A SENSE OF PLACE
HTTP://WWW.WOODSTOCKGUILD.ORG (845) 679-2079
The exhibition's opening reception was Saturday August 13th from 3pm to 6pm and refreshments were served.
A panel discussion with some of the artists was held from 3pm to 4pm moderated by Douglas I. Sheer at Kleinert-James Center at 34 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY 12498 and that recording was added to the Byrdcliffe Youtube channel.
During the run of the exhibition the ten artist interview recordings were played. You can view them on the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild YouTube channel.
Opening Saturday August 13th and closing Sunday, September 25th, 2022
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CURATOR, DOUGLAS I. SHEER
DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS, URSULA MORGAN
CURATORIAL ASSISTANT, ABIGAIL HERMAN
About the Exhibition
By Douglas I. SheerAs part of the Byrdcliffe Forum, launched in 2020 to offer additional virtual content during the pandemic, ten artists were selected by the Forum committee to represent Woodstock in a series called, “Woodstock Masters.” Each artist is a highly accomplished practitioner and known for living in or near the Woodstock community, and many have shown or taught locally.
The artists include Nancy Azara, Jenne Currie, Donald Elder, Yale Epstein, Mary Frank, Heather Hutchison, Portia Munson, Judy Pfaff, Joan Snyder, and Hongnian Zhang. During the virtual talks, each artist showed examples of their art and answered questions about their lives and experiences. All ten talks can be viewed on the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild YouTube channel. Stylistically, among their oeuvres: Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, Conceptualism, classical realism, patterning and decoration, political art and neo-Cubism.
What makes Woodstock really Woodstock is naturally hard to quantify, but it is a combination of geography, demographics, and its unique aesthetic and critical art history The sum total equals what we have called 'a sense of place ' It is both who is here today and who has been here before, such as founders of the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in 1902, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Jane Byrd McCall.
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Other artists who have called Woodstock home since 1902 have included:
Alexander Archipenko, sculptor, Milton Avery – painter, George Bellows –painter, Manuel Bromberg– sculptor, Harvey Fite – sculptor, Milton Glaser –graphic designer, Philip Guston – painter, Robert Henri – painter, Eva Hesse –sculptor, Gaston Lachaise – sculptor, Yasuo Kuniyoshi – painter and sculptor, Ethel Magafan – painter (mother of Jenne Currie), Georges Malkine – painter, Fletcher Martin – painter, Anton Refregier – painter, Zulma Steele – painter, and Bradley Walker Tomlin – painter. Many of the deceased, my parents included, are buried in the Woodstock Artists Cemetery.
Artists have continued to arrive in Woodstock for different personal reasons. All have found in that choice a kind of sanctuary from city life and a shared immersion into a more contemplative environment.
NANCY AZARA
WEBSITE: NANCYAZARA.COM
INSTAGRAM: AZARANANCY
FACEBOOK: WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/NANCY.AZARA
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Nancy Azara is a sculptor and feminist artist, working primarily in wood, mixed media collage and prints. Her sculpture is carved, gilded, assembled wood; her collages are composed of mylar, paper, paint and the occasional found wood object. Azara’s densely layered art engages with memory, personal history and the cyclical nature of time. Her work has been shown extensively, most recently in two solo shows: VOTIVES: Sculptures by Nancy Azara, Carter Burden Gallery, New York, NY and High Chair and Other Works, A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of Spirit Taking Form: Making a Spiritual Practice of Making Art available through Red Wheel/Weiser. She teaches workshops and classes in art making and meditation.
WOODSTOCK
I love Woodstock for the mountains, its ever-changing sky and its friendly neighbors.
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Nancy Azara- Child's Chair, 2019- carved, painted and gilded wood, encaustic, steel- 42 x 110 x 14 in.
Nancy Azara- Cradle, 2020- painted and gilded wood, steel- 86 x 84 x 16 1/2 in.
JENNE CURRIE
WEBSITE: JENNEMCURRIE.COM
INSTAGRAM: CURRIESTUDIO
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Jenne was born and raised in Woodstock, NY. She is a multi-disciplinary artist who has worked in welded steel, wooden wall constructions, bronze casting, mixed media, painting and collage.
She has exhibited widely throughout the US in prestigious Manhattan galleries such as Salander O’Reilly Gallery, Seligmann Galleries, and at the National Academy of Design, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, as well as at institutions such as the Schenectady Museum, Columbus Museum, Silvermine Guild in New Canaan, Ct. and Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Ma.
