Trying to Inspire

Painting by
Kseniya Konovalova

It’s the time of year, where once again as we prepare for the Hudson Valley Scholastic Art Awards. At last year’s ceremony 38 Gold and 46 Silver Key Awards were given to many extremely talented art students ranging from grades 7 to 12. With 84 Keys in total and many, many Honorable Mentions it was great to see who some of Hudson Valley’s future artists are, and to see the great variety in art work was remarkable. As a previous Silver Key award winner, I would like to encourage everyone to sign-up and submit this upcoming October. I can speak from experience when I say the Hudson Valley Scholastic Art Awards can open many doors to great opportunities. The art awards were actually also a great turning point for me. Thanks to many very impressive speakers, the award ceremony had made a few doubtful minds, open-up to the possibility that I could use my art work, something I love, as a career and live a happy and successful life doing so. Now as I sit inside of the Orange County Arts Council, I look back to one really spectacular night, where I got to walk on stage and receive an award I really didn't intend on receiving at all, and if it wasn't for my experience with the Hudson Valley Scholastic Art Awards and the help of a great teacher, I know for sure I would have never gotten the chance to meet Ms. Linn and receive the chance to work in such a beautiful, comfortable atmosphere as her new student intern.



I encourage all students, whether they are submitting or not. To express them self using what we all love, Art. Whether it is from creating some doodles in a sketchbook to painting the next greatest master piece, get out there and do it.

The Importance of Networking for Artists

Tomorrow July 28, from 7-9PM there will be a workshop at the Orange County Arts Council on Networking and Collaboration. You can learn more about that here.

You might look at this and wonder why you would ever attend. Businesses network, artists shouldn't have to. For an artist, perserverance and hard work towards their craft should be enough. But, as I'm sure many of you know, this is not the case. In order to meet clients and get jobs, artists have to be in the right place with the right people at the right time; something that, with the right networking, does not have to be an accident.

Networking can also help artists with business problems, that they might not know how to solve. When you expand your contact list, you're also expanding your knowledge base. Knowing who to contact when a problem arises can help you as an artist tremendously.

image from rachel-levy

Janice Valentino, the facilitator for Tuesday's workshop, knows the importance of networking. As Director of Marketing for Hospice of Orange & Sullivan Counties Inc., she has to use networking in her job every day.

Part of the "What Every Artist Wants to Know but is Afraid to Ask" series of workshops, Networking and Collaboration gives you skills for the future of your business as an artist.

More than an Illustrator

On July 31st, from 1-430pm, there will be an Opening Reception at the Vet Center in Middletown for an exhibition, showing artwork by the late John Gould. You can read all about that here.

But John Gould was more than just an artist and a consultant, he was also a teacher. In 1957 John Gould established the Bethlehem Art Gallery and Art School, so other artists could display their work, and so he had a place to continue to teach younger artists. He traveled America as a lecturer, teaching all things art-related (although he particularly loved to lecture about oriental painting). His sons are continuing his legacy, keeping the Bethlehem Art Gallery open, and having art classes avaliable all year round. They also display their father's work, his beautiful paintings of our Hudson Valley landscape,






the many trains he painted while working as a consultant to the Locomotive Division of General Electric,





and his illustrations- the one's that showed the United States of America in wartime through his eyes.







We are so happy to have have brought together a group of paintings for this Art for Vets show that span the 70 year career of artist Gould, and hope you can join us to see the art that John Gould created through the course of his long, full life.

First Post to Us Joining the 21st Century

Well welcome to the 21st century. The Arts Council has moved up the food chain and is now facebooking, twittering, blogging and, lord knows, what else. What do you give two 17-year old interns to do on a slow day? Turn them loose on the internet, what else. Having attended several workshops on Social Networking, I knew it was important that the Orange County Arts Council have a profile in this arena. Now granted I have a Facebook page and have connected with a few old friends (the operative word being old), but I was no where near ready to seek out fans, post photos, link all the entities, etc. But with the help of my two interns...Can we build it? Yes, we can. Although Leandra will be leaving me in September, Sarah will be staying around for another year and I fully intend on "exploiting" her services in keeping my tweets fresh and my blog witty.

For all who haven't visited us yet- this is a photo of our Sugar Loaf office.