Artists & Inspiration Series

Join Laura Rice, ADKX Chief Curator, for a virtual tour of the artists and artwork that will be featured in the Adirondack Experience’s newest exhibition Artists & Inspiration in the Wild. Opening in July, this permanent exhibition will include works never before seen at the museum and those that are among the museum’s most treasured. From a centuries’ old potsherd found near Long Lake to A.F. Tait’s 1862 masterpiece A Good Time Coming to a bracelet made in 2022, Artists & Inspiration will showcase the museum’s extensive and unparalleled collection of Adirondack art.

Laura Rice received an MA in American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She has served as Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Maryland Historical Society, Curator of the Clymer Museum of Art, Educator at the Kent Delord House, and has been at the Adirondack Experience since 2003 where she is Chief Curator.

Harold Weston, American modernist painter and social activist, was dubbed the “Thoreau of the Adirondacks” and is known for his thickly painted, expressionist views of the Adirondacks from the 1920s. Katie Wood Kirchhoff, curator at Shelburne Museum, will explore Weston’s paintings and journals while considering ways his art and practice connected the natural world to the boundless freedom of the human spirit.

Katie Wood Kirchhoff is the curator of pre-1945 American fine, decorative, and folk arts at Shelburne Museum. Kirchhoff received her BA in Art History from Smith College, her MA from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and her PhD in Art History from the University of Delaware. She has previously held positions at institutions including the American Philosophical Society, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. Since arriving at Shelburne in 2016, Katie has researched, written about, and created exhibitions grounded in Shelburne’s extensive collections of American material culture, with special emphasis on furniture, textiles, paintings, and works on paper. Her most recent exhibition and publication, Luigi Lucioni: Modern Light, examines the work of Italian-American twentieth-century modernist Luigi Lucioni.

The Adirondack chair is unrivaled in representing the region to the world beyond the Blue Line. Three artists—Tim Fortune, Barry Lobdell, and Jonathan Sweet—have all created unique works inspired by this iconic piece of furniture. Yet as active artists, Fortune, Lobdell, and Sweet work in entirely different mediums and subscribe to very different styles. Join us from the comfort of your own chair for an exploration of the work and creativity of these three artists.

Timothy Fortune’swork has been infused by his experiences growing up in the Adirondacks. He completed Bachelor and Master degrees in art while studying in Italy, Philadelphia, and New York City.  After moving to south Florida, he opened a studio and gallery and also taught art for 16 years.  Returning to his hometown of Saranac Lake in 1988, he opened The Small Fortune Studio and Gallery on Main Street where he paints intimate images of the Adirondacks in watercolor and oil, and continues to foster the vibrant arts community in the village.

Barry Lobdell lives in Saranac Lake, where he is a longtime member of the Adirondack Artists Guild. His work is always on display there and is regularly part of many competitions in the area. He was the first recipient of the Barbara Johnson Parnass Art in Public Spaces Program Prize in Saranac Lake in 2003. In the same year, he won the Best in Show/Purchase Prize in the North Country Regional Juried Art Show at the Gibson Gallery in Potsdam, NY. He won First Prize for Photography in the 2010 Adirondack Life Juried Exhibition at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, a competition in which he won Second Prize in 2003 and the Best in Show award in 1997. He claimed Best in Show in the Northwind Fine Arts Gallery’s Juried show in 2014.

Jonathan Sweet is a contemporary American furniture artist. Growing up in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, he is inspired by the woodlands around him. He thrives on creating one of a kind custom wood furnishings and interiors. He enjoys studying scale and proportions that are pleasing to the eye. He invites an observer to dream or provoke interesting conversation. Sweet creates excitement and calls attention to his unique style!

Join us for a conversation with folklorist Todd DeGarmo, founding director of The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls, NY. This award-winning program, celebrating its 30th year in 2023, is known for its research collections, gallery exhibitions, and innovative public programming. DeGarmo will offer insights into The Folklife Center’s collections as well explore the significance of ADKX’s own material culture, including baskets, snowshoes, fungus art, fishing lures and flies, and quilts.

