Vote on the sale of old high school to be held March 4.

On March 4, Beacon residents will be asked to vote on whether or not to give the Beacon City School District permission to sell the old high school building - again. The building reverted back to the school district at the end of 2006 after the BCF filed for bankruptcy. An affirmative vote by the residents will allow the district to entertain any potential offers to purchase the property. Word has it that there have been parties interested in acquiring the building, but I don't know if there is a current offer on the table. Last week the Poughkeepsie Journal announced the upcoming vote and stated that proceeds from an eventual sale, after expenses, will be used to reduce the tax levy.

Residents can vote on the sale of the old Beacon High School from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. March 4. Polls will be at Beacon High School, Glenham Elementary School, Chelsea Firehouse and the district bus garage. The school district covers the City of Beacon and portions of the towns of Fishkill and Wappinger. Call 845-838-6900 ext. 2017.

In June 2002, voters approved the sale of the high school to Terminal Associates for the creation of the Decorative Arts and Design Institute. Plans for that project never came to fruition, and eventually, under the management of the Beacon Cultural Foundation, the building was opened as artist studios in 2003.

Update: On March 5th, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported the vote results: 496 to 41 to allow the BCSD to sell the building.

March 1 opening @ VanBrunt Gallery

VanBrunt Gallery will be opening a new set of exhibits on Saturday, March 1. Work by Thomas Huber, Ed Smith and Michael Zansky will be on exhibit at the gallery through March 31. An opening reception will be held from 6-9pm.

Opening tonight: Grey Zeien, Bill Dane at Garrison Art Center

The Garrison Art Center will be hosting an opening reception for exhibits of paintings by Grey Zeien and photography by Bill Dane.

The reception runs tonight from 5-8pm.

True North Theatre Reading, Feb 15 & 16

True North Theatre will be presenting a reading of Adam Bok's play "The Typographer's Dream" directed by Chris Grabowski.
with:
Maia Guest, Lynn Hawley, John Plummer
"For anyone who's ever wondered where they begin and their work ends, The Typographer's Dream is a smart comedy in which a typographer, a geographer, and a stenographer obsess over their professions and identities--a story of borders, letters, fonts, and friendships."
Friday, February 15th @ 730
Saturday, February 16th @ 730
TrueNorth Theatre Project@
The Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries
199 Main Street
Beacon, NY

Suggested donation. No reservations

"News to Art" Panel Discussion at Fovea Exhibitions, Feb 16 4pm

Fovea Exhibitions Beacon Gallery will be hosting a panel discussion at 4pm on Saturday, February 16.

Robert Stevens, faculty from the School of Visual Arts and former Time
Magazine photo editor moderates a discussion contextualizing the journey of the
function of a photograph from news to art. Guests include media and photography
professionals including Danielle Jackson, Cultural projects director at Magnum
photo agency, magazine editors and curators.

Back to one

I imagine that Muddy Cup's sales will get a bump as Cthonic Clash Coffeehouse closed this week after five years.
I'm not a coffee drinker, and I didn't hang out there much, but I would stop in occasionally for a rootbeer and a cookie.

Design Dialogues Panel Discussion at Ulster CC., Feb 12, 7pm

Ulster Community College in Stone Ridge will be hosting a panel discussion tomorrow evening at 7pm at the Vanderlyn Hall, Rm 203. The panel is being held in conjunction with the exhibit Design Dialogues on view at the Muroff Kotler Visual Arts Gallery through Feb 23 and will discuss the influence of design on society.

The panel discussion, which will be hosted by the exhibition's curator, Sean Nixon, brings together designers from the fields of architecture, print media, furniture, exhibition and industrial design. The members of the panel include the architect Michael McDonough of Michael McDonough Architecture, Woody Pirtle, print and graphic designer and consultant of Woody Pirtle Design, Inc., Fred Spector,
industrial designer of furniture, lighting and tabletop ware representing Frederic Spector Design Studio, Serena Furman, an exhibition designer with Christopher Chadbourne & Associates and the industrial designers, Robert and Granger Moorhead, of Morrehead and Moorhead.

For more information about the Panel Discussion, contact Sean Nixon at nixons@sunyulster.edu.