Jenne has been a guest workshop instructor at the Art Students League of NY and is currently on the Exhibition Installation Committee at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum. At the Woodstock School of Art she is an instructor, is on their Board of Advisors and is the Exhibitions Manager in the WSA’s beautiful Robert H. Angeloch Gallery.
WOODSTOCK
I am a native Woodstocker, the daughter of two artists. After spending decades living in New York City as a working artist, I returned to this fascinating community primarily because of my deep roots here. What keeps me here is the proximity I can have to wild places and natural beauty while thriving in this vibrant cultural environment. Musicians, authors, visual artists and actors abound. With a well lit space to make my art, room to spread out, a less frenetic lifestyle and a supportive community of likeminded individuals where else could one possibly want to live !
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Sunburst II-40 x 32
Jenne Currie- Sunburst II- Acrylic on wood- 40 x 32 in.
Jenne Currie- Twilight, 2021- Acrylic on wood- 40 x 32 in.
DONALD ELDER
WEBSITE: DONALDELDER.COM
INSTAGRAM: DONALDELDERSTUDIO
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Donald Elder studied at the Art Students’ League, the New York Academy of Art, at Pratt and abroad in Italy. He was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and worked in Paris on an extended Edward G. McDowell Grant. In galleries in New York, Luxembourg and Switzerland, Elder’s work is held in public and private collections throughout the U.S. and in Europe.
After moving from New York to Woodstock in the late 1990s, his emphasis became abstract landscape, but he continued to paint abstracts. Whether abstract or abstract landscape, his work is tactile and absorbing, both styles offering unconventional gesture, and sophisticated tensions between the hard-edged and the romantic.
Elder is profoundly influenced by nature; even his entirely abstract works take their visual cue from actual forms in nature, with phenomenon, texture, color and juxtapositions becoming abstracted and impressionistic through shifts in perspective.
He’s made Woodstock his home for decades, drawing inspiration from majestic mountains and wild forests of the Hudson Valley and the gardens he’s created around his home and studio. Elder has been represented for three decades by Elena Zang Gallery in Shady, NY.
WOODSTOCK
My partner and I visited Woodstock and the surrounding area on many occasions to visit friends.
When the time came and we decided to purchase a weekend home this area was the most logical place to look.We loved the Hudson Valley, it’s unique character, it’s history of art, it’s beauty, and the people.Thus it became our sense of place. It has remained my home and creative place for many years now.
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Donald Elder- Untitled- diptych oil on canvas- 40 x 60 in.
Donald Elder- Untitled- oil on paper 34 1/2 x 43 1/2 in.
YALE EPSTEIN
WEBSITE: YALEEPSTEIN.COM
INSTAGRAM: YALEEPSTEIN
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
A native of New Haven Connecticut, Yale Epstein matured as an artist in postwar New York City, experiencing its lively diversity of culture, and being enriched by his interactions with his artist peers. Among his teachers, were Ad Reinhardt ,Marc Rothko, Carl Holty, Ilya Bolotovsky, Phillip Pearlstein, Hans Hofmann, and Edwin Dickinson. In 1988 he relocated to Woodstock, NY. Yale has had 72 solo exhibitions in galleries in the US, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Hong Kong and was invited to exhibit in several significant international exhibitions. He has completed numerous commissioned works in the US, China, and Taiwan, and is in the collections of major domestic and international corporations, and numerous private collections. Mr. Epstein's work in public collections includes The National Gallery of Art, DC, The Biblioteque' National in Paris, The Brooklyn Museum, China World Trade Center, Beijing, The Pew Charitable Trust, The City of Chicago, US State Department, The Library of Congress, and Yale University. Yale’s teaching career included Brooklyn College, The Brooklyn Museum Art School, Pratt Institute, and The School of Visual Arts in New York City. He was also selected for a residency in the Visiting Artist/ Scholar Program at the American Academy in Rome, and is a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner and The Foundation of Contemporary Art.
WOODSTOCK
Some thirty years ago I desperately needed the peace to avail myself access to my own interior space. Woodstock provided that. I had the opportunity to create a studio and home that allowed me the physical space to be reflective and creative, away from the all -tofamiliar, but ultimately overly scheduled demands of the city. I did miss the close kinship that I had with some of the downtown artists in NYC, but I did have a few previous friendships with other artists and gallerists here in this area as well. I appreciate the scale of this town, and the nature surrounding us, and I value some wonderful friendships that I have in my life here. Fortunately, the digital age allows me to maintain the level of professional activity that I require as well, so It is a beautiful balance that I so appreciate.