Todd DeGarmo cut his professional teeth at the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife in the mid-1980s before returning to eastern upstate New York as a public sector folklorist. He has served as President of the Board at New York Folklore, and for the past 10 years has been the Editor of Voices: Journal of New York Folklore. He’s been a grants reviewer for the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, and the Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services for New York. He’s taught in a variety of settings, including corporate Tokyo, Skidmore and Empire State Colleges, Massachusetts Audubon, and BOCES Gifted and Talented. Todd is a graduate of Colgate University, received an M.A. in Anthropology from SUNY Albany, and is A.B.D in American Studies with Folklife emphasis at George Washington University.

The Adirondacks have long been a fertile ground for creativity across artistic disciplines. From painters to writers to dancers, the region is blossoming with intense productivity and thoughtful and creative collaborations. At the same time, both artists and the organizations that bring their works into the public sphere are navigating enduring effects of the pandemic, changing social, political, and environmental climates, and lingering economic uncertainty. In this moderated discussion, both artists and leaders of arts organizations will come together in a conversation about arts in the region today.

George Cordes (Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts)

Ed Donnelly (Tupper Arts)

Tiffany Rea-Fisher (EMERGE125)

Tony Kostecki (Seagle Festival)

James Lemons (Lake Placid Center for the Arts)

Nathalie Thill (Adirondack Center for Writing)

Catherine Underhill (View Arts)

Moderator: Mitch Teich (North Country Public Radio)

In 1862, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait painted A Good Time Coming, a composition of the painter’s own fishing and shooting shanty on Constable Point in Raquette Lake. The now iconic painting was reproduced as a colored chromolithograph by the printmaker Currier & Ives and has since captured the imagination of generations of sporting enthusiasts and artists. The painting remains a highlight of the Adirondack Experience’s art collection. Join Claudia Pfeiffer as she examines works by Tait and other sporting painters from the 19th to the 20th centuries in the Adirondack Experience’s collection. Artists such as Frederic Sackrider Remington, Philip Russell Goodwin, and Frederick Rondel captured the scenic landscape, abundant sport, and an American pastime that still resonates with hunters and anglers today.

Claudia Pfeiffer has been with the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM), in Middleburg, VA, since her position was underwritten by the George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Foundation in 2012. In addition to her administrative role as Deputy Director, her primary focus is the research, design, interpretation, writing, and installation of loan and permanent collection exhibitions for the fine art museum. Pfeiffer has curated over 30 exhibitions at NSLM; her projects include Munnings Out in the Open: The Open-Air Works of Alfred Munnings (English, 1878 – 1959), Clarice Smith: Power & Grace, The Chronicle of the Horse in Art, and Sidesaddle, 1690-1935. In 2020, her essay, “Ellen Emmet Rand: Artist and Equestrian” in the book, Ellen Emmet Rand: Gender Art and Business, was published by Bloomsbury Academic.

In the words of the late Harvey Kaiser, author of Great Camps of the Adirondacks: “There is a place for a claim that the architecture of the Adirondacks, especially as formulated in the evolution of the great camps, is a distinct style—the Adirondack Rustic Style.” In a panel discussion moderated by Jim Bodnar (formerly Principal, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), three architects will share how historic Adirondack building design has shaped their work in the region today. The panelists will share recent projects and design concepts, as well as buildings of the past from which they have drawn inspiration.

James L. Bodnar, and his wife Anne, who is the vice chair of the ADKX Board, have been spending their summers at Bartlett Carry on Upper Saranac Lake for 40 years. Jim is an architect who worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for 17 years in Washington, New York, and London before establishing his own practice 32 years ago. He has served on the Board of American Academy in Rome where he was a Fellow and President of its Alumni Association. Jim was previously the Chairman of the Sculpture Center in New York, and currently serves on the Board of the Upper Saranac Foundation.

Nils Luderowski spent his formative years in Stockholm, Sweden, where he studied mathematics, interior architecture, and furniture design. He undertook his formal education at Pratt Institute of Art & Design in Brooklyn, NY, where he incorporated American movements such as the Craftsman and Prairie styles into his developing aesthetic. Nils ran a design studio in New York City and taught at Parsons School of Design. In the mid-1990s, he relocated to Keene where he lives with his family. His work can be found dotting the many lakes, rivers, and mountains of the Adirondacks. Nils is a registered architect licensed in New York State and a member of The American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Michael Bird established Adirondack Design in 1984 with the ideal of preserving, enhancing, and continuing the tradition of Adirondack architecture, which began over a century ago. Adirondack Design strives to become the recognized authority on continuation and preservation of Adirondack architecture. Our technology is of the next century; our ambiance is of the past. Bird’s experience of living and owning a Great Camp and being intimately familiar with the lifestyle, as well as the maintenance involved, has engendered a unique sensitivity in his design and construction methods.

