimism,” Radcliffe says. “It is so rewarding to see clients’ confidence and selfesteem bounce back when they see results and love their hair again!”

6795 Route 9, Suite 14, Rhinebeck (845) 516-5353

Franco Vogt

WHERE NATURAL AND CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE MEET

Like many integrative medical practices, Collaborative Natural Health Partners has a diverse team of physicians who provide both natural and conventional healthcare treatments. But like the clinic’s name implies, what sets the practice apart is a whole-team approach to wellness.

“Our patients really have all of our brains on a case,” says Tonya Pasternak, ND, a naturopathic doctor with Collaborative Natural Health Partners who specializes in women’s health and the treatment of Lyme disease. “Our naturopathic and osteopathic providers have regular meetings to discuss treatment and we work closely to conduct functional lab testing that gets to the root cause of symptoms.”

Dr. Pasternak, who recently moved to Newburgh from Connecticut to open the practice’s first New York outpost, is excited to offer licensed naturopathic care to the Hudson Valley through both in-person and telehealth visits.

As part of her natural approach to women’s health, she offers hormone balancing, nutrition counseling, and non-pharmaceutical and non-hormonal options for the treatment of issues such as PMS, PMDD, PCOS, infertility, and menopause. Having dealt with her own Lyme disease diagnosis, Dr. Pasternak is passionate about helping patients address the gaps in conventional Lyme treatments. “Chronic Lyme can leave patients feeling generally unwell, and naturopathy can provide really helpful complementary care,” she says. “We have natural versions of antibiotics and different ways to support inflammation in the body. There’s so much we can do for those suffering with Lyme.”

For more information, visit Ctnaturalhealth.com or check out the team’s podcast, “Your Health Toolkit.”

CTNATURALHEALTH.COM

MYRIAD MODALITIES

LOCAL PRACTITIONERS ON HEALTHY LIVING

By Abigail Gierke

The Hudson Valley has always been a a place of healing, and the region is teeming with health and wellness opportunities these days. There’s also a heightened awareness surrounding the benefits to living well, especially in the warmer months of the year. But what does it mean to be healthy and can wellness look different depending on who you ask? Six local practitioners share how different modalities can help reach goals and why caring for overall health can improve general well-being to have a positive life experience. Learn top recommendations for being healthy from these experts that are easy to start now.

CHIROPRACTIC CARE

Jared King DC, Chiropractic Physician, Upstate Chiropractic Care

With years of education and over 11 years of experience in various forms of chiropractic care—personal injury, wellness offices, pain-based offices—Upstate Chiropractic Care owner Jared King, has developed a practice that combines what he considers the most successful modalities and approaches to help people find balance and achieve their healing goals. King believes that chiropractic care is important for overall health because the nervous system governs everything that goes on in the body and chiropractors are primarily nervous system doctors. “The spine and the nervous system are the foundation for the function of the entire body. The more mobile and balanced the spine, the more optimized the nervous system becomes. The body is then able to operate at a higher potential. Vital to anyone interested in overall health!” The most prominent result of chiropractic care experienced

is pain relief, according to King, but many people also report better sleep, overall vitality, and it’s fundamental structurally for balance in the human body.

A common misconception, King points out, is that once you go to a chiropractor, you’ll have to continue on a regular basis. “I try to resolve all the complaints you come in with and once the issues are resolved, I leave it up to the patient to decide what their continuing care will look like,” says King. “I think there’s great benefit to maintained and consistent care but I leave that up to the individual to decide.”

“I work on everything from all the ‘itises’ [tendonitis, plantar fasciitis] and anything happening in the extremities to the spine and acute disc injuries. I make each session as individualized as possible,” says King. “I start by listening to the patient and we go from there. My practice isn’t a one-size-fits-all experience.” King works with all ages and those experiencing acute pain to clients who are looking to maintain balance and stay well.

TOP RECOMMENDATION FOR BEING HEALTHY:

Be mindful of what you are consuming and putting into your body. Move 30 minutes a day, keep your mindset as positive as possible and maintain healthy social connections.

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MASSAGE Adam Reid, Licensed Massage Therapist, Masterpiece Massage

After a career serenading people as a piano player and composer, Adam Reid found himself wanting more connection with the people enjoying his music. “While I would be playing these gigs and pouring my heart out, after I packed up I would turn around and everyone was gone,” says Reid who owns and operates The Masterpiece Massage in New Paltz. “I couldn’t connect with anyone and I was looking for more in many ways. I realized the same energy I was putting into the piano, I could put into massage, but now instead of wondering what people are thinking, I can feel the energy and adapt while I’m going. I’m now trying to make a masterpiece with my clients,” says Reid.

Reid believes that massage therapy is an essential conductor of overall health, harmonizing body and soul. “I specialize in working with those who may have experienced trauma in their lives and are ready for a change and are ready to work on dissolving stress and anxiety,” says Reid. “I also work with those who have never had a massage to those who have traveled the world and have experienced massage.”

Distinctive to Reid’s practice is the use of binaural sound therapy—sound frequencies (waves) hidden in calming music used to promote relaxing, deep meditation during treatments. “I think outside of the box in a different way than just pushing on the muscles. Like playing the piano, it’s more of an art.”

He believes that, beyond the physical benefits to massage (blood circulation, fortification of the immune system, and improvements in posture and flexibility) massage nurtures emotional wellbeing, fostering inner peace. Each session leaves a lasting melody of well-being—a timeless ode to the beauty of being alive. “My massages work on the psyche and physical body. I try to bring both together during my massages so that by the end of the treatment, clients can start to heal from within.” Importantly, Reid’s massages don’t have a time limit, although each appointment is allotted four hours. Clients can expect the use of aromatherapies, hot and cold stones, heat compresses, facial serum, and binaural sound therapy. Reid encourages those booking an appointment to come with an open mind.

“Massage gives people a time to think without thinking. It allows one to have emotions in a safe space. Massage can also help people feel more comfortable in their body,” says Reid

ACUPUNCTURE

Alexis Arvidson, Licensed Acupuncturist and Herbalist

Alexis Arvidson believes that the root of healing and wellness is based on forming strong relationships to ourselves, each other and the surrounding environments. Based out of the AiAiA studio collective in Kingston, Arvidson, the founder, helps people find and build connections through her acupuncture, herbal, and community relationship wellness practice, focusing on women and families both in and out of the studio. Over the 15 years that Arvidson has practiced traditional Chinese medicine, her focus has evolved through the different stages of her life. “Acupuncture is an art that’s informed by training, teachings, and experiences in each practitioner’s life,” says Arvidson. “For me a lot of yoga and Buddhism went into my practice in the beginning and now a very land-based exploration of relationships between people and the landscape and environment is informing my work.” Most recently, Arvidson has been focused on caring for families. “We can really change the course of our entire unfolding if children are well cared for and that means families have to be supported and loved and well-care for.”

According to Arvidson, acupuncture is hard to put into words and is really best experienced. “What happens in the room and in the moment is between the medicine, the practitioner, and the patient,” says Arvidson. “Acupuncture awakens parts of people that may seem invisible to the eye. Once you start to have first-hand experience with acupuncture and herbs it will open so many channels of energy and pathways you aren’t aware of that can feed into healthy relationships.”

Arvidson uses intuition, esoteric acupuncture, release points and classical Chinese medicine techniques during her hour-and-a-half sessions.

TOP RECOMMENDATION FOR BEING HEALTHY:

ROOT CAUSE MEDICINE

A NATURAL PATH TO HEALING AT NOURISHING LIFE HEALTH CENTER

Chronic health issues are difficult to manage when traditional Western medicine doesn’t seem to help. Nourishing Life Health Center seeks the root cause of illnesses and helps the body find its way to health.

“We help patients with issues that are often hard to treat, like infections, detoxification issues, weak digestion, and hormonal balancing,” says Hillary Thing, LAc, founder of Nourishing Life Health Center on Route 209 between Kingston and Marbletown. “We try to understand what’s driving the symptoms, so once that’s addressed true health is restored.”

Treatments include herbals, diet and nutrient support, acupuncture, and far infra-red sauna to promote circulation and detoxification. “We tend to see results within the first few months,” Thing says. “I think when people know they’re on the right track, there’s a lot of motivation to continue down this path.”

Herbal medicine is the primary treatment at Nourishing Life—and patients can watch that medicine bloom before their eyes with a walk in the center’s garden, where many of the center’s medicinal herbs are grown. “Nature provides a pharmacy that offers us a lot of options for medicines that are in harmony with, rather than toxic to, the human body.”

FOR BEING HEALTHY:

To that end, Thing began Bloom & Reveal Botanicals, an online apothecary to expand access to herbal remedies beyond just her patients. UprootingLyme.com, a sister website, provides education and inspiration about healing chronic health issues (especially Lyme disease) with holistic treatment approaches.

TOP RECOMMENDATION

No matter what you’re doing in your life, take time for yourself. Take time to make yourself happy.

Exercise and having a beautiful diet might be obvious, but for overall health the only way we can care enough to eat healthy and exercise is to be in relationships— relationships with oneself, with the people around us, and in a relationship with our environment.

YOGA AS COMMUNITY

STONE WAVE PROVIDES A PATH FOR ALL

Stone Wave is a yoga and wellness collective where all are welcome to come as they are. “From lifelong athletes to those just starting their personal wellness journey, we offer a path for everyone,” says Liz Glover Wilson, Stone Wave’s founder.

“Our instructors have diverse body types and backgrounds, and are dedicated to creating a space that is comforting, restorative, and accepting,” she says. To that end, Stone Wave’s yoga teacher certifications have become a flourishing branch of the studio’s offerings, with over 200 graduates of its programs from New York and surrounding states.

The certifications range from 200- and 300hour yoga teacher training programs to deep dives on meditation and yogic self-cultivation, as well as yin, restorative, prenatal, and hot yoga. Training is offered both in-person at the Gardiner and Poughkeepsie locations as well as virtually. There’s even a studio apartment available for visitors to rent with views of the Shawangunk ridge.

“I had the privilege of completing a 300hour yoga teacher training at Stone Wave,” says yoga instructor Kelli Gilmore. “The experience was truly transformative, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to study there. Both studios are beautiful and the community Stone Wave serves is genuine and supportive.”

In addition to certification programs and daily yoga and meditation classes, Stone Wave also hosts international yoga retreats, and workshops and intensives on a variety of wellness topics, such as ayurveda, dance, writing, and more.

SKIN CARE

Lindita Dushaj, LE, LMT Spa Lindita

Lindita Dushaj is the owner and one of the practitioners of Spa Lindita, a studio boutique spa based in Kingston. After a successful career as a banker but feeling “soul-sucked,” the Great Recession caused Dushaj to rethink her career path. “I had started seeing an esthetician myself and eventually decided to pursue the training and education needed to be where I am now,” says Dushaj. She has been a holistic esthetician for over 13 years and a licensed massage therapist since 2016 and considers herself a relationship manager with the skin and client. “My practice is all about holism. I am interested in the external as well as the internal. Skincare is vital for overall wellness as it plays a crucial role in maintaining the health and appearance of our largest organ, the skin. This is the first indication of overall health and protecting and caring for your skin is vital to living a healthy life,” says Dushaj. “The skin is a reflection of what you are eating, drinking, stress levels, and everything going on in your life.”

The skin acts as a protective barrier against external elements, such as pollutants and harmful UV radiation, while also regulating body temperature and preventing dehydration, according to Dushaj. Skincare rituals can promote relaxation and self-care, contributing to mental well-being. Prioritizing skincare provides an opportunity to enhance physical health and foster self-confidence and overall wellness.

During her facial treatments—Spa Lindita uses organic skin products—Dushaj highlights that her treatments are tailored to the individual and they are more than just a facial. “I went to school for massage therapy as well, and I work that training and my work with fascia into each treatment,” she says. “My treatments are customized for the season, age, pregnancy, and based on client goals.”

REIKI

Kristina Sarhadi, MSW, CHHC, CRM, Kingston Reiki and Holistic Therapy

Born and raised in the Hudson Valley, holistic therapist and Reiki master Kristina Sarhadi is the founder of Kingston Reiki and Holistic Therapy. Sarhadi has built a career helping people learn about and foster emotional health and intelligence, first as a licensed social worker, having experiences working in various social service settings with all ages and backgrounds, and eventually to a more holistic practice using Reiki, mindfulness techniques, and nutrition. “My practice working very directly and personally with people is the common denominator. It’s a combination therapy, mental health counseling and energy work—all of the modalities I’ve been trained in.”

Sarhadi’s background working closely with people in a therapeutic setting for over fifteen years has allowed her to develop many tools she can present in a package. “Many times, people book an appointment who are looking to change something in their life. My practice might be unique because I can hold space clinically, emotionally, and spiritually for my clients.”

Sarhadi believes that people must gain awareness of and be willing to look at emotional health or emotional intelligence as a whole, to heal and promote overall wellness. “Many times, we treat symptoms and look at the surface of what might be going on, but I don’t know that we are given the opportunity a lot of times to go deep with people in a safe space.”

Reiki is a wellness modality originating in Japan, in which a trained practitioner interacts with a person’s energy field, according to Sarhadi. “Through a series of initiations in a meditative state, the body is allowed to do what it wants to do, and that is how healing happens,” says Sarhadi. “As a trained practitioner, I am interacting with a person’s energy field and I am able to feel blockages where energy is not flowing freely.” Sarhadi’s practice also incorporates sound healing as a part of each session.

Those seeking Reiki and holistic therapy do one-time appointments, but more often Sarhadi sees weekly or more recurring clients. “I never want people to leave their session feeling down. The goal is to leave feeling lighter and better than you came. There are some heavy times, but sessions can be casual and we have a lot of fun!”

TOP RECOMMENDATION FOR

TOP RECOMMENDATION FOR BEING HEALTHY: You are what you eat. Drink more water than you think you need. Wear SPF. Using toner is underrated—it’s one of the more important steps in a daily skincare routine.

BEING HEALTHY: My homework for everyone is to drink water! But rest is not valued enough. Sleep, rest, and recovery are just as important as having an active life.

EXCERCISE Ryan Naccarato, Hudson Valley Ambition

In 2020, when the world and gyms shut down, Ryan Naccarato saw an opportunity to get people moving outside in a group setting. With a background in teaching and coaching, and a lifelong commitment to fitness, Hudson Valley Ambition was born. “The primary reason for starting this business was, of course, to improve physical health, but also our mental health through socialization,” says Naccarato. Three years later this 100-percent outdoor and group fitness boot camp model is still going strong.

The 45-minute outdoor group boot camp is the primary offering, with morning and evening sessions, and Naccarato also offers a host of virtual options. Hudson Valley Ambition sets up shop in the Kingston’s Rondout District and uses Naccarato’s mobile gym filled with kettlebells, resistance bands, car tires, sand bags, and more.

Naccarato believes that people are capable of much more that the credit given and encourages anyone who is looking for a different type of gym, looking to meet others, be a part of a team, improve health and wellness, and have fun to come check it out. He believes that getting outside and being in fresh air with others is important for our mental health, and he’s seen

Sponsored

incredible personal transformations. “We all know that moving our bodies every day is so important and even though we are now older I still believe that being a part of a team has great overall health benefits. I hope people walk away with a lifechanging experience.”

Those who become members and attend the boot camps can expect high intensity interval workouts and to be pushed, but also to be a part of a culturally diverse community. “There is really a family-like atmosphere. Outside of the boot camp, we go on hikes, meet up for a meal, and genuinely have a great time,” says Naccarato.

HOLDING SPACE FOR HEALING

FIND THE PATH TO HOLISTIC WELLBEING AT VSAIA

Emily Morrison, a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese medicine, founded Valley Spirit Acupuncture & Internal Arts (VSAIA) to create space for transformative collaboration among Beacon’s community of holistic practitioners. “There’s this bursting forth of something really special here,” Morrison says.

VSAIA’s space, tucked away on Mason Circle in the Lofts at Beacon, has become a one-of-a-kind destination for holistic wellness. In addition to private treatment

rooms, there’s an herbal medicinary, a sauna, full kitchen, a 1,200-square-foot movement space, and a patio with a garden terrace that overlooks Fishkill Creek.

Morrison’s own practice includes acupuncture, classical Gongfu medical theory, craniosacral therapy, cupping, herbalism, medical qigong, Chinese nutritional therapy, and Jin Shou Tuina, a style of Chinese orthopedic massage that harmonizes the body by clearing obstructions in the channels and the joint spaces. She estimates that this specific blend of integrative Chinese medicine is practiced by fewer than 100 people worldwide—an approach that allows her to tailor each treatment to an individual’s needs.

The growing VSAIA team also includes traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Dr. Belmarie Millan of Beacon’s Solarena Acupuncture; Dr. Margaret Ready, a holistic chiropractor who specializes in pelvic health with a focus on prenatal and postpartum care; certified natural foods chef Marybeth Romeo; sound practitioner Joule L’Adara; herbalist and VSAIA’s assistant manager Sasha Geerken, yoga instructors Amy Doermann and Amanda Amadei; and qigong instructor and VSAIA’s manager Felicia Ballos. “To work alongside these talented individuals and to learn from each other and provide such amazing work for the community is a dream come true,” says Morrison.

