SpringKleaning

l-r: Paul Smart, Sparrow, Robert The, Brian Wallace, Christina Varga, Benjamin Krevolin,
Norm Magnusson and Tom Roe
On September 14, 2008, Van Brunt Gallery hosted a panel talk examined the state of culture in the Hudson Valley.
The conversation turned toward the difficulty of developing audience for the various venues and events up and down the valley - a fairly universal lament regardless of geographic location. The other major component of the talk rested on the particular challenge presented by the physical and physchological characteristics of the Hudson Valley which has had the effect of forming art communities up and down the valley that are largely isolated from one another.
I've been interested in finding out more about what's going on in the region, art-wise, but given my various constraints of schedule, I certainly don't make it out of town much less, out of the house. And although this blog was started as a way to talk about and share the goings on of artists in Beacon, nothing develops in isolation, and I've certainly tended to refer to items within the broader world - art and otherwise- that inform my perception of items that are closer to home.
I've long been meaning to clean up the blog for a while, and the time has come. This week I'll update it to the newer blogger platform and refresh the pertinent links. And, in the interest of greater regional connectivity, I welcome suggestions for links to regional artist and art venue websites. I expect links of a more Beacon-centric nature will remain in the sidebar including Beacon galleries and artist websites. I may create specific posts that will list venue and artist sites by generalized city/town locations in the HV. My goal is to maintain the links in some sort of context, but given that contexts can shift, such can be problemmatic. For instance, an artist may work in various media, making a medium based categorization irrelevant, but is some vague sorting not better than having to troll blindly through a list of artists until one trips upon a type of work that one finds interesting?
I'm open to suggestions....I'd like this site to serve as a resource - and a place to share. So if there's a manner in which certain information can be formatted in a more effective way, let hear your thoughts.
When I started this blog, there was nary any place to find updated listing of art events and exhibits in Beacon, and there was oddly very little ability to know what your neighbor artists were up to. I wanted to inform the community of such activities of its members as much as promote those activities to the outside world. Now, there are many more online sources for updates on local art events, but they can be scattered. What is certainly lacking is a form of sharing items of local art interest that is anything other than simple event promotion. My capacity to go deep is truncated by the competing voices in my head, but if nothing else, I try to share a sense my experience of what's going on, and eventually, I'll come back to certain items with a little more introspection somewhere down the line. I usually need time to digest things...(that's why I'm just now mentioning a discussion that happened back in Sept.)
So, to recap: changes are coming to MAYKR....not big ones, just little ones, and in the process, things will look a little different, perhaps...a little vacant, perhaps. I promise to add links to all of those artists have have been patiently waiting.....And, in time, I plan to go back and lable all of the old posts from years past, increasing your searchable pleasure.

If you have Hudson Valley area art links that you think are worth sharing, or favorite art oriented resource or blog, regardless of geographic location, shoot me an email and I'll see about getting those included. Keep in mind, this is not a career for me, just a mild and distracting addiction, so I can only promise so much...
Finally, there is a MAYKR group on Facebook. Feel free to join and make use of that as you will for sharing information on upcoming art projects, or to instigate some collaborative spirit. In fact, posting items there would be an easy way to feed me things for posting here.