Richard Hanpeter was raised in the Adirondack village of North Creek. His practice represents a continuum of three generations devoted to fine furniture design and craftsmanship, then innovative general construction, on to architectural design. He has worked from Saranac Lake since 1984, integrating the many and varied historic styles of our Adirondack vernacular with more contemporary forms. He received a B.A. in Government and M.A. in American Studies at the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Architecture at the University of Illinois. Rich is a member of the American Institute of Architects, the International Associate of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Architectural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

An evening conversation with photographer J Henry Fair and naturalist Ed Kanze, moderated by NCPR’s Mitch Teich. ADKX’s 2022 seasonal exhibition Scarred Landscape features Fair’s monumental aerial photographs documenting human impact upon the Adirondack landscape; the writings of Ed Kanze complement the images. This highly visual program will expand upon the exhibition narrative and offer a thoughtful dialogue between photographer and naturalist as they talk about their work and what the future holds for the region’s fragile beauty.

Carl Heilman is an internationally published photographer and author who has been photographing the Adirondacks since 1975. He started climbing the High Peaks on a pair of handcrafted snowshoes in the 1970s and continues to explore and photograph the mountains and lakes, while pursuing his passion for portraying the unique beauty of the Adirondack Park –and sharing his decades of photography experience with others in his photography workshops and tours, coffee table books, and how-to photography books.

Author and naturalist Ed Kanze is a graduate of Middlebury College. His essays and articles have appeared in Adirondack Life, Audubon, Birder’s World, The Conservationist, Utne Reader, and many more. Ed has also published six books. His most recent, Adirondack: Life and Wildlife in the Wild, Wild East, is a memoir combining stories of nature with Ed’s lifelong connection to the Adirondacks and his family history in the region dating to the late 18th century. He lives with family on 18 acres along the Saranac River.

Mitch Teich has been the Station Manager at North Country Public Radio since July of 2019.  This is Mitch’s second stint in the North Country – he was a reporter at NCPR for two years in the 1990s, covering everything from the Ice Storm of ’98 to the impact power dams on the St. Lawrence River had on migrating eel populations.  In the time since, he served as news director at Arizona Public Radio in Flagstaff, and worked for 14 years as executive producer and co-host of the daily interview program at Milwaukee Public Radio.  He lives in Potsdam with his wife and two children, spends a lot of time taking pictures, and writes a weekly column on the “joys” of middle age for the NCPR website.

Renowned Adirondack photographer Carl Heilman’s goal has always been to recreate the feelings of place… to portray how special and unique a place is, and to evoke the sensations of being there at the time the photograph was created. In this highly visual program, Carl will share his inspiration drawn from the grandeur of the natural world and his search for spiritual times in the wilderness when light becomes magical, when “we are transformed by the simple power of beauty.”

Carl Heilman is an internationally published photographer and author who has been photographing the Adirondacks since 1975. He started climbing the High Peaks on a pair of handcrafted snowshoes in the 1970s and continues to explore and photograph the mountains and lakes, while pursuing his passion for portraying the unique beauty of the Adirondack Park –and sharing his decades of photography experience with others in his photography workshops and tours, coffee table books, and how-to photography books.

Bill Cross’ book Winslow Homer: American Passage is the definitive biography of an American Everyman who was the visual counterpart to Mark Twain in prose and Walt Whitman in poetry. In his presentation Bill will discuss the ways in which the Adirondacks became a place of salvation for Homer – where he discovered a sense of purpose and meaning that sustained him for the rest of his life.

Bill Cross is the author of Winslow Homer: American Passage, a biography of the American painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) that Farrar, Straus & Giroux will publish on April 12, 2022. In 2019, he curated Homer at the Beach, A Marine Painter’s Journey, 1869-1880, a nationally-renowned exhibition at the Cape Ann Museum (Gloucester, MA) revealing Homer’s formation as a marine artist. Bill is a graduate of Yale College, magna cum laude, and received an MBA at Harvard Business School.