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Yale Epstein- Story Dance- Acrylic, Ink- 38 x 48 in.
Yale Epstein- East/West- oil, wax, chine colle' ink, varnishes- 27 x 24 in.
MARY FRANK
WEBSITE: MARYFRANKARTIST.COM/HOME.HTML INSTAGRAM: MARY ___ FRANK
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Mary Frank was born in London, England, in 1933. She moved to the United States with her family in 1940. In the 1950s she studied with Hans Hofmann and Max Beckmann. Frank works across disciplines as a sculptor, painter, photographer and gifted ceramic artist. She has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions, including a retrospective
at the Neuberger Museum in Purchase, New York in 1978. Her work is in the collection of major museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Jewish Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA, to name a few. Books on her and her work include Mary Frank by Hayden Herrera (1990), Mary Frank: Encounters by Linda Nochlan (2000), Experiences by Mary Frank (2002) and Pilgrimage: Photographs by Mary Frank (2002) among others. Frank lives and works in New York City and Woodstock, New York. She is represented by D. C. Moore in NYC www.dcmooregallery.com and Elena Zang Gallery elenazang.com in Woodstock.
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Mary Frank- Sky, 2011- archival pigment print- 16 x 21 in.
Mary Frank- This Tree, 2011- oil, acrylic, on board- 48 x 36 in.
HEATHER HUTCHISON
WEBSITE: HEATHERHUTCHINSON.COM
INSTAGRAM: ORIGINALHEATHERHUTCHINSON
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Heather Hutchison is self taught, and has developed and innovated methods and mediums to facilitate her artistic process over 35 years. Notably Hutchison's works incorporate ambient light as a primary material. She shares similar concerns with the Light and Space artists and has spent decades observing and contemplating nature. Hutchison's works capture the essence of the phenomena of light in natural and supernatural environments with an emphasis on the void. Each piece is a direct inquiry into the perceptual experience of color, light, and shadow Hutchison has been included in a number of museum exhibitions; the Brooklyn Museum, Montclair Art Museum, the Smithsonian, the Knoxville Museum of Art as well as being included in the 44th Biennial Exhibition of American Painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Several public collections hold her work including the Brooklyn Museum, the Hammer Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. Hutchison has received grants from the Gottlieb Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Anonymous Was A Woman, and NYFA.
WOODSTOCK
In 1996 my husband, Mark Kanter and I bought our home on the Woodstock side of Saugerties I had never before been to Woodstock, but had become friendly with Michael Lang after he visited my studio in DUMBO Brooklyn, he encouraged me to come up. Driving around, I recognized the Meads Mountain House I saw on the KTD grounds from a dream I had, that I awoke from with a grounded sense of having found a home. I was young, I looked around Woodstock and saw people that I would want to live around, people who I would want to raise a family around if I were to have a family, it reminded me of Mill Valley California in the 1970’s, however only two hours from my beloved NYC! I came down the hill and called Mark at work from a payphone near the green. He had no idea where I was, I told him that I was in Woodstock, his new home. Two weeks later we bought our rst home, we built our studios, we had a child, we raised him here, we’re still in the same house and I continue to meet people here that I want to share my life with
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Heather Hutchison - From Here- Mixed media, reclaimed Plexiglas, birch plywood box42 3/4 x 71 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.
PORTIA MUNSON
WEBSITE: PORTIAMUNSON.COM INSTAGRAM: PORTIAMUNSON
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Portia Munson is a visual artist working in a wide range of media, focusing primarily on environmental and cultural themes seen from a feminist perspective. Over the course of Munsons career, she has had over 20 solo exhibitions and her work has been included in many group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Currently The Garden, a large scale installation, is on view at 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, KY. Munson has three solo exhibitions opening in 2022 including Memento Mori at Pamela Salisbury, Hudson, NY; Flood at Art Omi, Ghent, NY and Bound Angel at PPOW in NYC. Some recent exhibitions include; Cross Pollination at Olana, Hudson, NY; Dime-Store Alchemy at the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, and Spectrum at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, NY; Flood at Oregon Contemporary in Portland, OR; Her Room Her World at Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, CA; The Garden at PPOW Gallery, NYC; and Color Forms at Mass MOCA in North Adams, MA. Her public works include Pink Projects with Art Production Fund at Rockefeller Center, NYC; Art in the Terminal at the Albany Airport, Albany NY; MTA Arts for Transit installation at Bryant Park MTA Station, NYC; and a permanent Metropolitan Transit Authority installation in Brooklyn, New York. Munson was educated at Cooper Union in NYC, and at Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of Art, NJ. She also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME. She has been awarded residencies at institutions including Civitella Ranieri, Umbertide, Italy; MacDowell Colony for the Arts, Peterborough, NH; Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY. Munson was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2019. Munson's work has been the subject of numerous articles and reviews; publications include The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, The Art Newspaper, Frieze
Magazine, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, VICE/Creators Project, and Bust Magazine. Portia Munson lives and works in Catskill, New York. She has been represented by PPOW Gallery in New York since 2005.