FIND NATURE’S REMEDIES AT STINGING NETTLE APOTHECARY

“Our shop is all about the possibilities of what herbs can do for us,” says Pat Argoff, a registered nurse with master’s degrees in public health and herbal medicine who founded Stinging Nettle Apothecary last year with her husband Charles, a neurologist and pain management specialist who works at Albany Med.

“We believe there is a place for both western and alternative approaches to health,” she says. “Weaving them together in a holistic manner is something that we’ve always sought to do. During the pandemic, we had time to do the research and planning necessary to open this shop.”

With their combined expertise, the Argoffs and their daughter, Melanie, handcraft a wideranging line of scientifically backed herbal products, including everything from custom teas, salves, and infused oils to beauty products, soaps, and candles to culinary vinegars and spice mixes. All products are made on-site in their Main Street storefront in Catskill using only high-quality organic herbs, medicinal plants, and all-natural ingredients. Many of the herbs and flowers are sourced from the Argoffs’ gardens and local growers like Steadfast Farm in Copake. The products rotate regularly, a reflection of the herbs and ailments that change with the seasons.

Customers will find a wide array of products pre-formulated for common complaints— think allergies, poison ivy, and muscle and nerve pain—in store and online. Those searching for a custom-formulated remedy are welcome to pop by the shop, which is open seven days a week, or send an email to start the process. “We want to be a trusted resource for the community,” says Argoff.

TOP RECOMMENDATION FOR BEING HEALTHY: Consistency and discipline. No one is motivated every day of their life, but with these two skills you can count on your habits to carry you further and take back your health.

Eric Alfredo

Health & Wellness Guide

V. Camerati Salon

Olivebridge, NY

Vcameratisalon.com

Owner and Master Stylist Victoria, has decades of beauty industry experience. She specializes in hair cutting and coloring and has studied in NYC at Arrojo Academy learning current and evolving trends. Her passion is to make people feel and look their best! Her studio is quaint, rustic and intimate. It is an experience you will not forget!

Astrological Counseling with Elizabeth

Bellissima Medical Spa—Hudson Valley

243 Main Street, Suite 160, New Paltz, NY, (845) 600-5041

Bellissimamedspahv.com

Bellissima Med Spa is a leader in medical aesthetics and anti-aging technology in the Hudson Valley. Our licensed, certified and highly experienced Nurse Practitioners are committed to a high level of care while delivering results that make you look and feel your best. From treatments including injectables to facials that address dull skin, dehydration, and collagen breakdown, we also offer the latest in skin care technology that works at the cellular level to enhance skin regeneration. Our functional medicine team is also available for IV Therapy, Medical Weight Loss and Hormonal Therapy for both men and women.

Remedies Herb Shop

12 Tinker St Woodstock, NY (845) 684-7474

Remediesherbshop.com

Opened in 2022, Remedies is located on the green in the heart of Woodstock. We provide organic herbs, spices, tea blends, mushroom extracts, natural skin care, and other goods, sourced from several local makers who share our commitment to sustainability and ethical practices. Herb walks and classes are also offered.

Shamanic Energy Medicine

Grace Tuma, MA

(518) 577-8172

Holistic alternative medicine: Shamanic healing. Heal yourself where imprints of diseases start in the Luminous Energy Field. Reduce stress and trauma from negative emotions. Beneficial for individuals, pets, and home or office dwellings.

Elizabeth Greaney

(914) 440-3170

Astrologicacounseling.co

As a Licensed Social Worker and Certified Mystic Astrologer, I offer a unique approach to counseling that uses astrology to explore themes in your life and uncover your innate strengths. In conjunction with traditional and body-based counseling techniques, individuals can gain a deeper sense of clarity and alignment.

192 Pine Street, Kingston, NY (347) 403-0288

Leighkelleyskinstudio.com

LKSS combines a high-touch and high-tech approach to skincare for a luxurious experience with serious results. Leigh spent over a decade working for some of skincare’s top names before opening her private studio in Kingston last year. Be sure to check out her Ionix facials, sculpting massage techniques and curated retail selection.

My Reiki Healer

Michelle Kennedy

(845) 412-8085

Myreikihealer.com

Michelle Kennedy is not only a Reiki Master, but also an Akashic Records Reader, a clairvoyant, author, and Chronogrammies winner. She combines these gifts with the energy of sound, crystals, and light to help her clients heal. Find her on social media @myreikihealer.

Leigh Kelley Skin Studio

In our fast-paced society, self-care often takes a back seat to the demands and commitments of modern life. Unmanaged stress and overloading our senses can leave us feeling as though we are living in survival mode, leading to imbalances and countless health problems. For centuries, Ayurveda has offered an effective way to bring balance to one’s body and mind.

“Ayurveda is a complete system of medicine originally from India that is more than 5,000 years old,” explains Cara Freidheim, owner of Mookshi Healing Arts, an Ayurvedic health practice the Woodstock/Saugerties area. “We use the five elements—ether, air, fire, water, and earth—to represent energy in the body, and look at the qualities of each in order to achieve balance.”

Friedheim offers some context: “For example, in Ayurveda, air is considered light, mobile, cold, and dry, whereas earth is understood to be heavy, stable, dense, and moist. If too much of either element is present in the body, the opposing qualities can be nurtured to help regain balance.” To achieve this, she uses traditional Ayurvedic principles, herbalism, body work, and yogic breathwork and postures to help clients move toward wellness.

ANCIENT AYURVEDIC WISDOM FOR MODERN HEALTH

Mookshi Healing Arts provides Ayurvedic health consultations, healing bodywork, yoga, and an organic skin care line

“Mookshi is a play on the Sanskrit word for ‘liberation’; that’s what my practice is about, helping people find liberation from physical and emotional ailments,” she says. “And the results are beneficial for many modern issues. I help people find relief from anxiety, depression, insomnia, digestive issues, skin conditions— the list is long. We specifically look at the individual’s health, and then design a plan to help balance and heal.”

Among her more popular treatments are Abhyanga, a traditional Ayurvedic full-body massage that incorporates herbal oils specific to an individual’s constitution. Shirodhara, a treatment during which warm oil is poured over the forehead and scalp, helps with calming the mind and is beneficial to those with anxiety, insomnia, or an inability to focus. Marma Point therapy is a massage technique focused on working vital energy points on the body. It opens channels to better circulation, and increases organ health.

“These treatments are in part about slowing down, resetting, and allowing your body and mind to heal,” Freidheim says. “After sessions, I suggest clients keep their schedules light, create space to spend time with yourself, and avoid getting into rushed habits. Have a light meal and

take some time to rest.”

Alongside her 20-year practice of bodywork therapy, Freidheim is an experienced yoga teacher, and offers one-on-one yoga sessions to clients. Her handmade skincare line, including face washes and moisturizers, bath salts, body oils, salves, and custom-formulated products, can be found at her office and online. All products are botanical, organic as much as possible, and locally grown when available—including some herbs grown on the property, which she describes as “acres of quiet stillness” where clients often take meditative strolls after their treatment.

“It’s truly about balance, relaxation, and bringing about the proper conditions that allow our bodies to do what they intuitively know in order to keep us healthy,” she says. “I think everybody is seeking relaxation on some level—which sounds so simple, but when you look at the lives we lead, with so many things on our plates, the ability to become still is pretty profound. But it’s necessary to allow ourselves to nurture that balance, and feel more whole, nourished, vital, and liberated.”

To learn more, visit Mookshi.com, or reach out at wellness@mookshi.com or at (412) 417-9530.

Artful Existence Woodstock

By Anne Pyburn Craig Photos by David McIntyre

This month marks 54 years since the “Aquarian Exposition” that made the word Woodstock shorthand for a much larger (counter) cultural moment. And while the Bethel site where the festival actually happened is deploying the brand new Catbird Festival in its renowned natural amphitheater, the actual town of Woodstock—the one that’s held that name since 1787—will celebrate its 19th annual Day of Gratitude, a concert and picnic for community volunteers and their families, on August 19. “We still get the occasional tourists who start by asking where the festival was,” says Woodstock town historian Richard Heppner. “When you lend your name to an entire generation, you tend to get visitors. We’re a small town with a difference, and that difference is embedded in the arts, and we’re proud of that heritage.”

Some newbies dive right in and find that the water’s fine. Kristin Kessler and her husband moved to Woodstock four years ago, and

Kessler—a public health grants administrator for Kingston—is hard at work on one of the town’s thornier problems: its traffic bottleneck and spotty pedestrian infrastructure.

As one of 10 members of Woodstock’s Complete Streets Committee, she’s helping implement an AARP Livable Communities Walkability Grant that funds an in-depth assessment, performed by community members on a series of “walk audits,” of exactly how the problems can be addressed. “Everyone experiences the sidewalk differently,” Kessler says. “Now that I push a stroller, I’m aware of a lot of things that go unnoticed by the majority—but if you’re in a wheelchair, you’ll notice! Woodstock feels like it has enormous potential to become genuinely walkable.” Kessler is hoping the group can influence a coming state highway project; so far, she says, the plans revealed are lacking in Complete Streets sensibilities.

Plenty of people brave the iffy sidewalks and

less-than-obvious crosswalks as it is. “Town has never been busier,” says Supervisor Bill McKenna. “It’s a damp, dark Monday and I was just out and about and the streets are all full of people. The downside is that not everybody loves all the commotion, but somewhere, hopefully, we’ll find the balance. Our music venues are all quite busy, and we’re actually dealing with too much noise, so we’ve got a committee—a mix of venue supporters and people who want more peace and quiet—working very hard to try to come up with a compromise, which makes me happy.”

Outdoor music ramped up during the pandemic, as a way for those venues to keep themselves afloat, and while everyone agrees that residents have a reasonable claim to peace and quiet, it’s a slightly ironic problem for a town that served as home turf for legends like Bob Dylan and The Band. “If you go back to the `70s and `80s, even the early `90s, there was a lot of music in town and we saw that kind of die out for a

while,” says McKenna. “It’s nice to see it coming back, but folks living near town deserve a little break now and then.”

Over at the Bearsville Center, entrepreneur Lizzie Vann found a pandemic pivot that still works well. “We started the pandemic trying to do live music outside every weekend and we’ve learned a lot,” she says. “One thing we did was install 14 little bluestone patios with luxury seating and their own sound systems, so you can enjoy live music out-of-doors but it’s not blasting from the stage,” she says. “This summer, we’ve been doing mini-festivals, less frequent than during the pandemic, but we’ve all learned that we need to do these things in a way that’s respectful. With goodwill and technology and resources, we can do anything.”

Vann has owned the iconic compound since 2019; after a rocky rollout complicated by Covid, she’s working on synergies. One is a partnership with the Woodstock Film Festival, which will bring advanced

Dolby Atmos Sound and DCP film projector systems to the theater along with a possible year-round screening series. Another involves the renovation of an existing tunnel connecting the Bearsville stage to Utopia Studios, the latter owned by multi-platinum engineer Pete Caigan, to facilitate the recording of live performances direct to the studio’s API AXS Legacy console.

“Nobody else has a boutique theater linked to a recording studio,” says Vann. “The National did an amazing recording here just before their new album launched—it’s got thousands of likes on YouTube. Albert’s original vision for the theater was to be a listening room for the music industry, so we’re adding these technological innovations to a room that’s acoustically perfect,” says Vann, referring to Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan’s longtime manager and prime mover behind the building of the Bearsville complex.

Vann’s equally iconic Cafe Espresso on Tinker Street will soon welcome Folkadelic Acoustic

Instruments as its second-floor tenant. And she’s still deciding what to do with the Lasher property she purchased in spring 2023. The nearly five-acre parcel, formerly the site of a funeral home and adjacent open space in the center of town, was eyed by a hotel group, but public outcry cooled the developers’ ardor for the project. “We’re listening to the townspeople—we want to know what they think,” Vann says. “We’re going to have an open house and show people around, show them our ideas and ask for theirs. It’s an important property and we can’t get it wrong, so that project’s still in the pre-visioning phase.”

She says the Woodstock way of robust discussion is a refreshing culture shock. “I’m British, and in Britain a town council wouldn’t dream of talking to people—it just does what it does, and you very rarely get people going to meetings. So, to me, it’s a wonderfully transparent and accountable system that you have and we’re making full use of it.”

Above: Mixing cocktails at Early Terrible on Mill Hill Road. Opposite: Painting instructor Cris Gamet with students at the Woodstock School of Art.

Music, Movies, and More

Music has taken center stage in that lively conversation since long before the town administrators decided that the Aquarian Exposition was a bridge too far. One of Woodstock’s oldest arts colonies, the Maverick, outraged some by holding Bohemian revels in the early 1900s. “They got a lot of pushback over what went on up there,” says Heppner. “They called it a ‘Bacchanalian affair.’”

Nowadays, Maverick Concerts, one of the oldest chamber music festivals in the country, hosts free Family Saturdays during which young guests enjoy a free interactive hour of music, as well as shows with renowned players like Simone Dinnerstein and the Bill Charlap Trio.

The 1902 founding of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild may or may not have been less of a bacchanal, but its influence has been no less formative. “In a word, our scene is thriving,” says Nina Doyle, executive director of the Woodstock School of Art, which has offered art instruction in multiple disciplines since 1968. “Our galleries are full of local and regional art; our studios are filled with artists seeking instruction; we’ve got new instructors and new course offerings. Many of our classes and workshops have waiting lists.”

Online offerings initiated during the pandemic have been continued “by popular demand. About a third of our student base is online right now; we’ve got instructors

logging on from Vermont and New York City, students from Mexico and California.”

All skill levels are welcome. “We’ll have a person who barely knows which end of a brush is which in class beside someone who’s exhibiting internationally,” she says. “Everyone is welcome—sometimes it’s the camaraderie that’s most important.” Institutional camaraderie isn’t hard to find; the school collaborates with local art partners like Maverick, Byrdcliffe, and the Arts Society of Kingston on cross-promotion and programming. “So for Upstate Arts Weekend we have a group of kids coming out from DRAW Kingston; they’ll come here for a multimedia workshop and then go over to Maverick to meet the musicians, have dinner, and see the show—a whole day of art and music in Woodstock. I think the pause we all had to take forced us all to be creative and think outside the box, and collaboration became survival.”

Another form of education is taking place this month at Paul McMahon’s Mothership Gallery. Woodstock Summer School celebrates the legacy of the artists’ enclave with a slate of workshops taught by local creative luminaries. On Wednesdays, axeman Jimmy Eppard offers “Care and Feeding of Your Electric Guitar.” Longtime Chronogram contributor Sparrow lectures on the finer points of writing with an eye patch in “One-Eyed

Artist and musician Paul McMahon inside Mothership Gallery, which that will be hosting Woodstock Summer School this month. Opposite, above: Dixon Roadside serves modern comfort food in Bearsville.

Bottom: The intersection of Mill Hill Road, Tinker Street, and Rock City Road in downtown Woodstock.

Writing” on Tuesdays. Other presenters include tabla master Ray Spiegel, performance artists Linda Mary Montano, and astrologist Marian Tortorella.

The Tinker Street Cinema is now run by Andy “Animal” Braunstein, a local with childhood memories of relishing Roger Rabbit on its screen. “A ‘For Rent’ sign went up during the pandemic and I just had to,” he says. “It’s really exciting to be able to express my love for movies this way.”

Coming attractions include Gremlins II, a Woodstock Horror Festival in October with classics in their original 16 and 35mm film formats, a Mad Max live score event, and a celebration of legendary Betty Boop animator Lillian Friedman Astor. A screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory will introduce Tinker Street’s collaboration with Fruition Chocolate on a dedicated line of chocolatedipped caramel corn. Other plans include video game nights featuring Super Mario Kart and “a lot of live concert movies, from Otis Redding to Slayer. I like to show exciting stuff, nothing so socially conscious that it’s hitting you over the head,” says Braunstein. For times and dates of these events and too many more to list, follow Tinker Street Cinema on FB or Instagram; Braunstein’s improvisational management style often finds him “deciding what movie is playing while I’m changing the marquee,” he says. “If the door’s open, we’re in there watching movies, c’mon in.”

For those who like live theatrical excitement, the Birdon-a-Cliff Theatre Company presents its 28th season production, “As You Like It,” through Septemebr 3 in the open air at the Comeau Property.

Optimistic Optics

Like most places in the region, Woodstock has been grappling with housing affordability since long before the pandemic-sparked real estate boom. The 53-unit Woodstock Commons, opened by RUPCO in 2013, filled up immediately. The need has only intensified in the past decade, and McKenna says the town is working hard toward solutions. “We received almost $600,000 from the American Rescue Plan, and almost 70 percent of that is committed to housing projects, working with the Woodstock Housing Alliance to give short-term loans to property owners to create accessory dwelling units, supporting the HomeShare program, and—this is a little more ambitious—we’re hoping to come up with a town property that will attract an agency like [local advocacy groups] RUPCO or Family of Woodstock to develop it, and we’ll dedicate $199,000 toward engineering and site plan work on that. We have a lot of great ideas, and a lot of great people working on them.”

From top: Andy "Animal" Braunstein (in sunglasses) and crew have brought new programming to Tinker Street Cinema.

A typical summer day in Woodstock: ice cream and a stroll. Eric Chenault, coowner of Headstock & Co. on Tinker Street.