This program is inspired by The Great Adirondack Pass, Painted on the Spot (Charles Ingham, 1837). Seeing paintings in the Adirondack Experience in the 1970s inspired artist Sandra Hildreth to find and paint some of the same locations. That led to a passion for plein air painting as she explored and then moved to the Adirondacks. This program will touch upon plein air works in the ADKX collection, and how contemporary artists like Hildreth connect with and draw inspiration from them.

Sandra Hildreth grew up in Wisconsin, has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Western Kentucky University; and taught high school art in northern New York for 31 years, retiring in 2001 and moving to Saranac Lake. She works full time as an artist, primarily doing plein air paintings of the Adirondacks as well as traveling and painting some of our National Parks in the west. She is a member of co-op galleries in Saranac Lake and Malone; exhibits in regional and national juried shows and created the nationally known Adirondack Plein Air Festival, held the third week of August in Saranac Lake. Her paintings can be seen at SandraHildreth.com and studio visits are welcome, by appointment. Her work is represented in the ADKX collection. (Artist photo credit: Gary Lee)

Artists have long incorporated the world around them in their works. Facing overwhelming social and environmental challenges, today’s artists give us a way to connect emotionally with weighty contemporary issues. From environmental damage and climate change to the pains of the pandemic to the worst of human nature inflicted through acts of racism and genocide, artists infuse their intimate feelings about significant matters in the works that emerge in public display. This program will feature three artists who are known for bringing contemporary issues into their creative works with beauty and tenderness.

Carrie Hill is Haudenosaunee from Akwesasne Mohawk Territory and owner of Chill Baskets. In 2014 Carrie left her position at the Mohawk School in Hogansburg, New York to pursue basket making full time. The tradition of weaving black ash splints and sweetgrass goes back many generations in Carrie’s family, and her first teacher was her aunt. Weaving felt natural to Carrie, and she fell in love with the entire process. She was soon creating her own unique pieces. Her work has been sent all over the world including an entire collection representing the Haudenosaunee People for the U.S. Embassy in Swaziland, Africa.

Susan Hoffer became interested in stories as a child, listening to her grandmother talk about growing up as an ethnic Gottscheer in what is now Slovenia. Susan’s interest in dislocation of Adirondack Park residents (she lives in Upper Jay near Lake Placid) grew from their conversations. While her work recalls and interrogates narrative images that have been around for centuries, they are crafted with a unique aesthetic. Hoffer has exhibited throughout the US with paintings in the permanent collection of the Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY, and the Adirondack Experience Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY.

Natasha Smoke Santiago grew up in Rochester and was brought up in the traditions of the Longhouse by a close-knit extended family. Her artistic talent blossomed early and was encouraged by family members, some of whom were also artist and artisans. In her early teens she returned to Akwesasne, her grandfathers’ homeland, joining a wave of returning emigrants, lost children returning to a now bright and prosperous Akwesasne. She works in many mediums, chronicling traditional Haudenosaunee culture, contemporary life, the miracle of pregnancy and the beauty of the natural world. Her art sustains her spiritually, emotionally, and financially as she builds for the future for her family.

Curators Laura Rice and Eleanor Harvey will explore the tradition of American landscape painting and consider how we see the land today, long after the time the scenes were memorialized by brushstrokes. Paintings from the Adirondacks of the 1800s and 1900s serve today as a powerful tool in measuring the health of the region’s natural resources. While confronting the reality of human effects on the environment, we still have it in us to look to natural beauty—the lakes and rivers, mountain peaks and thick forests—for both personal reflection and human aspiration.

Eleanor Jones Harvey is a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her research interests include eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art, notably landscape painting, southwestern abstraction and Texas art. Her most recent exhibition, Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture (2020), considers how deeply entwined the heralded naturalist’s ideas were with America’s emerging identity, grounded in an appreciation of the landscape. Dr. Harvey earned her Master’s degree and her PhD in art history at Yale University.

While many 19th-century American women drew, sketched, and even painted, few were able to become professional artists, and fewer still have their work in museum collections today. Why was visual art considered a ladylike pursuit, and yet an unsuitable career for women at the same time? How did some women surmount the historical obstacles to becoming artists? And why have even their success stories been largely forgotten? This talk will explore the lives and work of women who became landscape painters, portraitists, and commercial artists, from the mid-1800s through the Great Depression, especially those who found inspiration in the wilds of the Adirondacks.

