
2023 Season
Open Friday, May 26, 2023 – Monday, October 9, 2023
10am – 5pm
Open 7 days a week, including holidays
Contact Us
9097 State Route 30, P.O. Box 99
Blue Mountain Lake, NY 12812
Artists & Inspiration
This program is only offered through Zoom.
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.
This program is co-sponsored by Adirondack Diversity Initiative