Home goods and accessories for body, mind & spirit

Home goods and accessories for body, mind & spirit

Open daily, 11:00 - 6:00

Open daily, 11:00 - 6:00

2 TANNERY BROOK RD, WOODSTOCK • 845.679.1169

2 TANNERY BROOK RD, WOODSTOCK • 845.679.1169

TIMBUKTUWOODSTOCK.COM

TIMBUKTUWOODSTOCK.COM

Your village wine shop. Respecting traditions. Defying conventions.

63 Tinker St., Woodstock, NY WOODSTOCKWINEANDLIQUOR . COM

E Woodstock Wine and Liquor Q @woodstock_wine

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WOODSTOCK • NEW YORK maverickroad.com

S e p te m b e r 9 O c to b e r 7, 2023

Janice LaMotta is executive director of HomeShare Woodstock, working with Family of Woodstock to match those with space to spare and others in need of an affordable roof. “We have a very thorough vetting process to get a sense of the needs and lifestyles on both sides of the equation. It’s great for, say, seniors who may want some help or company and people who are trying to get back on their feet. Most of our work-exchangerents are well below market value.” In its second year of accepting applications, the program has made three successful matches already.

LaMotta is hoping that outreach will draw more homeowners to offer affordable spaces. “We live in such a small town, and we’re dependent on our volunteers and workforce being able to live within a reasonable distance—this can’t be the whole solution, but it’s a part.”

“I’m very optimistic about the projects that we have coming down the pike,” says McKenna. “When I first got on the board, we had a number of properties that needed upgrades; we’ve done the highway garage, the police station, and the community center, and now we’re working on our offices at the Comeau Property. My hope is that we can turn our attention to the youth center next—I’ve put together a task force, and we’ll see what the public wants. I’m optimistic that within the next couple of years, we’ll have a new facility for our kids.”

McKenna says that for all the many squabbles, collaboration and volunteerism are the true Woodstock way. “I’ve often said I could sit down with my worst political enemy and chat, and there’d be parts of their thinking that could improve my ideas and vice versa. We all need to be working together, whether you’re talking Woodstock or Washington or the UN. We have so much to solve together.”

Feeling crowded isn’t new, he says. “If you look at the old ads from the 1890s, people were welcoming guests from the city to come and stay even back then—this place has always had powerful magnetism. I saw an old hippie friend the other day who was talking about all the newcomers. I said, ‘You know, when you showed up, there was a similar conversation.’ He said ‘Nah, they loved me. Nah. They tolerated you.”

Newcomers who want to achieve beloved status are well advised to go hands-on and help out around the fire department or one of the many other organizations that depend on volunteer aid. “When you get new people arriving, it takes time to get them up to speed and understand how much we rely on our community involvement. We’re just not a facade on Tinker Street,” says Heppner. “That’s why we have a day of thanks for our volunteers, to remind them and everyone else how important they are.”

Legendary Woodstock resident Michael Esposito outside his bicycle repair shop Old Spokes Home.

Interior Design, Kitchens, Baths, Additions & Decks, Finished Basements, Saunas, Steamrooms & Outside Showers, Cabinetry & Countertops, Sinks & Faucets, Hardware & Lighting, Tile, Hardwood, Carpets, Wall Coverings evolvedinteriors.com

Practical Spiritual Wisdom

Bozbozeman.com

Tao of Thoreau combines Taoism and Nature, creating a practical guidebook to realizing personal potential.

Matching Thoreau’s ideas with Taoism leads the Seeker on the path of simplicity, natural harmony, and spiritual power. Tao of Thoreau gives you two transcendent Sages to guide you on your enlightenment journey.

Route 28 Road Trip

The southernmost leg of Route 28 winds through northwest Ulster and southeast Delaware counties, offering travelers sweeping views of the Catskills’ highest peaks and easy stops along a string of historic communities defined by their intrepid mountain spirit.

The Poetry Barn

1693 State Route 28A West Hurley, NY (845) 280-0430

Poetrybarn.org

The Poetry Barn has the largest poetry collection in the Hudson Valley. Browse 4,000 new and pre-loved books, plus wares and fares by the finest local artists and craftspeople. Outside, the Ashokan Reservoir Spillway and numerous walking trails await. A one-of-a-kind poetry, art, and nature experience.

Catskill Seasons Inn

178 Route 42, Shandaken (845) 688-2505

Catskillseasonsinn.com

A pet-friendly catskills weekend retreat! We have 22 rooms, an inground pool, 60 acres of woods, a pub, game room with billiards and vintage video games, local beers, and craft cocktails. We’re a recently updated but unpretentious inn located close to everything! Come unwind with us by the firepit!

Phoeniciafarmersmarket.com

Local farms, artisanal producers, live music, freshly-prepared foods, composting, family-friendly activities, and community outreach opportunities. Sundays, yearround in Shandaken Outdoors at Phoenicia’s Parish Field (May–October). Indoors at Pine Hill Community Center (November–April) Visit website for weekly details and vendor information.

Pine Hill Community Center

287 Main Street, Pine Hill, NY (845) 254-5469

Pinehillcommunitycenter.org

The Pine Hill Community Center is a home-grown gathering place for wellness programs, music, art classes, and meeting new friends. Check out our amazing thrift store, artisans market, and pottery studio. It’s a great place to connect with a wide range of communities– via Zoom and in person.

73 Main Street, Phoenicia, NY (845) 688-7226

Phoeniciabelle.com

Situated in the heart of the Catskill Park in the picturesque Village of Phoenicia, the Phoenicia Belle is a newly restored, historical Victorian House. Enjoy the exquisite comfort of our rooms, each uniquely decorated and styled with walking access to restaurants, stores, fishing and hiking trails.

Morton Memorial Library

22 Elm Street, Pine Hill, NY (845) 254-4222

Pinehilllibrary.org

You’ll find more than just books waiting inside Pine Hill’s historic library. Discover fishing rods, snowshoes, a sewing machine, and community! Join us for the upcoming First Library of the Watershed (FLOW) program, a partnership with the Catskill Watershed Corporation to create the preeminent destination for resources on the Catskill-Delaware Watershed.

Phoenicia Farmers Market

Phoenicia Belle BnB

Photo by Daniel Case

Foxfire Mountain House

72 Andrew Lane, Mt Tremper, NY, (845) 688-2500

Foxfiremountainhouse.com

With a name that’s beautifully lyrical, Foxfire Mountain House offers an equally idyllic dining experience that’s open to local foodies as well as its overnight guests.

Celebrating its seventh year, Foxfire’s 140-year-old inn sits on 10.5 acres of woods and meadows. It’s a popular event venue, hosting multi-day wedding retreats every weekend from May through October. But the local draw is the Foxfire Mountain House Bar Room & Restaurant: Enjoy $6 beer and wine and $10 appetizers from 4 to 5pm on Sundays and Mondays, followed by à la carte dinner from 5pm. Friday and Saturday dinner service will resume in November.

Hospitality is the main focus at Foxfire, according to Director of Operations Chris Sikora. So after enjoying starters like salmon crudo “tacos” and venison tartare, and mains such as NY strip steak or Roasted Poulet Rouge (chicken-fried morels in a chanterelle puree), you’re invited to take your cocktail out to Foxfire’s glass house to stargaze, or stroll to the lily pond for a frog-and-cricket serenade.

Of course, you could choose to simply catch a breeze on the Moroccan-tiled open-air veranda, or sit by the riverstone fireplace in the lounge listening to “The Foxfire Sound”—a house-curated vinyl that’s also available on Spotify.

Located directly across from The Emerson Resort & Spa, Foxfire Mountain House is closer than you think, and is a perfect choice for fine dining combined with a relaxing ambiance.

Maeve’s Place

5569 Route 28, Phoenicia, NY, (845) 688-0299

Maevesplace.com

The inspiration for Maeve’s Place is founder Iva Walsh’s daughter. After Maeve, who has Down Syndrome, graduated from high school, Iva decided to open a coffee shop where Maeve and others with intellectual and developmental disabilities could learn valuable work and social skills.

Originally opened in the Pine Hill Arms, Maeve’s Place moved to a larger home in Phoenicia Plaza in 2020. On offer is a full menu of coffee and espresso drinks—from the megapopular nitro cold brew to inventive lattes and icy frappes— and a robust, rotating menu of made-to-order breakfast and lunch items.

Start your day with a bagel with lox, pearl sugar waffles with nutella, or eggs benedict. Pop in at lunch to enjoy lighter fare like the acai bowl, ahi tuna salad, or falafel bowl, or go full-on indulgent with the mac and cheese or short rib banh mi. You’ll also find an ethereal array of sweets in the bakery case from the shop’s Culinary Institute-trained pastry chef, and on Fridays and Sundays, Maeve is at the smoothie station whipping up the freshest blends.

With cozy indoor seating and a sunny outdoor deck, there’s ample room to stay a while and savor your favorite coffee or a tasty meal with friends and family. And don’t forget to browse the gourmet items sourced from local Catskills and imported European purveyors. Pre-made picnic baskets, Maeve’s Place private label pickles, preserves, vinegars, and oils, and Maeve’s Pretty Face, a selection of handcrafted skincare products developed by Maeve, make great gifts.

Photo by Franz Edlinger.

Emerson Resort & Spa

5340 Route 28, Mt. Tremper, (845) 688-2828

Emersonresort.com

Surrounded by the splendor of the Catskill Mountains, the Emerson Resort & Spa is a hidden treasure located a mere two hours from Manhattan. Overlooking the Esopus Creek and one of the region’s most magnificent peaks, Mount Tremper, the Emerson provides a memorable yet affordable respite from the demands of the outside world. The resort brings the Catskills inside with stunning views, open spaces, and an earthy color palate. Featuring spacious accommodations in the contemporary Inn and Adirondackstyle Lodge, Emerson guests also enjoy a nature-inspired Spa, The Shops at Emerson, and the World’s Largest Kaleidoscope. Seasonal activities are plentiful and include cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and biking. Urban pursuits are satisfied by exploring the nearby towns of Woodstock, Phoenicia, and Saugerties. On property guided nature walks and nature-themed workshops reflect a deep connection and appreciation for the history and stewardship of the Catskills. Dining options include the Emerson’s signature restaurant, Woodnotes Grille, and Spa Bites. Both restaurants feature locally sourced foods, craft cocktails, and outdoor seating with stunning views of rushing waters. No need for an overnight reservation–the Emerson is a welcoming stop for travelers exploring Route 28, the famed Catskill Mountains Scenic Byway. Come in for shopping, a bite to eat or a charge for your electric vehicle. Dogs are welcome and will enjoy a run in the Emerson Dog Park, a 60-foot wide by 100-foot long dedicated fenced-in haven for your furry best friend.

Menla and Dewa Spa

375 Pantherkill Road, Phoenicia, NY Menla.org

Named for the Tibetan Medicine Buddha, Menla was founded in 2002 to present and preserve the healing arts and sciences of Tibet’s ancient Buddhist culture in conjunction with related contemporary disciplines. In the cheerful Tibetan aesthetic created here, visitors are immersed in the peaceful, vitalizing nature of the surrounding Catskill Mountain forest preserve.

In-person and online retreats led by Menla’s expert faculty are designed to deliver authentic teachings on spirituality and wellness on subjects ranging from inner science to meditation, wellness, yoga, and more. The facilities include one of the largest conference spaces in the region with a capacity of up to 150 people, in addition to a world-class destination spa, yoga studio, meditation sanctuary, swimming pool, fitness room, organic gardens, sweat lodge and fire pits, and mountain hiking trails for forest bathing.

Dewa, Menla’s on-site spa, is 8,000+ square feet of bliss. Feel tension slowly fade away with a Swedish, hot stone, and shiatsu massage or specialized treatment, such as Tibetan herbal baths, oxygen therapy, detox program, sound healing, Shiatsu, and Ayurvedic Shirodhara. Our signature Tibetan KuNye massage, rarely found in the US, restores balance with a warm oil press and techniques like cupping, tapping, and hot stones. Savor the invigorating sensations of the steam rooms, and Finnish and far-infrared saunas. Choose from group packages, signature packages that include lunch or dinner, day passes, or design your own experience.

Norsdale Phoenicia

6300 Route 28, Phoenicia, NY, (201) 724-3912, Norsdale.com

Have you ever imagined renting your own motel, or planning a reunion/ retreat? Perhaps you just need a reason to escape the hustle of the city?

Check out The Norsdale, a unique private 4-unit motel with a threelevel contemporary country home on a private ten-acre lot at the base of a mountain. Totaling 9 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, the property comfortably accommodates 18 guests. The “motel” consists of mono-chromatic colored rooms, known as CMYK, which pays homage to the printing industry. Each room is equipped with a king-sized bed, a full bath, a large flat screen TV, and a Nespresso machine. Pick your favorite color and let the fun begin!

Phoenicia Diner

5681 Route 28, Phoenicia, NY, (845) 688-9957, Phoeniciadiner.com

Built in 1962 and moved to the Catskills in the early 80s, the Phoenicia Diner has a long history of serving customers who are drawn to the Catskills’ natural beauty. The prior owners nurtured the diner and its customers for nearly 30 years. Current owner, Mike Cioffi, continues that tradition by offering residents, weekenders, and visitors fresh food sourced from Catskills and Hudson Valley farms when available. The menu is carefully crafted to offer traditional diner favorites, sometimes with a modern twist, using seasonal and local fresh ingredients. Open Thursdays through Tuesdays from 8am-6pm.

The Graham & Co.

80 Route 214 Phoenicia, NY, (845) 688-7871, Thegrahamandco.com

Right off Route 28, in the small hamlet of Phoenicia, you will find The Graham & Co, a 20-room hotel, inspired by the heritage of the Catskills. The Graham & Co is a modern take on the classic weekend getaway. With unpretentious but thoughtful details, we offer over 3 acres of activities including a swimming pool, hammocks to lounge in, a badminton court, multiple fire pits, picnic areas, bikes to explore on and plenty of places to relax. Close to hiking, biking, fishing, and skiing, The Graham & Co is the perfect place to stay through all four seasons. #ThisIsTheCatsills

Pine Hill Arms Hotel & Restaurant

288 Main Street, Pine Hill, NY, (845) 254-4012, Pinehillarms.com

The Pine Hill Arms, a well-kept secret, just off route 28, in the hamlet of Pine Hill, NY, was established in the 1880’s and is still running strong. It is known locally for the best burgers, iconic fried chicken, half liters of Pilsner Urquell, and rotating local taps. Amidst the comforting glow of the wood stove and warm wooden tones from the adorning restaurant walls, one is transported out of the NYC grind to a slower mountain pace. Experience après ski cocktails and Czech style Gulaš in the winter. Sit on the back deck with frosty mugs of locally brewed beer, while enjoying a Panzanella salad after a hike in the summer.

Fabulous Furniture

3930 Route 28, Boiceville NY (845) 750-3035

Fabulousfurnitureon28.com

Celebrating 50 years in business, crafting fabulous live-edge, freeform tables; metal sculptures; and custom cars. All wood is local–the sawing, milling, and drying is done inhouse. Sculptures are made from found objects and 50’s car parts. The sculpture garden is open 24 hours a day. Showroom open Wednesday through Sunday, 10am-6pm.

Hawk + Hive

61 Main Street, Andes, NY

Hawkandhive.com

Hawk + Hive is a small but beautifully formed gallery in the Catskills on Route 28, showing artwork by emerging and established artists. Exhibitions are staged every six weeks throughout the year and the gallery has earned a reputation for attracting high caliber artists from the region and further afield.

Brunel Park / Sculpture Garden

Route 28 & DeSilva Road

Brunelpark.org

A community learning center and National Wildlife Federation certified sanctuary on the NY Path Through History. Drive or take the free UCAT Z Bus to Boiceville. Self-guided tours by donation daily 1-5pm, plus special events. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

1053 Gallery

1053 Main Street, Fleischmanns, NY, (845) 254-3461, 1053gallery.com

1053 Gallery joined the burgeoning upstate contemporary art scene in 2021 after a two-year total renovation of the historic building at 1053 Main Street in Fleischmanns. The goal of founders and local residents Mark and Maritza Birman was to drive purposeful growth in the Catskills with a gallery that invited both the community’s engagement and international appeal.

Directed by writer and herbalist Lindsay Comstock, the gallery represents the multidisciplinary work of emerging and mid-career artists and is helping to redefine the role of an art gallery in a rural region. In addition to regular exhibitions, the open, airy space also hosts live musical performances and special events.

On view from August 11 through September 24 will be a solo show by Gary Gissler, an artist and psychoanalyst who splits his time between New York City and the Catskill Mountains. In the manner of classic collage techniques, Gissler carefully cuts and glues thousands of bits of linen to panels, which he embeds with fragments of language cut from classic texts such as The Interpretation of Dreams , Moby Dick , Through the Looking Glass , Finnegan’s Wake, and Grimms’ Fairy Tales. The intimate and complex works are a meditative and deeply considered analysis of the basis for how one finds meaning in the world through the essentiality of language and its capacity for creating meaning.

Gissler’s work is represented in both private and public collections, including the RISD Museum and the Neuberger Museum, and he has been awarded a Pollock Krasner Grant and a Chinati Foundation Artist Residency.