Laura R. Prieto is the Alumni Chair in Public Humanities and a Professor of History at Simmons University in Boston. She researches and writes about women, gender, and race in American culture. Her first book, At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America, studies how women painters, sculptors, and illustrators created a professional identity for themselves in the face of exclusion. Her current research traces women’s transnational work and activism, within and across the overseas empire that the United States established in the Caribbean and Pacific.

All works shown created by Takeyce Walter

February is an exceptional month in artist Takeyce Walter’s life. Her family celebrates almost weekly birthdays, including her own. In 2014, the month became even more extraordinary when Walter decided to give herself the gift of time to create art daily. Each day, Takeyce produced one painting as an act to reinvigorate her love for art and honor her creative urge. That commitment and passion spurred subsequent annual Creative February months, the movement growing in popularity among artists and admirers across the country. Join Takeyce Walter live from her studio as she completes her final daily painting of Creative February 2022. You can see the pieces created so far on her Instagram profile: http://instagram.com/takeycewalter.

Takeyce Walter is an award winning contemporary American painter (born Jamaica) and art instructor, living and working in upstate New York. Driven to create from an early age, Walter has been producing art for as long as she can remember. Most recently, her focus has been on the natural landscape of her surroundings in the Northeast. Working with oil paint and pastels, Walter creates paintings that present the landscape in all its glory—flowing rivers, majestic skies, and picturesque lakes. There is a great sense of familiarity, tranquility, and reverence in each piece.

In addition to publishing her work online, Walter also exhibits in regional galleries in the Northeast, including the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, the Ticonderoga Arts Gallery, Saratoga Arts Gallery, and the Adirondack Experience. Her work has found homes in many private collections across the country and internationally, including local museum and hospital collections.

Image shown: East Coast to West Coast Survivors by Natasha Smoke Santiago, 2021 (2021.082.0001)

Prof. Stevens, a citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, is currently working on a book-length project dealing with the complicated issues around Native American nations, their histories, and their relationships with museums. While his focus is largely on Haudenosaunee (aka Iroquois) communities, he hopes this work will serve as a template for broader application amongst other Indigenous cultures and the museums in which they are represented by collections and exhibits. He considers the many challenges for museums in overcoming the legacy of misappropriation and misrepresentation of Indigenous cultures.  How can the two sides work with each other toward a mutually beneficial and more accurate depiction of the richness and complexity of Native societies? In his talk he will discuss the terms of the debate and some possible solutions for moving forward.

Professor Scott Manning Stevens is a native of what is now called New York State and is the Director of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Syracuse University.  Having earned his B.A. at Dartmouth and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard in literature, Dr. Stevens held positions at Arizona State University, SUNY at Buffalo, and Syracuse University.  He has published numerous articles and book chapters on Indigenous studies issues, particularly on material culture and museums.  He has received grants and fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is currently a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Painter and photographer William J. Stillman felt a deep connection to the Adirondacks. This talk will take a close look at Stillman’s camping trips to the late 1850s as part of the Philosophers’ Camp, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Louis Agassiz, as well as his solo trips, culminating in his extraordinary portfolio of photographic studies of the forest made in 1859.

Diane Waggoner is curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. She has contributed to several publications on photography and curated numerous exhibitions, including The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875 (2010) and East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography (2017). In 2020, she published the monograph, Lewis Carroll’s Photography and Modern Childhood (Princeton University Press).

In the mid nineteenth century United States, landscape painting flourished as an art form. Well-traveled painters celebrated the beauty and wonder of places like the Adirondacks, portraying its mountains and rivers as worthy of patriotic celebration. Meanwhile, their artistic success promoted the area as a touristic center. Both the growth of landscape tourism and landscape art were privileged pursuits in an era of racial division. This talk will consider the ways in which race factored into the American landscape. How did Blacks and whites interact in landscapes like the Adirondacks? How did African American artists who chose to pursue landscape painting deal with the limits of their mobility?