Bring out your old magazines & illustrated books for the sake of art

Chris Jones, Bike, 2007, Images and glue,
97cm X 200cm X 67cm

photo from HVCCA.com

London based artist Chris Jones begins a three month residency at HVCCA this week. I met Jones this evening after the panel discussion held at the museum. He creates sculptural representations of animals, and objects using imagery from magazines, catalogues, illustrated books and the like and he needs to amass a great deal of such items to from which to build his pieces.

If you have any old magazines, or illustrated books you are looking to get rid of, instead of tossing them in the trash, let's see if we can some magic with them. Just email me (info(at)maykr.com) and we'll see if we can get a bunch of material down to him.

Feb 9, 2008: Second Saturday revisited in pictures

A definition of the deal at Hermitage.

Our Saturday evening started off when Todd Spire stopped by for dinner. We haven't seen Todd much lately and we had an enoyable time reminiscing about the bounty of rapscallions and eccentrics who have come and gone and come and stayed the recent history of the true life embodiment of Northern Exposure that is Beacon, NY.

We as usual, we weren't able to make it everywhere last night, and we called it a night well before the Next Step party, but I'm sure Open Space's blog will have images of the fete when they recover from it. Below are images of what we were able to get to.

Above and below: bau's group show of members and friends.


Erica Hauser has set up shop for one week and one week only to service all of your valentine's day needs with a selection of cookies, cupcakes and lovely art items by a bevy of friends. The temporary shop is in Go North's former space at 469 Main, and will be open 3-6pm, and bit later on VD eve.Jennifer Mackewiecz and Margaret McDuffy at Dan McCormack's exhibit at Go North.

The youngest of the Youngs at Go North.

Above and below: Matt Simone's work at Zahra Studio.Lights out at VanBrunt Gallery. Although you may not see it in this shot through the window, there was a sizeable crowd viewing David Rothenberg's "Why Birds Sing."

It was a night of moving pictures as VanBrunt, Open Space, and Hermitage all had film or video screenings.

Collabortive work by Jon Beacham and Kensee Duffy at Hermitage.

K. Duffy's typed manuscript of Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury."

Jon Beacham queing up the film for the screening of one of his silent shorts.

Above and below: awaiting the intimate screening at Hermitage. The ever dapper Robert Brush below.

Jeff Caramanga, who will be exhibiting at Go North in March, was out rehearsing for the Hat Parade coming up in May. Todd Spire is prancing about in the rear.

Second Saturday February 9

It's late and I just want to make a few notes on goings on in Beacon on Saturday, in case I'm not able to do so later in the week.

First of all, Dia:Beacon will be hosting its Dutchess County Community Free Day on Saturday. Residents of Dutchess County will be able to visit the musum for free by providing proof of residency.

Openings that I'm aware of:

Dan McCormack's photography at Go North 6-9pm
Matt Simone at Zahra's Studio 6-9pm
bCOOP - various artists and music 6-10
Next Step Second Saturday After Party at the Piggy Bank. Brought to all of us by Open Space (which will be closed for the month of Feb), Beacon Art Supply and the Piggy Bank.
VanBrunt Gallery will be holding an opening for an Abstract? group show in the back room.
Hermitage has an opening for "Kulan" a collaborative exhibit by Jon Beacham and K. Duffy.
bau is opening "With a little help from our friends" a group show of members and their friends.
River Winds is opening an exhibit of landscape paintings by Will Kefauver


More detailed information coming soon, if I can get to it.

The Long Un-winding Road

It had been a while since I last saw the phenomenon, but as I made a quick run to Key Food yesterday for some oil to fry up my Mama's Best Ever Onion Rings (tm) for the Super Bowl, I witnessed it again: A threesome of visitors, Italians by my estimation, had made their way up to Main St. from Dia and had gotten to that nearly-midway point in the street's considerable length where many, sensing nothing else worth seeing, turn back. (I consider this to be Beacon's version of the Horse Latitudes -the point where one's momentum lags after already walking for 20 minutes and it's not clear that you'll find anything else of interest along this path.) When I noticed them, their pace had already become visably slow and pointless. Even from behind you could see what they were thinking, as if illustrated by real life thought bubbles; "Is this all there is?"
I left the store and mailed some postcards behind the post office and on my way back I saw that the small group had indeed turned around, and at an increased pace were beatin' feet back to the train station never knowing of all the charms of Main Street's East End.

Perhaps it really is the expectation of a destination and not the love of the journey that drives the soul forward. Just keep in mind that when you finally get there, you may have a long way back to the train.