Top row: Jackie Earley, Town of Woodstock; Sam Haselby, senior editor Aeon magazine; Juliet Lofaro, portrait photographer; Scott and Kelly Nadler, Yes Foods Woodstock; Kelly Sinclair, Happy Life Productions; Karen Whitman, artist and printmaker.

Middle row: Lea Boss, reggae promoter with Upstate Reggae; Michelle Kennedy, My Reiki Healer; Pam Boyle, Town of Woodstock; Mari Mulshenock, Evolved Interiors and Design; Marta Szabo, writer at Authentic Writing; Lydia Burdick, writer; Nina Doyle, executive director Woodstock School of Art.

Bottom row: Amanda Lehrer, behavioral health consultant with Eddie, Gigi, and Harold; Ben Fleisher and Jeanne Brooks of Woodstock Healing Arts, with Nova Brooks-Fleisher.

Opposite, top row: Melissa Misra, CEO Sunflower Market; Nicole Goldberg, executive director of the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum; Rennie Cantine, designer and musician; Mercedes Cecilia, Jin Shin Jyutsu healer; Peter Jacobson, Mountain Pools; Nicole Friedman, GlampStar; Michele Sehwerert, deputy town clerk.

Second row: Lenny Bloch, host of “Weekend Jams” at Radio Woodstock; Kylla Delisio, dog walker and pet watcher; Robin “the Hammer” Ludwig, artist and blues singer; Mindy Fradkin, hat designer and performer; Sparrow, poet and presidential candidate; Lauren Henfey, Famous Meadow Floral Design and Landscape.

Third row: Sherry Bergman, retired; James Conrad, coowner of Golden Notebook Bookstore and publisher at Golden Notebook Press and Chas Ceralli, director of dining and kitchen operations at the Culinary Institute of America with Delta; Stephanie Frank, founder and director of ESKFF Nest Healing Arts Retreat Center; Lizzie Vann, owner of Bearsville Theater with Keith Richards;  Samantha Taylor, founder of Elephant Art Shop and Reputation Dynamics with Milo; Justin Foy, on-air host and creative production director for Radio Woodstock with Jack.

Bottom row: Lynn Sehwerert, deputy town clerk; Victoria Stent and Laura Warren, Coldwell Banker Village Green; Linda Diamond, dancer.

Woodstock Pop-Up

Portraits by David McIntyre

On July 12, Chronogram held a community portrait shoot at the Woodstock Farm Festival. The weather was variously hot and sunny, rainy, and generally steamy throughout the afternoon. Thanks to all the Woodstockers who showed up to represent "the most famous small town in America" and to Farm Fest Manager Sophie Grant for hosting us, as well as all who helped spread the word about the shoot.

Join us for the August issue launch party at Colony, 22 Rock City Road, on Monday, August 7 from 5-7:30pm.

Top row: Roy Gumpel, photographer and volunteer firefighter; Sara Gorman, Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty; Tonya Martin, Maverick Road; Carmela Tal Baron, artist, author, and teacher; Brian J. Liston, poet and blogger.

Second row: Amy Lonas and Gail Cadden, real estate partners at Coldwell Banker Village Green; Peter Koch, ecologist; John Apter, aromatherapist, masseuse, and essential oils practitioner; Cameron Cantine, student; Jen Dragon, director of exhibitions at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and Ursula Morgan, executive director at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.

Third row: Mark Kanter, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services; Janice La Motta, executive director of HomeShare Woodstock; Adam Dorrian, Sunflower Market;

Bottom row: The staff of Woodstock Film Festival: Chloe White, Trevor Roberts, Madelyn Crews, Erin Cass, Hannah White, Meira Blaustein, Zoe Harvey, Ellie Whiteman, Katy Mejia, Teressa DelCampo, and Charlee Liebeskind.

Opposite, top row: Janice Hardgrove, Peace, Love and Cupcakes owner; Jennifer Preston, architect and partner at Shelter Design Architecture DPC; Andrew Forbes, director of operations Sky Lake Lodge; Aileah Kvashay, Clove Valley Community Farm; Aemen Bell herbalist, author, artist, and Lyra Bell; John Kahn and Anita Rapu, Echo Foundation.

Second row: Cheryl Boiko, owner of Remedies Herb Shop; Craig Mawhirt, archivist; Caroline R. Gervai, founder of Euphoria Yoga Woodstock and real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Village Green; Corliss Block, artist; Emma Delisio, Roze Management.

Third row: Bill McKenna, Town of Woodstock Supervisor; Andy Mossey, executive director at the Woodstock Land Conservancy; Annie Allen, general manager Pegasus Footwear; Bruce Weber, poet and art historian; Julia Indichova, founder of FertileHeart.com; Jenna Knudsen, life coach at The Smart Equestrian.

Bottom row: Shira Orenstein, retired healthcare and higher education executive, and Daniel Kahn, financial advisor; Eric Amaral, realtor; Victoria Levy, vocal instructor; Fenner Osmond-Friedman, event producer; Ivo Kisic, writer and restaurant manager, and Caro Arevalo, virtual artist; Francesa Savona-Madden, Deadhead Farms.

sound check Amy Rigby

Each month here we visit with a member of the community to find out what music they’ve been digging.

I’m digging Laura Cantrell’s new album, Just Like a Rose: The Anniversary Sessions. Laura’s been keeping the country music flame alive for years with her radio shows and lovely voice that feels like it’s sweetly confiding in you. She’s a terrific supporter of other artists and songwriters but her own songs effortlessly hit the mark. I especially love the rocking title track; the melody and musical details turn this tale of a female honky-tonk lifer into a subtle anthem. I can’t stop listening to Cory Hanson’s new album, Western Cum (nepotism alert: My daughter is out playing bass in his band this summer!). The twining guitar leads take things into Television and even welcome Skynyrd and Thin Lizzy territory. The drums are especially epic, but his voice is super-sweet and mellow and the lyrics are hallucinatory. I’ll listen to this on repeat all summer. Oh hell, since I’m boosting, I might as well tell the world that my husband Wreckless Eric’s new album, Leisureland, is brilliant. He has been one of my musical heroes for years, and his production, musicality, and way with words and images just gets better and better. Age has tempered him like steel. The album comes out August 25.

Catskill-based musician and writer Amy Rigby is working on a new album and the follow-up to her 2019 memoir Girl to City Theamyrigby.bandcamp.com/music.

Bill Brovold Ghost Music (Team Love Records)

I’ve been digging back into Lester Bangs of late, and his crusty writing has been making me want to pull an even crustier Nick Tosches move and not listen to this record before reviewing it. If anyone could go along with that, I have a feeling it’s veteran experimentalist and self-proclaimed (at least by a 2018 album title) Superstar Bill Brovold. But I didn’t start my own rock-crit career until after Bangs had died, so I just don’t have that temerity, much less fearlessness, in me. That’s good, because Brovold’s latest adventurous instrumental disc is full of the “horrid blare”—albeit of a pastoral bomb-scape nature—that Lester loved.

Call it Metal Machine Music for cows. Brovold—mostly on steel guitar himself and joined here on long, pandemicweary tracks like “Tardigrade Party,” “Troll!,” and “My Last Conversations with Eric” by Johnny Evans, Adriana Camacho Torres, Mary Alice, and Mark Ormerod—is a multi-faceted musical and visual artist who first found his niche in Bangs-era New York no wave circles. He also made big, yet sometimes contrarily quiet, noise in Detroit with Larval. These days, he has a studio in the Hudson Valley. He assays, with his small, gossamer ensemble on Ghost Music, a Harry Partch/Terry Riley version of droning, yet entrancing, ambient Americana every bit as haunting as the title might suggest, especially on the epic, album-length closer “I Can Still Hear Nico.” It makes, like Shirley Jackson, for shimmering, but quite sleepless nights.

—Michael Eck

Grampfather 666G (2022,

Independent)

Kingston band Grampfather has a sort of Swiss Army-knife quality to them: The quartet has many sonic tools at its disposal in a compact package. On this mini-album, the band’s sixth release, Grampfather adroitly incorporates elements of hard rock, sunshine-psychedelic pop, punk, and prog into an engaging batch of songs. Songwriter and guitarist James Kwapisz leads the group, which also includes Tony DiMauro (drums), Andrew Blot (lead guitar), and Jake Offerman (bass). The title cut is drenched in hazy reverb, ruminating on the insidious nature of our hyperconnected modern world. By contrast, “Hot Dog Beach” begins with a snippet of cawing seagulls before launching into a simultaneously languid and invigorating power pop/psych-pop mixture. For a cut approaching eight minutes, not a note feels extraneous: It’s an idyllic, but powerful tune, with just a hint of menace (and some exciting guitar solos). The Hudson Valley has an incredibly fertile scene, and these boys are right in the mix!

Jeremy Schwartz

Wild Weeeds After the Farmers

Is there such a thing as “mellow” garage rock? On paper, the concept seems like a profound contradiction, and yet the new five-song EP from the Wild Weeeds—a longrunning quartet from Columbia County—makes it sound like the most natural (not to mention alluring) thing in the world. The band plays it loose and raw on After the Farmers while simultaneously delivering nature-friendly lyrics with a seriously laid-back attitude: “Fine T,” the EP’s opening track, is an infectious three-chord rocker that finds frontman Lou Weed hazily listing all the lovely teas that can be concocted from a variety of roots and herbs. The rest of the record (which includes a winning cover of the Farmers’ “Burn My Bridges”) follows a similarly bare-knuckled-yet-bucolic path. By the time the Crazy Horse-esque “Weeeds will save the Earth” clatters to a close, you’ll be fairly convinced that the Wild Weeeds will indeed do just that.

—Dan Epstein

Our Hospital

Samuel Shem

PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, 2023, $29

When the Covid-19 pandemic hits, four doctors are compelled to walk into the center of the storm, despite their previous decision to stop practicing medicine. They join together to help a small hospital in Columbia (modeled on the city of Hudson, where Shem lived for many years), where they experience the unimaginable struggles of fighting the pandemic. In this sequel to The House of God and Man’s 4th Best Hospital, Shem further reveals the inner workings of our healthcare system, and what happens to its workers when it is put under immense strain.

The Memoir of a Female Soldier:

Deborah Sampson’s American Revolution

Jan Lewis Nelson

MASSAEMETT MEDIA, 2023, $19.99

When Robert Shurtlieff enlisted in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary war, he brought a secret with him that would eventually make it extremely difficult to receive a veteran’s pension. This secret remained hidden through 17 months of service spent defending the Hudson Valley, at the end of which Shrtulieff’s true identity was revealed. Deborah Sampson, alias “Shurtlieff,” was really a young woman from Massachusetts who had left her home at age five and donned mens clothes to free herself of the societal limitations of womanhood. Jan Lewis Nelson’s meticulously researched novel, published by her husband after her death in 2020, tells the story of one woman whose life of self advocacy paved the way for many women to come.

Echoes or, The Insistence of Memory

Tom Shachtman

MADVILLE PUBLISHING, 2023, $22.95

Ell, a millennial writer of European and Mexican heritage, finds herself trapped in a cycle of writer’s block and recurring nightmares after a difficult break-up. Turning to her family history for answers, she traces a past involving madness, Civil War-era slaveholding, and a female Confederate warrior ancestor to whom her nightmares are connected. The longtime resident of Salisbury, Connecticut, Tom Shachtman, brings a compelling story of mystery, genealogy, and emotional discovery to his list of over three dozen published books.

The Livingstons of the Livingston Manor

Edwin Brockholst Livingston

NEW YORK PRESS, 2023, $27.95

Residents of Columbia County have undoubtedly heard of the Livingston Family, upon whose 160,000 acres of land they now live. Before his death in 1929, Edwin Brockholst Livingston wrote the extensive history of the fledgling nation and his family, whose influence shaped the early history of New York State and continued into the centuries to come. The Livingstons of Livingston Manor has recently been republished, with a new introduction by Edward Renehan.

Hedge

Jane Delury

ZIBBY BOOKS, 2023, $16.99

Garden historian Maud Bentley gathers her daughters together to spend a summer resurrecting the garden of a Hudson Valley estate, and finds herself tangled in a consequential fling with her temporary neighbor. An unexpected secret from her daughters takes Maud into a future in which, years later, the experiences of that summer are not forgotten. Delury’s second novel speaks to the complexity of managing a troubled marriage, a career, and motherhood all at once. Shocking twists folded into a tale of shifting priorities, passion, and responsibility, make for an excellently crafted page turner.

—Lily Anninger

THE HALF MOON Mary Beth Keane SCRIBNER, 2023, $29

We first meet Malcolm Gephart, the owner of a the Half Moon bar in the commuter town of Gillam, New York, on the eve of a historic blizzard. A storm symbolic, in many ways, of his failing marriage to Jess and the profound silence that blankets their relationship. Jess, a lawyer, hometown girl and his wife of 15 years, moved out of their house four months prior and has been living in the city with a friend from college. Their marriage has collapsed under the convergence of the weight of debt, fertility issues, misguided and secretive financial decisions, dashed dreams, and the complexities of getting older.

Even with an impending storm, the Half Moon is open, unlike other businesses in the neighborhood. From his car, Malcolm sees the bar’s “squat, brown-shingled building at the bottom of the hill” with a faint glow spilling into the street from its facade. A thrill of hope and faith “in himself, in his town, in these people, in life, in destiny, in following one’s intuition” overtakes him and for a moment he feels that is enough and that he will be okay. It’s an example of his relentless optimism and cheerful demeanor that both infuriates and comforts the more pragmatic Jess.

Before buying the Half Moon, Malcolm had worked there for 24 years and knew every inch of it and everything about it (or so he thinks). He learned how to be a man there, how to fix things, how to engage with sales representatives, how to talk to anyone, how to find common ground, and how to deal with middleaged women and “the things that came out of their mouths when they had too much to drink or if they’d been wronged by their husbands or boyfriends.” When sharing his stories and shock at their behavior with Jess, she only responds with empathy; never wanting him to think badly of these women. She understands the crushing responsibilities of family life and motherhood. “But you still want a baby?” Malcolm asks. “Even knowing that.” Without hesitation, Jess’ answer is an unshakable “Yes.”

When Malcolm buys the bar and the building on a handshake without consulting Jess or a lawyer, from Hugh Lydon, the previous owner, his mentor and former business partner of his father (who died when Malcom was just a teen), the very foundation of his life begins to crack. This act, which coincides with the end of seven years of failed, expensive, emotionally draining fertility treatments for the couple, becomes Malcolm’s rationale for focusing on his “baby” now, the Half Moon, and not the lost baby that was the impetus for their marriage so many years ago.

As the week of the blizzard unfolds, Malcolm learns that Jess is in fact, back, but that she is dating Neil Bratton, a handsome, recently divorced lawyer with three small children who lives in a beautiful house in a wealthy part of town. And although this seems like an easy path for Jess to take and the pull for her toward Neil is certainly real, she is hesitant to move forward with him. They have both experienced transgressions in their marriage and Malcolm has resisted other women, the attractive bartender, Emma, in particular.

At the same time, Malcolm’s obligations to Hugh are getting serious, the bar is in need of a major makeover, and one of his regular patrons, Charles “Tripp” Waggoner, has gone missing and is the prime suspect in a SEC investigation. When Jess and Malcolm reconnect, they scheme to find a way out of their current situation and a way forward with their marriage.

A surrounding cast of small-town friends and colleagues is the background for the complexities of Malcolm and Jess’s relationship and personalities. The skill of the author lies in her ability to convey powerful emotions found in the ordinary, ever-changing, language of day-to-day life by sharing the couple’s history in flashbacks from both perspectives. The pleasure in reading this book lies in the insightful unfolding of the personalities and stories of the main and consequential characters and the room allowed us to draw our own conclusions about them.

—Jane Kinney Denning

Drinks with the Ambassadors

These woods, the swamp across the street, seemed a timeless borderland when we moved in—a young couple, two kids. Owls greeted us every night

(Welcome to you! Welcome to you all!) and herons flew with sticks in beaks. The girls fledged, the great blues moved, now ravens come in the afternoon, stay mostly out of sight but take care we hear their arguments, too loud even for their big throats, as if they have a microphone and a PA on a swaying stage. Their impatient rasping fits the ever-hotter ugliness that’s sure to be our legacy. We listen, metal straws in drinks, breathe smoke from citronella sticks. Are they saying we’re to blame or come up, please, come up, join in? When they go, with croaks and glossy wings so large they barely clear the trees, we’re foolish enough to think an Earth with such ambassadors can’t have given up on us.

—William Keller

Wordle #506

How do I (you) change the things, the ways, the circumstance of my (your) lonely heart? Years spent taking responsibility for my (your) singularity, reminded at every turn

Begin, Begin, Begin of the day into night my (your) aloneness is secure. I am (You are) whittled down by chances taken along the way until the only thing left of me (you) is me (you) without what feels like opportunity.

Begin, Begin, Begin

This clock ticks on hands of advice not followed but heard, heartfelt, real whispers of Wordle #506 very first guess on a ferry eighteen miles out to sea.

Begin, Begin, Begin

—Lori Corry

Canticle

I want to paint the autumns I remember From the secret hearth of childhood, The milkyway of yellow woods Stricken and keen and full of nightfall. Come and pick the blackberries Before the birds get them; come see The pines that stay green all winter long, And the slow, storybook snow That falls soundlessly on the rooftop: The unfastening of the moment, The scorching mercy of sentimentality

Disclose themselves to me as souvenirs

To days of unrealized contentment. Who can return from themselves

To the origin of pity, the first clemency Permitting all the rest? Who can reinvent The lost simplicity and kindle again The red in the maple leaves, or the Ruddy light of autumn’s livid patience?