Maggie Cao is an assistant professor of art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a historian of eighteenth and nineteenth-century American art in a global context. Her first book, The End of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America, published in 2018, examined the fall of the landscape tradition in the face of geographic, economic, environmental change. She is now writing a book on American painting and overseas empire building in the nineteenth century.

Please join us for an evening with Dave Fadden. Dave will talk about his work as an artist, educator, and storyteller and how these roles together work to enlighten people to the culture and society of Native people in general and the Haudenosaunee more specifically. He will share how his work helps erase misconceptions and stereotypes about Indigenous people though depiction of Native people in historical and contemporary everyday settings and situations. Through Dave’s voice, storytelling relates cultural and historical notions in an entertaining way for all ages.

David Kanietakeron Fadden is a Mohawk storyteller and painter from Akwesasne. He has trained as an artist through school and under the guidance of his family—his father John who is an illustrator and painter, mother Elizabeth who is a sculptor and potter, and late grandfather Ray, who was a designer and founder of the Six Nations Indian Museum (now Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center) in Onchiota, New York.

In addition to being featured in countless publications and museum projects, his work has been exhibited throughout New York in Albany, the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, the Unison Arts & Learning Center in New Paltz, and the National Museum of American Indian, and in Canada at the Cornwall Regional Art Gallery, the Centre Interculturel Strathearn in Montreal, and Aboriginal Art Centre in Gatineau, Quebec.

Dealers are central players in the marketplace for Adirondack art, photography, rustic furniture, and other material. They help museums and private collectors build and refine their collections. They turn up masterpieces in unlikely places and shine the light on overlooked artists and whole categories of previously undervalued collectibles. Hear from two of the pros working in the field of Adirondack art and antiques–Christopher English and Robert Doyle. They will share some of their most unusual stories, including acquisitions and sales that have stood out for them over the course of their careers.

Christopher English is the Co-Owner of The Adirondack Store in Lake Placid, which recently opened an additional showroom in Tupper Lake. Christopher has spent his professional lifetime seeking and trading high-end art, antiques, and taxidermy. Before buying The Adirondack Store, Christopher and his partner Stephen Dori Shin founded and operated Antediluvian—an Antiques & Oddities store in Lake Placid. Today they place emphasis on highlighting the 60-plus-year-old Adirondack Store’s forgotten history, making special efforts to create future history.

Robert Doyle was the owner of the former rustic gallery Adirondack Antiques. In 1983, he worked with the Lake Placid Center for the Arts to put together an art show and sale featuring rustic furniture and Native American art. This show was the first time Adirondack furniture had been seen in an art gallery setting and sparked an interest in the rustic style. As the older pieces became harder to find and modern makers rose in prominence, Robert’s search shifted from furniture back to his early passion for antique Native American art.

Discover the imagination and passion behind the award-winning art of Carla and Babe Hemlock. From conception through process the Hemlocks’ exquisite expressions honor and celebrate their Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) values and traditions. In addition to a discussion of their creative processes, the Hemlocks will speak to the role of their work in confronting issues of sovereignty and initiating dialogue around environmental concerns. Curators Laura Rice (ADXX) and Colette Lemmon (Iroquois Museum) will join the Hemlocks in an exploration of the multi-faceted role of the arts in Haudenosaunee culture and the limitations of traditional categorizations of Indigenous art.

Carla Hemlock, Mohawk of Kahnawake, is a self-taught artist who works in textiles, beadwork, and mixed media. She has taken part in numerous group exhibitions in a wide range of venues including ‘Changing Hands 3’ at the Museum of Arts and Design NYC and ‘Native Fashion Now’ at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.  Internationally her work has exhibited in Kunstund Ausstellugshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn and the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, Germany.  Also toured Russia for the exhibition ‘Woven Together’. Her work can be found in many public institutions including the Smithsonian National Museum American Indian in Washington, DC, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Musee National des Beaux Arts du Quebec.