WOODSTOCK
I grew up visiting the Catskills with my family, staying at a small family farm not far from Woodstock. During those visits I fell in love with the area, the magic of walking in the woods, swimming in streams and waterfalls, the color of the dirt, the nature sounds at night, the wildlife…. and the feeling of history. I knew I wanted to eventually live here. In the early 1990’s I moved to the Catskills from NYC with my partner, Jared Handelsman; we raised our children here, relocated a new world Dutch barn to be our studios, made gardens and art. It’s a place that historically and continually calls to and inspires artists.
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Portia Munson- Pink Project: Table, 2016- 44 x 66 inches, pigmented ink on Hahnemuhle paper, Edition 1/3
Pink Project: Table is made up of thousands of discarded products all produced in the color pink, arranged on a large skirted table.
Portia Munson- Purse, 2017- oil on linen- 15 x 13 in.
JUDY PFAFF
WEBSITE: JUDYPFAFFSTUDIO.COM
INSTAGRAM: JUDY.PFAFF
BIOGRAPHY WOODSTOCK
Often cited as a pioneer of installation-art and contributor to the Pattern and Decoration Movement (P&D), Judy Pfaff has created work that spans disciplines from painting to printmaking and sculpture to installation. Born in London in 1946, Pfaff received a BFA from Washington University Saint Louis (1971) and an MFA from Yale University (1973) where she studied with Al Held. She exhibited work in the Whitney Biennials of 1975, 1981, and 1987, and represented the United States in the 1998 Sao Paulo Bienal. Her pieces reside in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. She is currently represented by the Miles McEnery and Accola Griefen galleries in New York and has been previously represented by Holly Solomon, Carl Solway and Susanne Hilberry. She is the recipient of many awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center (2014), the MacArthur Foundation Award (2004), and the Guggenheim Fellowship (1983). Pfaff lives and works in Tivoli, New York.
Except From “Upstate Diary: Issue #8” Interview by James Barron
JB - Even though there are a lot of urban elements in your work, it seems to me that you need the landscape and the country.
JP - Well, now I do. But when I lived in New York City I thought my work was quite urban. Then, when I moved to Brooklyn, it got a little suburban. And when I first came upstate I lived in a tugboat factory and I swear the work got almost Zen-like. And I was just watching the river go by. So here, now, in that greenhouse, occasionally I’ll think, ‘Well, it’s time to clear out all those dead leaves.’ And then I got this inventory of these dead leaves that curl in a very particular way. That particular shape reminds me of a philodendron, this thing that has a particular beauty, dead or alive.
JP on Chinatown, NYC. Relative to Artwork of the same name: Maybe because of my upbringing — there was no house, there was no home — most of the time, I dreamt of traveling. In New York, going to Chinatown is always like my vacation. It’s like going to another world. I love its texture. And I don’t know if you notice, but there’s a lot of shit in those places.
New Promo Image / Headshot Photo credit: Peter Aaron / OTTOClick
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Here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
Judy
- Beaufort Scale, 2008- Japanese paper, Hosho, joss, newsprint, coffee filters, magazines, origami, fishing floats, wire, shellac, dye, ink, encaustic, acrylic- 95.5 x 49 x 5.75 in.
Pfaff
Judy Pfaff - Chinatown, 2016- photographic digital prints, plastic fruit, imitation jade, wire85 x 36 in.
JOAN SNYDER
WEBSITE: JOANSNYDER.NET INSTAGRAM: JOAN SNYDER ART
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Snyder's works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum, The Jewish Museum, The National Gallery, Guggenheim Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Phillips Collection, Tate Modern among many others. Her early works were included in the 1973 and 1981 Whitney Biennials and the 1975 Corcoran Biennial. More recent museum exhibitions include Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (2018-20), Art After Stonewall: 1969-1989, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, NY (201920), Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Met Breuer, NY (2016), Dancing with the Dark: Prints by Joan Snyder 1963-2010, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, NJ (2011); and Joan Snyder: A Painting Survey, 19692005, The Jewish Museum, NY (2005).