—Lachlan Brooks

A crooked finger beckoning earth to heaven–the jagged lightning

—Jennifer

Howse

On the Wing Swallows skim still ponds In flight they soar and plummet The air torn in two

—Marisa E. Campbell

Coffee Thoughts

Dad was twenty once, too, drinking six cups of coffee with Cremora, sitting outside the East Village Veselka. Kicking his Adidas out in front of him in a moment of bliss. I am here drowning over a single cup. But somehow, I still see him in the mirror.

—Maeve

Flusser

Shoplifter

If she hadn’t rejected me for holding her like a shoplifter palming a stolen gem in a jewelry store I never would have discovered the cluster of stars in my shirt pocket

—Liam Watt

Artists Are Never Satisfied

Monet regretted never finishing a painting to his satisfaction; never arriving at the perfection he sought. Yet, we have “Water Lilies.”

The image in his mind invariably evolved into something unforeseen; the finished work always a surprise––and sometimes, a disappointment.

My friend Hank, paints what he sees: cows in green meadows or under the trees, clouds in blue skies and meandering streams, or landscapes inspired by one of his dreams. Invited to the wedding of a colleague, Hank agreed to give him a painting instead of a cut-glass candy dish. (It was his wife’s idea.)

Then, he promptly forgot. So, she chose one from a stack against the wall and delivered it to the groom on the very eve of the nuptials! He stayed up late that night, to hang it over the fireplace, for his guests to admire at the reception, next day. (He felt Hank would be pleased to see it there.)

I saw them talking together, in front of the painting, across the room, and wove my way over to listen in. Hank waited until the groom ran out of steam. Then, without a word. He placed his flute of prosecco on the mantel, lifted his painting from the wall, and threw it into the cheerily burning fire.

—Frank

Wright

Storms

She slides open the curtain of her dainty summer dress to the rain soaked windows her body passes through like a storm of summer bloomed lightning

—Ryan

Brennan

Dreaming Odesa

I summon the Black Sea breathing gruffly liked a caged animal, an old-world dame clad in black night gasping for air, cinched across the waist by the Lanzheron Beach with blinding white stairs.

I summon Atlantis holding up the globe on Gogol Street. It is tender blue speckled with little yellow stars, the colors intoning, thirty years before the War, that “все буде Україна.”1

I’m eating apricot ice cream by a tasteless monument to a lion tearing apart flesh for his young. Every hour in the park, the booming radio deafens me in a plea not to forget a war such as not even my mother had witnessed. Yet this fear is exhilarating, like light that changes a room when you least expect it.

How the Cathedral Square seems to blossom at night, the night which swoops down on us from chestnut trees like a strange bird: enormous, delicate, glistening. Sometimes old women peer at me from courtyards lined with chestnut trees. They chuck shells from sunflower seeds while they mutter old spells under their breath.

So much of my childhood seemed to take flight in passageways, doors, tunnels to another world. Everything was foreign, everything was familiar. For many years I’d watch the scaffolding go up on a building across from Cathedral Square. When we left for the States it was still in shambles.

II.

With his missing fingers and World War II ID, my grandfather would break through long quays to buy milk with tiny yellow papers that passed for money.

I remember how packs of butter would just say “butter” and bread was “bread,” a Platonic ideal without variety, though the three-kopeck roll was an ochre shriveled ball like an old woman’s hand while the nine-kopeck one was glowing red and speckled with poppy seeds. When I devoured a treat of coffee and milk compressed into a brick, the sweet milky taste combined with bitterness as if to distill something essential about my Soviet childhood.

III.

I taste Odesa, the tiny crawfish wrapped in newspaper, the fire-baked potatoes at our dacha, the parasitic snails my friend’s husband would fry and grind to a paste, the forbidden pierozhki my grandfather bought me in secret, the hot bread I tore into pieces and ate on the bridge as I rushed off somewhere with a friend long gone, the sweet cherries she brought all dangling in a chain I had to undo with my mouth open trying to catch the wonder, the promise, my face colored vermillion from the effort, the pits thrown carelessly on the ground the shadows from the heavy bridge ornaments buoyant in summer light just like our sprint through the city before we knew my family would leave the country that my friend would die twenty-one years later that the warm wind coursing through Odesa would still to a halt, like the ethereal dust mites flickering in the summer light that makes up childhood.

—Natalya Sukhonos

1 “Everything will be Ukraine,” a phrase attributed to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on September 30, 2022

Unmeasured Moment, Some Sunday Morning Sit comfortably. Type a password. Wait, which one be the one for this app? Oh, yea, 1 n i c e D A Y & H O W . Birds expound on some topic out there, while the air conditioner blows constancy in here. Open, browse, drink tea, allow for distraction— a squirrel, poised on a leafy, seesawing branch, good morning, to a coin-sized face, maybe a soul, staring side-eyed, through glass at whatever my hands do, tic tic tic typing,

hauling a hot mug to my mug. He scratches his nose like a baseball pitcher. I’m his vague dream. He’s mine. The open app, all its symbols scroll by, so unread.

—Agrimmeer DeMolay

Venus and Mars

Mars: This fantasy is often a dream

Give me a reason to make it beam

Venus: Grab your thoughts and point to the sun

An arrow will light your world undone

Mars: Too much light will sometimes burn At the center of the universe’s churn

Venus: But not enough light will keep the dark And you will miss the shine, glare, and stark

Mars: Temptations can be high, strong, and daring How do you balance them and render them taming?

Venus: A little faith goes miles ahead, with determination To pacify the lures and bring anticipation

Mars: I thought Venus was stronger than faith To change the course of the universe chain

Venus: Fill me with belief in the world’s might Against all odds, I will show you my plight

Mars: Your plight is mine, and mine is yours

We’re both small spheres in the palm of two shores

Venus: Wrap me with your love, and I will do the same In this world of wonder, we will light the flame.

—Ramzi Albert Rihani

It’s “Win a Barely Running Used Car” Night

Turns out I had a lot of ducks, three of them were rabid, a couple had ADHD, several had PTSD, and don’t ask about the daffy one.

But seriously… Keep your ducks all in a row, going in the same direction, if possible, jus’ maybe use some duct tape to keep ‘em together? That’s what I do. That’s what I do… And then release them in every direction for a spell… because, why not.

—ooznozz

The Forever Sound RAVEN CHACON

The sky is massive. The breadth of the horizon overwhelms the eyes. The land is dry, open. Rocky. Strange. Beautiful.

The music is slow. Expansive. Undulating. Ever unwinding. Punctuated with rumblings that evoke approaching thunder and distant cannons. Bisected with sustained high notes that bring to mind weeping and smothered screams.

The music is “Voiceless Mass,” an epic work for organ, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, percussion, strings, and sine tones by composer Raven Chacon. For its creation, he was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

“In the past when people tried to link my music to the place that I come from it used to bother me—I just thought that was sort of being lazy,” says Chacon, who was born in 1977 in Fort Defiance, Arizona, within the Navajo Nation, and is the first Native American—and the first noise musician—to win the Pulitzer for music. “But now I see that it’s true, it makes sense. The sounds, the sparseness…that’s all in there.’”

Chacon’s parents weren’t musical, but his grandfather enjoyed music and encouraged the musical interest he spotted in his young grandson, giving him an accordion. “My grandpa was always singing,” remembers Chacon. “It’s been a lifelong thing for me, trying to understand and learn Diné [Navajo] music, and he would sing these songs that were in the language. But I was never sure if the songs he was singing were actually old songs or

songs that he was just making up on the spot. Later, one of my uncles gave me tape of my grandpa singing and I’d listen to that all the time. I was able to figure out that some of the songs were his and some, I believe, were from the Long Walk [the 1864 deportation and attempted ethnic cleansing of the Navajo people by the federal government]. Other than that, I’d hear whatever music was on the radio and on MTV once we got satellite TV, and all my relatives were into heavy metal— Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne.”

Left Turn at Albuquerque

When he was eight Chacon’s parents relocated the family to Chinle, another Arizona reservation, from where they could both attend college; next came a move to Albuquerque and piano lessons. “My dad met this woman who was getting her piano degree and offered to give me lessons, so I did that for three years,” he says. “One day she told my parents, ‘I’m giving a concert at the university, you should come and bring the kids.’ So we got all dressed up and went, expecting it to be this formal thing. But when it started, she came out on stage in a bathrobe with a bunch of rubber duckies and started dropping them into the open piano and plucking the piano strings with her fingers and doing all this other stuff instead of just playing the piano keys. After she finished, she introduced us to the composer, and it was John Cage. [The piece was Cage’s 1960 composition “Water Walk.”] Seeing that

By Peter Aaron

gave me the idea that music was something you could break and bend, it could be conceptual.”

He started playing in high school bands (“rock bands, mariachi bands, anyone who would have me”) and, with the Cage experience rattling around in his memory, took his first steps into the experimental music realm—although he didn’t realize it at the time. “We’d drive out to the desert and get all wasted and just make noise,” he says, with a laugh. “It was just something we did because we were bored, nothing about it would’ve told me it would ever be a viable career. There was a strong visual arts scene and a small music scene in Albuquerque then, but there wasn’t really a noise scene yet.” After getting a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of New Mexico, he went west to initially study film and video at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles—and ended up on a much different path.

City of Angels and Art

At CalArts, Chacon found himself pulled back into sound while learning about recording in the music department’s studio. In LA he met and collaborated with experimental musicians and contemporary multidisciplinary artists via the city’s deep-seated avant-garde scene, a lineage that includes outsider collectives like Asco, Smegma, and the Los Angeles Free Music Society. “I was meeting a broader community, people who were talking about topics and concerns that were relative to Indigenous life,”

Above: Scene from a performance of the production of Chacon’s Tremble Staves amongst the collapsed ruins of the failed Sutro Baths in San Francisco’s Land’s End. Opposite: Score for American Ledger No. 1, a narrative score for performance, telling the creation story of the founding of the United States of America. In chronological descending order, moments of contact, enactment of laws, events of violence, the building of cities, and erasure of land and worldview are mediated through graphic notation, and realized by sustaining and percussive instruments, coins, axe and wood, a police whistle, and a match. The score is to be displayed as a flag, a wall, a blanket, a billboard, or a door.

he says. “Things like civil rights and the land that we live on.” Chacon studied under influential teachercomposers James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, Wadada Leo Smith, and Michael Pisaro; earned an MFA in music composition; and formed the short-lived duo Dog Shit Taco.

He returned to Albuquerque to find a more energized underground scene that brought together young artists working in noise, punk, thrash metal, and performance and installation art. Chacon opened a performance space called Spirit Abuse and began performing and releasing stacks of DIY cassettes, CDs, and vinyl under his own name and with a long list of projects that includes the Death Convention Singers, Black Drink, Tenderizor, Mesa Ritual, Cobra//group, Endlings, Kilt, and others. He also became a member of the Native American art collective Postcommodity, which, in addition to making experimental electronic music, creates visual and installation art with a modern take on traditional Indigenous art forms.

“I met Raven in 2012 when I was doing a tour and hit him up for a show in Albuquerque,” says Nate Young of Detroit experimental band Wolf Eyes, with whom Chacon has performed. “He was on the bill, and he did this crazy set using deer antlers and pieces of metal with contact mics on them. I’d heard of Kilt, and I knew about him from that band. But I wasn’t aware until later that he had studied music formally. Raven really encompasses the full spectrum of music.”

During his time with Postcommodity, Chacon met his wife, Tagish-descended curator Candice Hopkins, who is the director of the contemporary native-led arts organization Forge Project (she assembled

“Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and SelfDetermination Since 1969,” which is on view at Bard College’s Hessel Museum of Art through November 26). His own installations have been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Kennedy Center, and other prestigious venues.

The Expanding Chamber

As Chacon continued to grind out noise records, he also was building his name as the composer of conceptual works that have been performed around the world. These include such genre-expanding pieces as 2021’s “Chorale” for docked ships with foghorns, 2015’s “Report” for firearms, and 2010’s “Drum Grid” for numerous drummers, each positioned on a street corner. Among his works for chamber instrumentation are a 2016 commission from the Kronos Quartet, and, most notably, the aforementioned “Voiceless Mass,” which was cocommissioned by the Milwaukee organization Present Music to be premiered at the city’s Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist using its massive pipe organ as part of the group’s annual Thanksgiving Day concert. But as a Native American artist, the idea of accepting the latter proposition—a Thanksgiving event in a Catholic church— gave him pause.

“When I got the invitation, I was hesitant,” recalls the composer. “It seemed like [the concept] was loaded with so many things, and I wasn’t sure at first of the full reasoning behind my being invited. But I was brought up in a semi-Catholic environment—the history of Indigenous people in the Southwest is intertwined with Catholicism because of the Spanish colonization—and I

wanted to respond to that history. And when I was writing the piece the pandemic was going on and the election and Black Lives Matter and of course Standing Rock had happened, so I wanted to respond to that, too.”

“Voiceless Mass,” its title a powerful, music-befitting allusion to the church as well as the long-silenced voices of Native Americans, elicited instant and stunned praise when it debuted, but Chacon, whose works have brought him an American Academy in Berlin Prize; a Creative Capital award; and United States Artists, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Mellon Foundation fellowships, among numerous other adulations, didn’t think much about the piece again after the performance. Until his phone started ringing. A lot.

“I was at home, trying to work, and my phone kept ringing and ringing,” says Chacon, who moved with Hopkins to Red Hook in January 2023 and teaches young Indigenous people in the Southwest to compose concert music with the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). “I thought it was just some telemarketer, so I didn’t answer. Finally, I looked at my texts and that’s how I found out [about winning the Pulitzer Prize].”

As he navigates the craziness of attention that’s followed the award, Chacon is working on a piece for an eight-voice choir and eight hyperdirectional speakers to be premiered at the Perelman Arts Center in New York, a collaboration with poet Nadia Diaz, and other projects.

“It has been crazy, yes,” he says. “But I’m extremely grateful to be able to do what I do. And I always hope that whatever I do ends up in some form for an audience.”

Spiderwebsinthesky.com

Exploring the Dark

DYING TO KNOW FILM FESTIVAL

August 11-27

D2kdusa.com

If you had to do it all over again, would you do things differently? Do you have a lot of time left? Will you be remembered after you’re gone? These seemingly dark, unanswerable questions that people tend to avoid are the fundamental queries behind death literacy that Caren Martineau is tackling with the Dying to Know Film Festival, August 11-27 at the Rosendale Theater and the Greenville Drive-In.

Death literacy is a niche subject, not explored by many due to the stigmas and taboo surrounding mortality, but it’s something that Martineau believes we all need. “Literacy is an important commodity,” she says. “We promote it in all other forms, and death literacy needs to be a critical and expected form of communication.” Through her film festival, Martineau has been able to convene groups that want to speak about mortality in an open setting.

Martineau started the Dying to Know film festival, a death literacy awareness campaign, in 2017 after realizing—as a Boomer—that the end is something we all need to talk about. At its inception, she was struck with the difficulty of the situation. “It has been a slow learning curve,” says Martineau. “How do you speak about something so sensitive? The people around me urged me not to go there, but I felt compelled to do it no matter what.” So she started the film festival, selling out her first screening.

Then the pandemic hit, making us all more aware of our mortality. Martineau was able to see the shift, noticing that people were beginning to understand their own impermanence, and figured they would be ready to talk—and they were. Zoom performances of one-act plays followed by breakout sessions to discuss topics surrounding death reached over 100 participants, showing the public readiness to speak on the topic. Now, in the project’s fifth year, the festival and post-film Q&As will take place throughout August.

The festival is host to a variety of different productions, from documentaries and animated shorts to feature films. Each screening is followed by a group Q&A with topic experts, doctors, and psychologists, providing attendees with an open space to talk about mortality. Some guest speakers include Helen Whitney, Oscar-nominated filmmaker; Christine Herbes-Sommers, cofounder of Vital Pictures; and Matthew Kochmann, technology entrepreneur and founder of Transcend, a nature and death awareness campaign.

There will be three sets of performances, all taking place this August, as part of the Celebrating Aging Series Production. Opening weekend, August 11 to 13, will contain eight screenings and be cohosted by noted gerontologist Mario Garrett. Some opening weekend films include Defining Hope, a nurse-

perspective documentary exploring the necessity of hope in healthcare settings, especially regarding end-of-life care. Plan 75 is a dystopian film following three individuals deciding whether or not to accept a planned death for money. Last Flight Home is an intimate documentary following the filmmaker’s father in his last weeks, exiting on his own terms.

On the weekend of August 18, there will be a showing of classics at the Greenville Drive-In. Up, Harold & Maude, and Departures are on the docket for this weekend, exploring death with films that people know and love. The festival will be returning to the Rosendale Theatre on August 26 and 27 to discuss time, legacy, cultures, and rituals with a screening of Two Gods, a poignant documentary following a Muslim funeral director and offering a glimpse into Muslim burial practices and the struggles of urban youth.