Donald ‘Babe’ Hemlock, Mohawk of Kahnawake, is a self-taught artist who works in woodworking, painting, and cradleboards. He has taken part in group exhibitions in a wide range of venues, including ‘Changing Hands 3’ at the Museum of Arts and Design NYC and the Iroquois Museum at Howes Cave, NY, where he and his wife Carla received the ‘Excellence in Iroquois Arts Award’.  Internationally his work has been exhibited in Kunstund Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublic Deutschland Bonn and the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, Germany.  His work can be found in many public collections including the Smithsonian National Museum American Indian in Washington, DC, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas, and the Sequoyah National Research Centre in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Colette Lemmon serves as the Curator of Exhibitions at the Iroquois Indian Museum. She holds an MA in Museum Studies, a BA in Anthropology and Art History, and trained in oral history documentation with the Smithsonian Folklife Center and Indiana University.  She has curated numerous exhibits, conducted research and written on Haudenosaunee/Iroquois art as a consultant to: the New York State Museum’s ethnology department; the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum (Salamanca, NY); the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, NM); Rome Art Center (Rome, NY); Ottawa Art Gallery (Ontario, Canada) and other facilities.  She also served as a guest curator and project consultant to the NY State Vietnam Memorial & Fine Arts Gallery (Albany) and National Vietnam War Museum (Fort Worth, TX).

In 2023, the Adirondack Experience will open its latest permanent exhibition, Artists & Inspiration in the Wild. Join us for a sneak peek and meet the creative team bringing the museum’s fine and decorative art collections into a new home, the first dedicated space for these works. Once opened, Artists & Inspiration will show how the natural features of the Adirondacks have inspired the creative work of artists and artisans over hundreds of years. The new galleries will offer a blend of rich and diverse works from the ADKX vaults with contemporary interactive media, all in an enriching, immersive exhibit experience. Come see!

Greg Matty is a Project Executive and Designer Director at Gallagher & Associates, specializing in Exhibition Design and Museum Planning. His extensive experience spans over 35 years and includes projects ranging from science centers and natural science museums to highly articulated interactive cultural and historical facilities. He is a licensed architect, LEED AP certified, and has worked in architectural firms in Dallas, Texas, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, California. He has also taught design courses at several colleges and universities including the University of California at Berkeley, Catholic University and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Mr. Matty received his Masters of Architecture from the University of California Berkeley and his Bachelors of Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute University.

Sara Smith, Producer and Project Manager at Richard Lewis Media Group, is a deep believer in the value of museums as spaces for collections, stories, and social engagement. She brings to the work her love of the outdoors based on a childhood spent hiking, skiing, and boating in the great woods of the Pacific Northwest. Sara has a B.A. in Anthropology from Brown University, studying Navajo textiles, and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Washington where she studied Nigerian art. Previous to joining RLMG, Sara was the Director of Exhibit Development at Amaze Design, Inc., and prior to that position she had ten years of curatorial experience in art and cultural history museums.

Spend an evening in the studio of Adirondack artist Barney Bellinger. Barney will give a peek at his work in progress today and share what has shaped his creative designs and signature works over the course of his career. Out of natural and repurposed materials, Barney creates abstract forms inspired by beetles, fish, and found objects, melded with practical furniture designs and paintings to create pieces that are both functional and visually astonishing.

Barney Bellinger, based in Mayfield, NY, is a painter, sculptor, photographer, and furniture designer and an artist-in-residence at the Paul Nigra Center for Creative Arts. A native of Johnstown, Barney sold his first piece of art as a teenager in 1970. Barney’s work has evolved many times over the years, from customized motorcycles and cars to carved gold leaf signs to organic furniture built with natural materials from the forest. Barney is a self-taught artist, gaining his knowledge from books, inherited wisdom, and immersing himself in the beauty of the Adirondacks. His work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and the Adirondack Experience and appears in the permanent collections of the Orvis Company and the Smithsonian Institution; it is also widely sought after and collected privately.

Art historian Melody Deusner (Indiana University) will trace some of the unexpected journeys that American paintings have taken before they arrived on the walls of our museums. Using as a key example the work of Adirondack landscapist Alexander H. Wyant (1836-1892), we will examine different ways that paintings were exhibited, talked about, published, and promoted in their own time, and will consider such issues as transportation, lighting, and weather as they affected both people and things.

Melody Barnett Deusner is an Associate Professor of Art History at Indiana University. In researching and teaching the visual and material culture of the late nineteenth century, she focuses primarily on the relationships between artists and their patrons; on the founding of museums and other arts institutions; and on the afterlives of objects. Her first book, Aesthetic Painting in Britain and America: Collectors, Art Worlds, Networks (2020), explores surprising intersections between art, business, and technology.