In 2022, Snyder had two solo exhibitions To Become A Painting, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, NY and A Perspective, 1968-2017, Frieze New York, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, NY. She and her daughter had a two person exhibition It’s All Personal, Joan Snyder & Molly Snyder-Fink, Kentler International Drawing Space, NY. Other recent solo exhibitions include Silk & Song, Galerie Haas, Zürich (2021), The Summer Becomes a Room, Canada Gallery, NY (2020), and Rosebuds & Rivers, Blain|Southern, London (2019). Snyder's works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum, The Jewish Museum, The National Gallery, Guggenheim Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Phillips Collection, Tate Modern among many others.
WOODSTOCK
In the late 80's I was living full time in Eastport L.I. with Molly, my 8 year old daughter...having recently left my loft on Canal & Mulberry Street. The landscape surrounding our house was perfect for me, bean fields and weed fields...the schools much less than perfect. Maggie Cammer, who lived in the city but also had a glorified log cabin in Willow, came into my life. Took a few years but Molly and I migrated to the cabin in Willow for the summers...with a small out building as a studio...which had no plumbing, no heat and a bit of electricity, a wire!
I loved the deep dark ponds and tall pines (totems) that surrounded the house...and quickly incorporated all of that mystery into my work. It's been many years now...we've loved being here as part of the community and its beauty, the mountains, the sky, the town, the coolness of the mountains.
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Joan Snyder- Oh Elena, 2020,- oil, acrylic, rose stems, leaves, glitter on canvas- 54 x 72 in.
Joan Snyder- Small Alter, 2016- oil, acrylic, pastel, dried flowers, rosebuds on canvas- 46 x 40 in.
HONGNIAN ZHANG
WEBSITE: HONGNIANZHANG.COM
INSTAGRAM: ZHANGHONGNIAN
Click here to watch Woodstock Masters Interview
BIOGRAPHY
Hongnian Zhang will be interviewed by James Cox on Zoom. A brief Q&A with the audience will conclude the approximately 50-minute talk. The event will continue the Woodstock Masters series of artist interviews that, along with author talks and panel discussions, fall under the collective title Byrdcliffe Forum.
Hongnian Zhang is a Chinese American realism painter, whose works are beloved in both America and China.
His formal artistic training was at China’s highly selective Central Art Academy. Immediately afterwards, he was sent to the countryside to endure four years of hard labor as “Reeducation” during the Cultural Revolution.
His art career began when he returned to Beijing in 1974 and was selected to join the Beijing Fine Art Academy. He soon became a rising star with paintings that caught the public’s attention and heart. He was a leader of the “Scar Art” movement. Three of his works were acquired by China’s National Art Museum for their permanent collection.
He moved to America in 1985. In 1986 he was in the first show introducing Chinese oil painting to the West. “Realism from China” at Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City attracted national attention.
Over the years his subject matter has expanded to include contemporary life in America, and large-scale history paintings. Several of his Chinese history paintings have been featured in National Geographic Magazine. He recently painted the mural “The Travels of Marco Polo” for China’s National Museum in Beijing.
Zhang and his wife, the artist Lois Woolley, co-wrote The Yin Yang of Painting, which presents his methods and philosophy of painting.
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Zhang Hong Nian - Song of the Flower Children - 48 x 54 in.
Zhang Hong Nian - New York Symphony, 48 x 54 in.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The following are the many individuals and organizations who assisted in the assembly and organizing of this exhibition:
My fellow Byrdcliffe Forum committee members: Margie Greve, Holly George-Warren, Rachel Jackson, Ken Wenger and Sylvia Leonard Wolf.
Members and leadership of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild exhibitions and programming committees during the period 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Exhibition Directors including Ursula Morgan and her predecessor, Karlyn Benson.
Judith Kerman who was the primary volunteer Zoom operator for the majority of the ten talks. And Heather Ohlson who assisted with many of the Zooms.
My project assistant, Abby Herman, a student at SUNY New Paltz and assistant at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.
Jen Dragon for assistance with the Issuu.com platform.
Susanna Ronner for her graphic design work.
Video production expert, Michael Nelson, who was hired to videotape and edit Mary Frank and Jenne Currie.
As well as: Lois Woolley
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