The Dying to Know Film Festival is not meant to focus on death; the point is to focus on death literacy, conversations, and increased awareness behind mortality. Since starting the program, Martineau has felt some of the relief herself. “Once you air this out and put it on the table, life gets so much brighter,” she says. “You learn to truly appreciate moments and not sweat the small stuff, gaining more compassion that you may not have had before.”

—Nola Storms

A still from Two Gods, a documnetary that will be screened as part of the Dying to Know Film Festival.

Creative Endeavor

AUGUST FOR THE ARTS IN WARWICK

August 5-27

Augustforthearts.com

The organizers of Warwick’s most prominent arts festivals have spent years working separate but similar territory. In August, they are finally coming together. This month marks the first-ever August for the Arts, a creative collaboration between the Hudson Valley Jazz Festival, the Hudson Valley Film Festival, the Orange County Short Play Festival, and the Fuller Moon Arts Festival designed to highlight Warwick as an artistic hub of the Hudson Valley.

The festivals run from two to five days, and have joined forces to host a Celebration for the Arts kick-off on August 5 at Stanley Deming Park, which features live music, dance performances, and a parade.

The Hudson Valley Jazz Festival, now in its 14th season, runs August 9-13 at local restaurants, libraries, and music venues. On August 11, Jerry Vivino, from Conan O’Brien’s Basic Cable Band, leads a quartet at a 7pm show at the Warwick Village Green. On August 12, renowned composer and musician David Amram (who will turn 93 in November) performs at the Howland Cultural Center. Closing the festival on Sunday at the Falcon in Marlboro is the Analog Jazz Orchestra, a 17-piece ensemble of current and former service members of the West Point Band and West Point Jazz Knights. Founder and Director Steve Rubin describes the festival as “a celebration of jazz via musicians deserving of wider

recognition.” He hopes the festival is helping to create an identity for jazz in the Hudson Valley.  Hannah Maxwell, creative director of the Hudson Valley Film Festival, shares a similar sentiment. “There are so few opportunities to showcase and celebrate indie films, and we wanted to create space for them,” Maxwell says. The festival screens a curated selection of around 60 short indie films, from horror to comedy to films that address social issues, all shown at the Warwick Drive-In. Gates open at 7pm, with the films beginning at dusk around 8:30pm. Popcorn is readily available and audience members can vote for the winner of the Audience Choice Award; the festival also awards prizes for Best of Fest and Student Rising. Now entering its eighth year, the festival runs August 15-17, with preparties including food, drinks, and live music taking place at Penning’s Beer Garden and Cidery each night before the screenings.

Like the film festival, plays at the Orange County Short Play Festival span many genres, though they come together around a common theme. This year, the festival presents “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” seven short plays about climate change. One explores the role of corporations in the climate crisis. A more comedic entry revolves around an environmental activist who

brings a polar bear home to her city apartment. “Some of them are painful, some are very funny, some very pointed, and some you’re going to have to think: ‘How does this affect me?’” says Paul Ellis, coproducer of the festival. The performances will take place at the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center on August 18 and 19 at 7:30pm.

The second annual Fuller Moon Arts Festival, taking place on August 26 and 27 from 3-9pm in Mountain Lake Park, is an interactive, multimedia event bringing together site-specific performances, artmaking, and craft vendors. From covered tents with lake views, guests can purchase beaded jewelry, handmade quilts, and wooden toy animals from local artists. At an open studio space, festival-goers can make handprinted posters and learn hapa zome, an art form involving printing flowers onto fabric. In the evenings, the Warwick Dance Collective, the Brasskill brass band, and a traditional Irish music group will perform by a campfire overlooking the lake.

Each festival director aspires to promote Warwick as an artistic hub, and create opportunities for members of the local arts community. “It’s also been great to be able to promote one another’s events in a cohesive way,” says Maxwell. “We all couldn’t be more excited about the future of the arts in the Hudson Valley.”

—Sophie Frank

The Warwick Dance Collective performing "Arcadia" at the Fuller Moon Arts Festival

Photo by Paula Hayden

Not only does Grammy-winning jazz pianist and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill have a lengthy history with the Maverick Concerts series, at which he and his quartet will perform on August 12, he also has another important local connection, one that predates his Maverick association. In 1979 he got his first big break in the area as a sideman at age 19, when influential Woodstock pianist, composer, and bandleader Carla Bley caught him playing at a local bar and immediately snapped him up for a three-year stint with her band that began with a show at Carnegie Hall.

“My jazz friends and I would come up from the city every weekend to Mount Tremper and jam, and there’ve always been so many great musicians to play with [in the Hudson Valley],” recalls O’Farrill. “I’m always happy to get back to Maverick to play. I was always a city kid who loved to escape to the country. It’s my great hope that I can live there someday.”

Arturo is the son of famed Cuban-born composer, arranger, band leader, and trumpeter Chico O’Farrill, one of the central figures in the development of AfroCuban jazz. Born in Mexico City, the younger O’Farrill moved when he was five years old with his family to New York, where his father worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Tito Puente, La Lupe, Celia Cruz, and Machito (with Charlie Parker, Chico composed the latter bandleader’s “Afro-Cuban Suite”). Arturo started piano lessons at age six and graduated from the La Guardia School of Music and Art and went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music, the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, and the

Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. After leaving the Carla Bley Big Band, he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Howard Johnson, Steve Turre, Harry Belafonte (as music director), and others before taking over his father’s orchestra and launching Lincoln Center’s long-in-residence Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.

O’Farrill’s work with the orchestra, which was founded to bring traditional Cuban music and American jazz together, has further broadened and bridged boundaries by adding Haitian, Dominican, Mexican, and South American flavors to the mix, while outside of the ensemble the leader has played free jazz and experimented with hip hop. He and his orchestras have won Grammys for Best Latin Instrumental Album (2014’s Final Night at Birdland) and Best Latin Jazz Album (2015’s The Offense of the Drum) and were nominated for a 2016 Grammy for Cuba: The Conversation Continues, which was recorded in Havana just two days after President Obama gave the announcement that the US would normalize relations with Cuba. (A decision that the following administration, unfortunately, reversed.)

“We’re in a perilous point in the journey of the history of this country right now,” observes O’Farrill, who is an activist as well as a musician. “The forces on the far right have hijacked the narrative and taken it into an ‘us versus them’ realm. But people are more nuanced than that. Even the most die-hard MAGA supporter has love in their heart, carries pictures of their children. My hope with playing is that people can just come together and enjoy the music and be in the spirit of the moment.”

—Peter Aaron

Back to the Country

THE ARTURO O’FARRILL QUARTET AT MAVERICK CONCERTS

August 12 Maverickconerts.org

Arturo O'Farrill brings his jazz quartet to Maverick Concerts on August 12.

Nuclear Winner

“SEEDS UNDER NUCLEAR WINTER” AT WIDOW JANE MINE

August 26-27

Widowjanemine.com

On January 24 of this year, the Doomsday Clock was moved forward by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists It’s now set at 90 seconds to midnight. What better time to see “Seeds Under Nuclear Winter: An Earth Opera,” at the Widow Jane Mine in Rosendale on August 26-27?

Despite the title, Elizabeth Clark’s work is not “political,” as most people use the word. The endless, futile struggles between left and right have no place in her world. Clark confronts our global crisis without namecalling or outrage. One meaning of “Earth opera” is a performance uniting musical and religious cultures from around the globe. Figures like Hanuman, Green Tara, and St. Margaret of the Parking Lot appear and disappear, to instrumental accompaniment.

And don’t let the word “opera” scare you. “Actually, I don’t like opera,” Clark says, laughing. “Seeds Under Nuclear Winter” displays no soprano virtuosity. “I really appreciate simplicity, sparseness, empty space,” she continues. Clark’s musical influences include Tori Amos, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and the 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen. For the last seven years, she has taken workshops with the visionary performance artist Meredith Monk. Clark has also traveled to numerous pow-wows with Grandfather Albert of the Mi’qmac tribe,

accompanying him on a traditional frame drum.

This is the second year of the opera, but the piece continues to evolve. At the point I’m writing, there will be 35 performers, many with multiple roles. Musicians are also actors; dancers boldly sing. The cast includes three ensembles: Andes Manta, which plays traditional Ecuadorian songs; Catskill Mountain Gamelan; and Mamalama, a sacred music group. Clark plays a doublestrung harp, whose tuning is similar to the kora, a West African instrument she has studied. At various points, the audience is invited to participate.

“Seeds Under Nuclear Winter” is a collective undertaking. The intuitive Anne Arden McDonald designed Clark’s diaphanous costume. Sharon Penz was the choreographer—and staged the battle between warring monks. Erika McCarthy created the glowing hearts that the divine beings wear. Clark met many of these artisans during her four residencies at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock. All the performers are local. If the Hudson Valley could sing, it would sing this “Earth opera.”

The inspiration for the work was a nightmare Clark had in 2016. Ominous beings in brown robes were floating down a hallway, speaking a language she couldn’t

understand. As they came closer, Clark felt bone-chilling cold. Then she looked inside their hoods, and saw that they were empty. This was the night before Donald Trump was elected president.

The Widow Jane Mine is the perfect surreal setting for this pageant. Actors appear from behind pillars, or saunter through a stone archway. At one point, a radiant figure—an unnamed female in a long blue veil—arrives in an illuminated canoe, gliding across an interior pool. If the apocalypse comes, many of us may find ourselves living in baroque, chilly caves like this. (This mine produced dolomite for making cement, until it was closed in 1970.)

Clark has lived her whole life in the Hudson Valley. She was born in Wappingers Falls, but at the age of 17 found her way to the Deep Listening Space in Kingston, which was helmed by the experimental accordionist Pauline Oliveros. Clark attended the music conservatory at SUNY Purchase, where she discovered an unused harp in a closet. Already an accomplished pianist, she quickly learned the instrument. Clark began bringing her harp to the nursing home where she worked part-time, playing music to dementia patients. She discovered that, on Earth as in heaven, harp music makes everyone smile.

—Sparrow

A scene from the 2022 production of Elizabeth Clark's "Seeds Under Nuclear Winter." Clark brings her "Earth Opera" back to the Widow Jane Mine in Rosendale on August 26-27.

PAMELA BLUM SUSAN SPENCER CROWE MARSHA GOLDBERG ANDREW LYGHT

Fantastic Negrito

August 5 at Bearsville Theater

Grammy-winning, socially conscious blues rocker Fantastic Negrito (born Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz in 1968) has overcome some head-spinning adversities: strict religious parents, teenage drug dealing, a fraught 1990s record deal, and a car crash that put him in a coma for three weeks. This intimate hit at the Bearsville Theater presents a screening of the companion film to his 2022 album White Jesus Black Problems, along with a Q&A and a live acoustic performance. (Matishyahu and G. Love and Special Sauce marinate August 11; Third World blesses up September 1.) 7pm. $44.50-$49.50. Bearsvilletheater.com

The Hold Steady’s Positive Jam

August 5 at Arrowood Farms

Naming the event for a track off Almost Killed Me, their 2004 debut album, indie giants the Hold Steady are celebrating their 20th year by jumping into the musicfestival game with their inaugural Positive Jam Festival in Accord. Besides the host band, the ace lineup includes Guided by Voices, The Tallest Man on Earth (AKA Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson), Laura Stevenson, Brooklyn-based Talking Heads cover band I Get Wild, and Oceanator. (The “Positive Jams Prelims” pool party at Inness has storytellers, lawn games, and DJ sets by Hold Steady members August 4.) Noon. From $140. Positivejamfest.com

Ryan Montbleau Band

August 18 at Infinity Hall

You know it’s summer in our region when contemporary folk singer-songwriter Ryan Montbleau is making the rounds. Since he started performing in the early 2000s, the 46-year-old has collaborated with such artists as Martin Sexton, Trombone Shorty, Tall Heights, and Galactic and notched more than 100 million streams on Spotify. Fans of the tender tunesmith best point their Birkenstocks in the direction of Infinity Hall in Norfolk, Connecticut, where he’ll bring his full Ryan Montbleau Band for this evening in support of his new, multi-part album, Wood, Fire, Water, and Air. (Jim Messina jumps by August 2; Tinsley Ellis taps in August 19.) 7pm. $34-$44. Infinityhall.com

Deep in the Valley Festival

August 19 at From the Ground Brewery

Curated by the music blog Raven Sings the Blues, the Deep in the Valley music festival this month gets its second annual staging at Migliorelli Orchard in Red Hook. This year’s lineup at the open-air celebration of “musical genres with a common thread of experimentation and exploration” features Ryley Walker, 75 Dollar Bill, Garcia Peoples, Sunwatchers, the Weeping Bong Band, Gold Dust, Ned Collette, and Glyders. Added attractions for the day include a food truck from Gracie’s Diner and an on-site record fair by New Jersey vendor Bash and Pop. Tickets are $42.76.

Ravensingstheblues.com

Messer Chups

August 21 at No Fun

With the striking Svetlana “Zombierella” Nagaeva—think Woodstock’s own Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction—on bass, surf rock trio Messer Chups unashamedly embraces the whole spooky, post-Cramps psychobilly vibe. Guitarist and leader Oleg Guitarkin formed the group in his native Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1989 and they went on to release a crypt-ful of albums with titles like Vamp Babes, Black Black Magic, Cocktail Draculina, Surf Riders from the Swamp Lagoon, Taste the Blood of Guitaracula, and, well, you get the idea. With the Ichi-Bons and the Jagaloons at No Fun in Troy. (Cellular Chaos erupts August 15; the 5.6.7.8.’s twang August 21.) 8pm. $12 advance; $16 door. Nofuntroy.com

Paul Moody

September 1 at Graveside Variety

Paul Moody started working on his album By Your Side when he was living in Nashville. After narrowing down the 40 or so tunes he penned to the 11 that made the cut, he recorded the release “in a small windowless cabin without running water” with help from locals Mikaela Davis, James Felice of the Felice Brothers, and Keith Goodwin of Good Old War. Perhaps they’ll sit in for this show at pop-up venue Graveside Variety in Woodstock. With Margo Ross. (Joan As Policewoman plays August 4 and 5; Zach Djanikan, Chris Maxwell, and Ambrosia Parsley perform August 13.) 7pm. $22.69. Gravesidevariety.com

Rick Brown and Che Chen of 75 Dollar Bill, who will be playing at the Deep in the Valley Festival August 19 in Red Hook.

Ulster County Fair

August 1-6 in New Paltz

Summertime wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a county fair! This century-and-a-half-old celebration will return to New Paltz in Ulster County with amusement park rides, exhibits, pig racing, horse shows, live entertainment, food your cardiologist warned you not to eat, and carnival games. Musical acts include Thunder Ridge, Lee Greenwood, Kentucky Headhunters, Thompson Square, and others. This year, the Ulster County Agricultural Society will be introducing “The Sensory Safe Space” for children with autism, or any individual with sensory sensitivity, as a quiet retreat from the loud noises, large crowds, and bright lights of the fair. $20.

Ulstercountyfair.com

Phoenicia Festival of the Arts

August 4-6 on Phoenicia’s Main Street

An event 20 years in the making for artist Christina Varga of Varga Gallery, the Phoenicia Festival of the Arts will take over Main Street with diverse and inclusive activities for the whole family. Outdoor live music, poetry readings, open mics, and artist demonstrations will provide entertainment for visitors, as well as artisanal gifts, ceramics, sculpture, and more. The event will also include two exhibitions curated by Varga Galleries and three days of performances at the Phoenicia Playhouse. Vargagallery.com

Hudson Valley Craft Beverage Festival

August 5 at Twin Star Orchards in New Paltz

Celebrating the region as a world-class destination for artisanal beverages, the second annual Hudson Valley Craft Beverage Festival will be held at Twin Star Orchards in New Paltz. The event will center two-hour tastings of craft beverages from over 20 makers of local cider, beer, mead, wine, and spirits. Drinks will be served alongside wood-fired pizza, burgers, and barbecue, with live music from 12pm to 6pm. Guests must be 21 or over to participate in tastings or purchase alcoholic beverages. Tastings at 1pm and 3:30pm. $20.  Twinstarorchards.com

La Guelaguetza of Poughkeepsie

August 6 at Waryas Park

The festivities of La Guelaguetza, an indigenous and pre-Hispanic festival, originated in Oaxaca, Mexico and were brought to Poughkeepsie 16 years ago when a group of Oaxacan immigrants felt inspired to share the cultural tradition. Since then, the event has grown to attract thousands of visitors to celebrate the offering to the corn goddess, Centeótl. At this year’s celebration, audiences will enjoy performances from Grupo Folklórico de Poughkeepsie, Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Nueva York, and others. There will be Oaxacan cuisine including tacos, tamales, aguas frescas, elotes, and more. 1pm. Free. Lavoz.bard.edu

Vanaver Caravan’s “Youthscape”

August 11 at Opus 40

Vanaver Caravan’s “Youthscape” will bring together performance art and sculpture as dancers and audience members alike explore the structures of Opus 40. Created with Vanaver Caravan Dance Company’s artists and faculty, the show will be led by students who will perform site-specific choreography throughout the sculpture park, exploring issues of identity, climate, and freedom of expression through vocal and physical mediums. 5:30pm. $20.  Vanavercaravan.org

Hudson Film Festival

August 11-13 at three venues in Hudson

From a gory and mysterious coming-of-age horror story to a musical and cultural documentary to a politically charged romantic drama, the new Hudson Film Festival has something for film lovers of all kinds. Over the course of three days, audiences will have the opportunity to watch eight new films including She Came to Me directed by Rebecca Miller and starring Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei, and Anne Hathaway as well as a new film by Jennifer Reeder, Perpetrator, starring Alicia Silverstone and rising actor Kiah McKirnan. Tickets can be purchased online. $28.52 for individual screenings, and $95 for an all-access pass. Hudsonfilmfestival.org

Blueberry Festival

August 12 in Ellenville

The Shawangunk Mountains have long been a wild blueberry destination, with remnants of blueberry huts where pickers would stay during the season, still scattered throughout the mountains. To celebrate the region’s abundance of blueberries, the Ellenville Blueberry Festival will host craft vendors, including art, pottery, and jewelry, as well as food vendors serving gyros, hot dogs, muffins, and tons of blueberry treats. The event will also include Ellenville’s famous blueberry muffin contest, and live music by Bridge Arts Community Jazz Band, Hudson Valley Bluegrass Express, and the Jazz Pioneers. 9am. Free. Ewcoc.com

Paula Poundstone

August 12 at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theatre

The famously sharp-witted comedian and regular on NPR’s weekly quiz show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me” will take the stage in Peekskill for a night of top-tier stand-up. In 1992, Poundstone made history as the first female comic to perform stand-up at the White House Correspondents Dinner. She is the star of several HBO specials, including “Cats, Cops and Stuff” and “Paula Poundstone Goes to Harvard,” as well as the author of two books, and the host of a comedy podcast called “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone.” 8pm. $37.50, $45, and $55.  Paramounthudsonvalley.com

Kingston Artists Soapbox Derby

August 20 in Kingston

From trash cans to flying saucers to gigantic clocks, contestants in the the Kingston Artists Soapbox Derby find no limit to what can be put on wheels. For the 28th year running, crowds will gather to witness a parade of nonmotorized kinetic sculptures capable of rolling down lower Broadway in Kingston. The event will include vendors and live music and will conclude with an award ceremony where onlookers can witness their favorite sculptures receive artist-designed trophies. 1pm. Free. Kingstonartistsoapboxderby.com

Dutchess County Fair

August 22-27 at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds

The 177-year-old Dutchess County Fair will returns with tons of activities and entertainment from live music to magic shows, a petting zoo, aerial and acrobatic shows, amusement park rides, lots of food, and vendors. This county fair includes one-of-a-kind fair experiences such as beautiful gardens with waterfalls and koi ponds, museums with turn-of-the-century displays and storytellers in costume, and a full agricultural fair with farm animals and horse shows. Country rock star Brantley Gilbert headlines on August 23. $13.50. Dutchessfair.com

“Anima”

August 31 and September 2-3 at PS21 in Chatham

Inspired by their shared interest in the discoveries of paleoclimatologists (historical climate-detectives), artist Noemie Goudal and director Maelle Poésy created “Anima,” a multimedia artistic experience on the history and future of landscapes and ecosystems. Largescale moving image projections of the continuous metamorphosis of palm trees, rocks, caves, and glaciers, surround the audience as they listen to the recorded sounds of rushing water, wind, and wildlife. The immersive video and audio installation will be complemented by a suspended acrobatic performance from circus artist Chloe Moglia. Audiences will be compelled to examine the passage of time, impermanence, and to reconsider climate change within the broader environmental story of the world. 8pm. $45. Ps21chatham.org

Hudson Valley Hot-Air Balloon Festival

September 1-3 at Tymor Park, Union Vale

Witness a sky filled with majestic hot-air balloons, or take a ride in one ($350 a pop) at the 32nd annual balloon festival. The celebration will also offer opportunities such as helicopter rides, and will include nightly fireworks, amusement rides and games, live music, vendors, a beer and wine tent, and many more classic summer fair activities. $8.50 for mornings, $16.50 for evenings, and $27.95 for an allweekend pass.  Balloonfesthv.org

Art Studio Views

September 2-3 at various locations

Take an intimate look at the artistic process of 30 artists throughout northern Dutchess and southern Columbia counties when they open their studio doors for family-friendly, self-guided tours. There will be a diverse range of artistic mediums to explore, including painting, photography, sculpture, metal art, and more. Not-to-be-missed: Germantown-based ceramics artist Ramah Commanday. Visitors can explore the work that she created as a result of the wildfire that burned down her home and studio in Napa Valley. Fascinated by the impact that a “second firing” might have had on her work, Commanday recovered and repaired many of her finished pieces from the wreckage, creating something new from the ashes. Free.  Artstudioviews.com

—Lily Anninger

Chloe Moglia in a 2022 production of "Anima"

Photo by Christoph Reynaud de Lage

1053 MAIN STREET GALLERY

1053 MAIN STREET, FLEISCHMANNS

“Gary Gissler.” Text-based collage. August 11-September 24.

510 WARREN ST GALLERY

510 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“An Orgy of Saccharine Beauty.”

New works by Peggy Reeves. August 4-27.

AL HELD FOUNDATION

26 BEECHFORD DRIVE, BOICEVILLE

“On the Grounds 2023.” Sculptures by Anina Major and Sagarika Sundaram. Through October 14.

“Kite: (In a Dream).” Oglala Lakota artist Kite approaches embroidery as a means of bringing knowledge from the nonhuman realms of machines, animals, and spirits into the human realms of creation. Through October 14.

THE ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART

MUSEUM

258 MAIN STREET, RIDGEFIELD, CT

“Amy Brener: Harbingers.” Larger-than-life sculptures. Through September 3.

ANN STREET GALLERY

104 ANN STREET, NEWBURGH

“Listening to Land: Imaginal Technologies, Material Conduits, and Landscape Translations Toward Perceiving Place.” Work by Margaux Crump, Katerie Gladdys, Katie Grove, Ellie Irons, Kite and Robbie Wing, Fernanda Mello, Steve Rossi, Millicent Young, and others. Curated by Allison McNulty. Through August 27.

ARKELL MUSEUM

2 ERIE BOULEVARD, CANAJOHARIE

"Britt LoSacco, Mary Nolan, and Mary Ellen Riell." Paintings. Through October 8.

ART GALLERY 71

71 EAST MARKET STREET, RHINEBECK

“Lee Rubenstein: Paintings and Furniture.”

Through August 6.

“Evelyn La Stella: Paintings.” August 6-September 4.

ART SALES & RESEARCH

CLINTON CORNERS

“Structure.” Work by Fabienne Lasserre, Nicole Cherubini, James Little, Margie Neuhaus, Natasha Sweeten, and Anne Brown. Through August 30.

ARTISTS’ COLLECTIVE OF HYDE PARK

4338 ALBANY POST ROAD, HYDE PARK

“In a Dream.” Group show of paintings, drawings, photography, mixed media, and digital art juried by Betsy Jacaruso. Through August 12.

ARTPORT KINGSTON

108 EAST STRAND, KINGSTON

“Joy Ride.” Group show. Through August 31.

ARTS MID-HUDSON

696 DUTCHESS TURNPIKE, POUGHKEEPSIE

"Timeless: Art that Transcends Time, Language and Space." Eighteen poets and 18 visual artists collaborate. Through August 25.

BAU GALLERY

506 MAIN STREET, BEACON. “Respire.” Group show. August 12-September 3.

BERKSHIRE MUSEUM

39 SOUTH STREET, PITTSFIELD, MA

“Romance and Nature: Art of the Hudson River School.” Highlights of the museum’s Hudson River School collection and lithographs from John James Audubon. Through October 1.

BETHEL WOODS CENTER FOR THE ARTS

200 HURD ROAD, BETHEL “Rockin’ the Woods. Sculptures by Wayne Holbert." Through October 31.

BILL ARNING EXHIBITIONS / HUDSON VALLEY

17 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK

“Once Removed.” Work by Meghan Gerety, Erik Daniel White, and Zeke Williams. August 18-October 1.

WOMEN’S STUDIO WORKSHOP

722 BINNEWATER LANE, ROSENDALE

“in the palm of your hand.” Group exhibition of itty-bitty works of art. Through October 31.

CANVAS + CLOTHIER

27 GARDEN STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE

“American Patchwork.” Work by Monica Church, Elisa Lendvay, Suprina Troche, Noah David Smith, Fulani Hart, Peter MacKennan, Nestor

Madalengotita, and Chisie Cordrey. Through August 31.

CAROL COREY FINE ART

6 NORTH MAIN STREET, KENT, CT “Lizzie Gill.” Mixed media works. Through August 20.

“Roz Chast: Buildings, Bananas, and Beyond.” August 26-October 1.

CARRIE HADDAD GALLERY

622 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Equipoise: Stasis and Sensuality in Still Life.” Group show. August 11-October 11.

CHANGO LIFE ARTS

211 FISHKILL AVENUE, BEACON.

“Seres Imperfectos”. Work by Cuban artists: Sheyla, Mijail Ponce, and Eddy.

Through December 27.

CLARK ART INSTITUTE

225 SOUTH STREET, WILLIAMSTOWN, MA

“Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth.” Thirty-five works from the Munchmuseet’s world-renowned collection and more than forty paintings and prints drawn from private collections and rarely exhibited publicly. Through October 15.

“Humane Ecology: Eight Positions.” Work by Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Carolina Caycedo, Allison Janae Hamilton, Juan Antonio Olivares, Christine Howard Sandoval, Pallavi Sen, and Kandis Williams. Through October 29.

Installation shot of Wu Chi-Tsung's Cyano-Collage 170, from “Synchronicity,” the first museum solo exhibition of the Taiwanese artist at Katonah Museum of Art.

Photo by Margaret Fox Photography

CMA GALLERY

MOUNT SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE, NEWBURGH

“A Place To Connect.” Work by Romina Gonzales and Jason Bauer. Through September 30.

CREATE GALLERY

398 MAIN STREET, CATSKILL

“Vision, Light, and Structure.” Featured artists: Gary Bower, Christine Harris, Ursula Carr Bower, Christopher Lisio, Denise Kelty, Elizabeth Apgar-Smith, Stephen Spretnjak, David Smyth, Jonathan Stasko, and Scott Keidong. Through August 13.

D’ARCY SIMPSON ART WORKS

409 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Evergrowth.” New work by Emily Ritz. Through August 31.

DISTORTION SOCIETY

172 MAIN STREET, BEACON

“Distortion: Subverting Reality.” Collaborative group exhibition hosted by Distortion Society and Super Secret Projects. August 12-September 3.

ELIJAH WHEAT SHOWROOM

195 FRONT STREET, NEWBURGH

“Souvenirs of the Wasteland.” Work by Caitlin McCormack and Kat Ryals. Through September 24.

EMERGE GALLERY

228 MAIN STREET, SAUGERTIES

“Veronica Lawlor: Material Memory.” Abstract paintings. Through August 27.

FENIMORE ART MUSEUM

5798 LAKE ROAD, COOPERSTOWN

“M.C. Escher: Infinite Variations.” More than 160 works by the Dutch artist. Through Sepember 4.

FORELAND

111 WATER STREET, CATSKILL

“Rachel Hayes Glass Bridge Installation.” Sitespecific fiber work. Through August 3.

GALLERY 40

40 CANNON STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE

"Perspective and Colors." Work by Joanne Thorne Arnold, Bernadette Decker, Carrie Decker, and Stacie Flint. August 5-30.

GARAGE GALLERY

17 CHURCH STREET, BEACON

“What Is Lost?” Work by Amy Becker and Fern Apfel. August 12-27.

GARRISON ART CENTER

23 GARRISON'S LANDING, GARRISON

“Off-kilter.” Mixed media works by Janice Caswell. August 12-September 10.

“Mapping the Invisible.” Collaged paintings and assemblages by Martha Bone. August 12-September 10.

GEARY CONTEMPORARY

34 MAIN STREET, MILLERTON

“Katy Schimert and Ping Zheng.” August 12-October 1.

GREEN KILL

229 GREENKILL AVENUE, KINGSTON

“The Long View: Creativity Over Time.” Work by Blue Mountain Gallery artists. July 1-August 31.

HAWK + HIVE

61 MAIN STREET, ANDES

“Once Met By Morning Dew.” Paintings by Melissa Murray. August 5-September 17.

HEADSTONE GALLERY

28 HURLEY AVENUE, KINGSTON

“A Sackful of Seeds.” Work by Joshua A. M. Ross and Judd Schiffman. Through August 27.

HESSEL MUSEUM OF ART/CCS

BARD

BARD COLLEGE, ANNANDALE

“Erika Verzutti: Oil Moon.” Survey of sculpture

and wall works from the past 15 years by the Brazilian artist. Curated by Lauren Cornell. Through October 15.

“Indian Theater.” Bard College’s Center for Indigenous Studies explores Native North American art. Curated by Candice Hopkins. Through November 26.

HOLLAND TUNNEL GALLERY

46 CHAMBERS STREET, NEWBURGH

“Vivien Collens: Exhibition.” Sculptures by Vivien Collens. August 26-September 24.

HUDSON HALL

327 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Walking.” Nature photographs by David McIntyre. August 24-October 8.

HUDSON MILLINER ART SALON

415 WARREN ST, HUDSON

“Sitting.” Work by Robin Rice, Shannon Greer, and Charlotta Janssen. Through October 31.

JACK SHAINMAN: THE SCHOOL

25 BROAD STREET, KINDERHOOK

“Michael Snow: A Life Survey (1955-2020).”

Retrospective for the musician, painter, photographer, and pioneering experimental filmmaker. Through December 30.

JANE ST. ART CENTER

11 JANE STREET, SAUGERTIES

“Intermundia.” Work by S. B. Woods. August 5-September 10.

KATONAH MUSEUM OF ART

134 JAY STREET, KATONAH

“Synchronicity.” First museum solo exhibition of Taiwanese artist Wu Chi-Tsung. Through October 1.

KENISE BARNES FINE ART

7 FULLING LANE, KENT, CT

“The Warmth of Blue.” New paintings by Janna Watson. Through August 20.

KLEINERT/JAMES ARTS CENTER

34 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley.” Work by Sharon Core, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Tim Davis, Phyllis Galembo, Lyle Ashton Harris, Marvin Heiferman, Dana Hoey, Carmen Lizardo, Tanya Marcuse, Pete Mauney, Qiana Mestrich, Jeffrey Milstein, Andrew Moore, Carla Rhodes, Seth David Rubin, Ryan Rusiecki, and Oliver Wasow. Curated by Jane Hart. August 12-September 26.

THE KUBE

192 VERPLANCK AVE, BEACON

“Margaret Innerhofer: Shadowland.” Multimedia artist Innerhofer explores the transitional spaces between spiritual and psychological borderlands. Through August 29.

LIFEBRIDGE SANCTUARY

333 MOUNTAIN ROAD, ROSENDALE

“Becoming Abstract.” Work by Nancy O’Hara. Through August 31.

LIGHTFORMS ART CENTER

743 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON

“Brian Dickerson: Constructed Paintings & Drawings.” Recent work. Through August 20.

LISA VOLLMER PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO + GALLERY

325 STOCKBRIDGE ROAD, GREAT BARRINGTON, MA

“Season Opening.” Recent artwork by Lisa Vollmer and Sabine von Falken. Through August 26.

LIVE 4 ART GALLERY

20 CHARLES COLMAN BOULEVARD, PAWLING

“Sculpture III.” Sculptural artworks by Lila Turjanski-Villard, Bob Madden, and Karen Madden. Through August 27.

LOEB ART CENTER

124 RAYMOND AVENUE, POUGHKEEPSIE

“Apocalypse Sky: Art, AIDS, and Activism in New York City, 1982–1992.” Twenty works by artists whose lives were transformed by the HIV/AIDS crisis during the 1980s and 1990s, including Keith Haring and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Through August 20.

“Between the Lines: Innovation and Expression in Women’s Sewing Samplers.” Drawn from the Loeb Art Center’s impressive collection of women’s sewing samplers—a collection numbering over 300 objects from North and South America and Europe.Through September 3.

“Body Matters.” Vassar students re-curate, reshape, and reimagine “What Now? (Or Not Yet).”. Through September 10.

“The Hairy Leg or What To Do Wrong.” Judy Linn selects photographs from the Loeb’s permanent collection: Diane Arbus, Sid Grossman, and others. Through September 24.

MAGAZZINO ITALIAN ART

2700 ROUTE 9, COLD SPRING

"Welcome to New York!" Special project dedicated to the renowned artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. Through June 24, 2024.

MANITOGA / THE RUSSEL WRIGHT DESIGN CENTER

584 ROUTE 9D, PHILIPSTOWN

"The Art + Design of Ceramics: Layered Voices, Katherine Choy/Jade Snow Wong." Through August 21.

"The Art + Design of Ceramics: Layered Voices, Stephanie H. Shih/Jolie Ngo." Through November 13.

MARK GRUBER GALLERY

13 NEW PALTZ PLAZA, NEW PALTZ

“Skyscapes.” Group show. Through September 2.

MASS MOCA

1040 MASS MOCA WAY, NORTH ADAMS, MA

“Love from Vicki Island.” Sculptures by Daniel Giordano. Through September 30.

OLANA STATE HISTORIC SITE

5720 ROUTE 9G, HUDSON

“Terraforming: Olana’s Historic Photography Collection Unearthed.” Nineteenth-century photographs from Frederic Church’s collection curated by David Hartt. Through October 29.

Shannon Greer's portrait of Jacki Thomas is part of the group show "Sitting" at Hudson Milliner Art Salon.

ATHENS

Providing fine

for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

Providing fine art services for artists, collectors and gallerists in the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, Connecticut and surrounding region

OLIVE FREE LIBRARY

4033 ROUTE 28A, WEST SHOKAN

“Define Beauty.” Group show curated by Donald Elder. Through September 9.

“A Town Shaped by Water: 200 Years of Olive History.” Photos, ephemera, and colorful stories collected through oral histories of several Town of Olive notables. Through December 31.

PAMELA SALISBURY GALLERY

362 1/2 WARREN STREET

“Elisa Jensen: Radiance.”

“Elisa D'Arrigo: Balancing Act.”

“Steve Bartlett: One by One.”

“Rachel Schmidhofer: Slow Build.”

“Maud Bryt: Recent Works.”

All shows through August 27.

PRIVATE PUBLIC

530 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON

”Summer Disaster Show.” Group show. August 5-September 4.

SAMUEL DORSKY MUSEUM OF ART

1 HAWK DRIVE, SUNY NEW PALTZ

“Notes for Tomorrow.” Exhibition conceived by Independent Curators International featuring artworks selected by 31 curators based in 25 countries around the world to reflect on a new global reality ushered in by the Covid-19 pandemic. Through November 12.

SEPTEMBER

4 HUDSON STREET, KINDERHOOK

“Myth Maker.” Work by Laleh Khorramian. August 19-October 15.

SONNENBERG GALLERY

310 WALL STREET, KINGSTON

“Someday After I'm Gone.” Paintings by Joe Concra. Through September 30.

STORM KING ART CENTER

1 MUSEUM ROAD, NEW WINDSOR

Site-specific presentations of new and recent artworks by Beatriz Cortez, Ugo Rondinone, and RA Walden in addition to permanent collection. Through November 13.

SUPER SECRET PROJECTS

484 MAIN STREET, BEACON

“Interior.” Paintings by Alyssa Follansbee. Through August 6.

SUSAN ELEY FINE ART

433 WARREN STREET, HUDSON

“Bountiful.” Work by Eunju Kang and Fumiko Toda. Through September 3.

‘T’ SPACE

137 ROUND LAKE ROAD, RHINEBECK

“Ann Hamilton.” Through August 20.

THE LOFTS AT BEACON GALLERY

18 FRONT STREET, BEACON

“Unfolding Vision Leporellos and Corresponding Work Vol. 1.” Group show curated by Eleni Smolen. Through August 27.

THE RE INSTITUTE

1395 BOSTON CORNERS ROAD, MILLERTON

"Face Nature: Experiments in Trees." Work by Madeline Schwartzman. Through September 9.

THOMAS COLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

218 SPRING STREET, CATSKILL

“Women Reframe American Landscape: Susie Barstow & Her Circle/Contemporary Practices.”

Female artists of the 19th century exhibited alongside contemporary female artists. Through October 29.

TIME AND SPACE LIMITED

434 COLUMBIA STREET, HUDSON

“Roberto Juarez: New Paintings.” Installation of large paintings. Through August 27.

TIVOLI ARTISTS GALLERY

60 BROADWAY, TIVOLI

“Farms & Fields.” Group show. August 11-September 10.

ULSTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

2682 ROUTE 209, KINGSTON

“Leaving Bishop Falls: An Ashokan Story.” Paintings, prints, poetry, and historical ephemera of Kate McGloughlin. Through October 29.

UNISON ARTS & LEARNING CENTER

68 MOUNTAIN REST RD, NEW PALTZ

“Human Foibles Meet the Mad Machine.” Paintings by Kathy Goodell. Through August 12.

VISITOR CENTER

233 LIBERTY STREET, NEWBURGH

“The Divine, the Passion, and the Magic.” Work by Clara Fialho, Michela Martello, and Sooo-z Mastropietro. Through August 19.

THE WASSAIC PROJECT

37 FURNACE BANK ROAD, WASSAIC

“Counting the Seconds Between Lightning and Thunder.” Work by Fern Apfel, Mara Baldwin, Desmond Beach, Shawn Bitters + Matthew

Willie Garcia, Leonardo Bravo, Michael Covello + Elizabeth Schneider, Adinah Dancyer, Liz Ferrer + Bow Ty, Francesco Gattuso, Jeila Gueramian, Dan Gunn, Iris Helena Hamers, Jazmine Hayes, Joe Hedges, Pete Hillstrom, Jeremiah Jossim, Natalja Kent, Danielle Klebes, Kyle Kogut, KK Kozik · Ailyn Lee, Chip McCall, Caitlin McCormack, Austin Nash, Chiara No, Marianna Peragallo, Kat Ryals, Azadeh Nia, Jen Shepard, Daniel Shieh, Jeff Slomba, Melissa Vogley Woods, Janet Wang, Poyen Wang, Jen White-Johnson, Natalie Woodlock, and Ping Zheng. Through September 16.

WEST STRAND ART GALLERY

29 W STRAND ST, KINGSTON

“Abstract Configurations.” Work by Andrew Lyght, Marsha Goldberg, Susan Spencer Crowe, and Pamela Blum. Through August 20.

WOMENSWORK.ART

4 SOUTH CLINTON STREET, POUGHKEEPSIE

“Seen/Heard.” Featured artists: Atinuke Adeleke, Lydia Boddie-Rice, Aespyne Brooks, Pia Cabble,Tori Celeste, Petrina Cheng-Tatara, Jodianne Green, Laura Hein, Yoko Izu, Imani Jones, Swat Kasham, Laura Montoya, Kasandra Pantoja, Camila Pombo, Christina Siu, and Bianca Turner. Through August 26.

Shelter, an acrylic and gouache on paper work by Melissa Murray, will be exhibited at Hawk + Hive in Andes this month.

WOODSTOCK ARTISTS ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM

28 TINKER STREET, WOODSTOCK

“Norma Morgan: In the Lands of the Moors and Catskills.” Paintings, drawings, and engravings by Norma Morgan (1928-2017). Through September 10.

“Featured Active Members’ Show.” Group show. Through September 24.

“Radius 50: Intimate Immensity.” Regional group show juried by Susan Wides. Through September 24.

Horoscopes

By Cory Nakasue

Wild Outbursts, Then Redactions

The first half of August sets the stage for two wild lunations that demand change. The Aquarian full moon that ushers in the month, on August 1, points out all the ways we need to innovate and evolve. It balks at the thought of maintaining the status quo and simply will not tolerate inflated egos. The new moon that follows two weeks later in the sign of Leo, on the 16th, has us feeling bold enough to make radical changes. With the new moon in a square aspect to pattern-breaking Uranus, we may also be on the receiving end of demands for change from others.

Then all goes quiet. We’re in the middle of our yearly summer retrogrades, which signal a lull or sense of suspended animation. Then, very surreptitiously, Mercury in Virgo joins the retrograde brigade on the 23rd, just as the sun enters the sign of Virgo. We may feel like there was no real transition from the sparks of Leo season to the studiousness of Virgo season. This could feel like celebrating a creative triumph, and then your boss shows up mid-champagne toast with schedules, edits, and redactions. Who invited them?!

Adding to the temperance of Virgo season is Mars’s entrance into Libra on the 27th. In Libra, Mars is tasked with thinking before it acts and considering the needs of others. These are often things worth doing—it’s just not within Mars’s purview, and the result may be a time of strained politeness. As we head toward the end of August, the need for sensitivity continues with the second full moon of the month in Pisces on the 30th. When there are two full moons inside of one calendar month, it’s called a “blue moon.” This one marks a definitive, teary-eyed end.

ARIES (March 20–April 19)

One of your laments may be “always the pursuer, never the pursued.” All that is about to change, especially as we head toward the end of the month. You’re going to be surrounded by people—maybe even cornered. Aries does get lonely sometimes. It’s the price you pay for being the first one out of the gate, but know that you’re uniquely designed for solo work. This month you get to sample a wide variety of attention. You may enjoy it and learn a lot from it, but the biggest gift you’ll receive is a deep appreciation of your sovereignty.

TAURUS (April 19–May 20)

Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? What about too much change? The classic Taurus answers would be “never” and “change anything and you’re dead to me,” respectively. Yet that’s exactly what you’re dealing with this month: You’re feeling emboldened to take on bigger projects and challenges than you’re used to, and it feels uncharacteristic. This is because you’re changing at an alarming speed. Your job this month is to connect these two experiences. You’re changing into a person who can accommodate more feeling, more resources, and even more uncertainty. You can even accommodate more of yourself.

Cory Nakasue is an astrology counselor, writer, and teacher. Her talk show, “The Cosmic Dispatch,” is broadcast on Radio Kingston (1490AM/107.9FM) Sundays from 4-5pm and available on streaming platforms. AstrologybyCory.com

Horoscopes

GEMINI (May 20–June 21)

Adding items to your to-do list may be one of the most relaxing activities you can do right now. Especially around the house, it might seem like you’re noticing every little item that needs repairing, fixing, cleaning, or replacing. If it’s true that every time we check something off of our to-do list we get a sweet hit of dopamine, taking care of your space could actually bliss you out! Also know that creating a well-functioning space in your home, body, and mind will help you realize your loftier ambitions out in the world. Grunt work makes your dreams a reality.

CANCER (June 21–July 22)

This month’s lunations are putting your assets centerstage. You’re on the receiving end of support that’s long overdue. This could come in the form of a corrected error in a settlement, a gift from a group of people who overlooked you in the past, or finding some cash that you hid years ago. However this shows up, think of it as a symbol inviting you to remember that your biggest asset is you. It’s the one thing that nobody else has, and it’s the most important thing for you to value if you wish to be valued by others.

LEO (July 22–August 23)

Reversals and disruptive dynamics are in the air. Chance encounters or spontaneous urges could have you taking sharp turns in the trajectory of your relationships. Perhaps the most common feeling Leos will experience this month is a sudden need for alone time, or, a complete distaste for it. There may also be startling moments of emotional or intellectual clarity and surprising instances of getting caught up in the romance of something, or, conversely, coming to your senses. Notice a theme here? Whatever bursts into your life has been waiting to do so for a long time.

VIRGO (August 23–September 23)

Looks like you’ve had just about enough of all this heat, sand, and day-drinking. I picture you yearning for sweater weather and opportunities to sharpen your mind on an especially complex problem. Your horoscope ruler, Mercury, turns retrograde on the same day the sun enters your sign. By the 23rd, you’re champing at the bit to clean up the sloppy, overflowing excesses of this summer and create some order. Please go easy on yourself and others. There’s a lot of unruliness working against you. What if you got really serious and diligent about reflection and enjoying your passions in solitude?

LIBRA (September 23–October 23)

With Venus touring the sector of your chart symbolizing affiliations and social life, you’re probably out there wheeling and dealing. However, you seem to have more access to your own wants and needs over the next several weeks. You may even be looking for opportunities to impose your will on certain groups of people. The fiery nature of Mars infuses your being with extra color, flair, and confidence. You also seem to be in the mood for faster-paced interactions and the drama of discord. Situations like these provide the perfect stage for your expert charm and diplomacy to shine.

Launch Party

Horoscopes

SCORPIO (October 23–November 22)

There are exciting developments on the work front, and you might be finding new avenues for creative expression. The atmosphere at home looks like an unwanted distraction. Instead of ignoring it and shooing it away like an annoying fly, address it squarely with resolve. Luckily, there are people waiting to help you if the demands at home are too daunting. But you do have to ask. The person most willing to help you might be the last person you’d expect. Do this early in the month. Your life outside the home just becomes more intriguing and surprise-filled.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 22)

You’re feeling expansive, but the “powers that be” are cramping your freewheeling style. The scenario bears resemblance to that dream we’ve all had; the one where we’re getting ready to graduate from high school, only to be told we can’t because there’s a whole class we didn’t even take! If institutions or authority figures are raining on your parade, figure out a way to get the work done, but on your terms. Do the work that’s necessary, but on your schedule. You’re learning the delicate art of feeling your freedom while fulfilling obligations. There’s more space to roam in September.

CAPRICORN (December 22–January 20)

Do you believe that it’s possible to increase your vitality by facing death? Can you increase your riches by spreading the wealth? There are indications in your chart that you’re ready to gamble some of your hard-earned money, pride, and sense of security to feel the rush of aliveness. No, it does not make logical sense! There’s a bigger biological imperative at play here. When you hold yourself too tightly in your sovereignty, you can choke off the very channels that need to be open to receive nourishment and inspiration. Your life force gets activated by risking loss.

AQUARIUS (January 20–February 19)

Your sense of self crystalizes and actualizes when you’re in relationship with others. This might make you uncomfortable. If you believe that the only way to express yourself authentically is to differentiate yourself or fly solo, that’s going to be challenged this month. The self you experience while alone is an ideological self. There is so much support for you to begin an embodiment process through dynamic exchanges with others. In a sense, if you reject this opportunity and its feedback, you reject large chunks of yourself. Find coherence of identity and body during the Pisces full moon.

PISCES (February 20–March 19)

The anomalous blue moon in Pisces at month’s end, is a deviation from the standard “one full moon per calendar month” rule. As such, the usual tidal wave of emotion this brings is dammed (or damned). There is structure in your sorrow and weight to your mirth. The usual erosion of boundaries that leads to the complete release of self, stops at the bones. If you’ve been longing for evidence of something in you that’s everlasting, you may find it now. Also, if you’ve been drifting with the tide for too long, you may hit dry land.

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As Above, So Below

The intricate and seductive experience of art as a gateway for multidimensional transcendence is observed in a graceful three-woman exhibition at Visitor Center in Newburgh through August 19. “The Divine, The Passion, and The Magic” features paintings, sculptural installations, and works on paper by Sooo-z Mastropietro, Clara Fialho, and Michela Martello and is presented in collaboration with CAMP Gallery of Westport, Connecticut, and North Miami, Florida

In the spirit of the ancient Greek word alethia—a philosophical term meaning truth or disclosure—each artist presents an empowered creative vision that is both grounded in feminine themes while exploring the metaphysical “beyond” of mystical realms. The visual harmony between these three distinct artistic styles is utterly dazzling (this is their first time showing together) and the entire exhibition sings like a celestial summer serenade.

Entering the gallery, we meet Mastropietro’s wall installation, MicroFiberOrganismSpandasaurasrex (2020-22), a biomorphic form that snakes from one side of the room and around to the other in a playful slither. Getting up close to this vibrant sculptural work, one can intuit the many hours of careful sewing and

placement-experimentation that it took to realize this amusing piece made entirely of multicolor fabrics. Stepping back, the overall composition and spatial engineering of these amoeba-like forms hum with a joviality that is pure elation. A graduate of FIT, Mastropietro’s artistic focus on fashion and textile design reflects her loving precision with fabric as her chosen muse.

Moving into the space, we behold a series of lush oil paintings and works on paper by Brazilborn and New York-based Clara Fialho. The transition from Mastropietro’s compact fiber shapes into Fialho’s bright blowout of abstract, painterly vibrations feels like a journey from the center of a cluster of atoms to their unbridled orbit in a universe of continuous cellular interconnectivity. Her artistic world-building is a living symphony of rhythm and dissolve, where shapes and shades seem to magically fuse, expand, and bounce off the canvas all at once. If artists double as theorists—in that an individual artist presents a singular artistic theory through materiality—then Fialho’s creative-cumtheoretical insight is a harmonious version of the atomic landscape writ large, and the encounter is devastatingly abundant as such.

Nestled in the back of the gallery is the pulsing heart of this show—a stunning, pink-

hued, ceiling-to-floor temple-like installation consisting of upholstery panels painted with acrylic, gouache, and ink by Michela Martello. Martello refers to this work, The Heavenly Princesses and the Barn Ripple (2022), as a “ghost painting” transference, and it’s an intimate ceremony that honors archetypal blessings and beauty.

Her pairing of four magnificent female figures including Guanyin, Mazu, Green Tara, and a weeping Madonna who breastfeeds her infant is an all-out adoration of the Divine Feminine, and these over-sized immortals warmly welcome us into a revered space. A multidisciplinary painter born in Italy to a worldly father who cultivated her interest in Asian cultures, Martello’s engagement with Buddhist deities and exemplary divinities is a glorious re-presentation of the nourishing power and healing potential of these sacred iconographies. In this soothing sanctuary rich in symbolism, we participate in a flow of devotional bliss and robust spiritual arousal.

Thus, the notion of alethia as an artistic goddess who reveals the divine, the passion, and the magic of creative truth by way of celebratory elegance is the baseline of this sumptuous show, indeed a perfect ode to the empress of the season.

—Taliesin Thomas

Michela Martello's installation The Heavenly Princess and the Barn Ripple is on view at Visitor Center in Newburgh this month.

“The Divine, The Passion, and The Magic” at Visitor Center in Newburgh

Soothe your mind, body, and soul at one of our full-service spas: Yo1 Health Resort, Crystal Life Spa at Resorts World Catskills, Hemlock at Kenoza, Hemlock at Neversink (coming this fall). Book a stay. While you’re here, wander through our charming, low-key hamlets for food and beverages, shopping, and more.