A Natural Inclination: A Celebration of the Landscape

Elaine Ralston, Angela Gaffney-Smith, Nancy Campbell

June 3 to October 31

 

Elaine Ralston:

I believe as an artist that everything we see in the universe is vibratory in its being.   Each object vibrates at different rates and it is through our process of realizing these vibrations through color and light that the world appears us.  In my art I try to be open to this process and allow nature to speak through me on all levels. I work to capture the essence of a scene using both my inner and outer eye.   Most of my representational work includes still-lifes and landscapes en plein air but I always follow inspiration wherever it leads.

 

As a person who uses art as one form of communication I hope to show that we are kindred spirits with the heart of nature - a heart with which we are truly connected.  I find myself impelled to create in my life and share what insights may be gleaned from what I see and can hopefully express.  I seek to display the wide variety of the livingness of all things which evoke heartfelt moods evident everywhere - if we take the time to notice.  To me the landscape and the still life demonstrate a reflection of the wide range of nature’s essences - a sort of “as above, so below”.

 

I love working in pastels because their permanence, purity of color and vibrancy inspire and evoke in me a joyousness that propels me though my work.

 

Angela Gaffney-Smith:

Watercolor has been a constant companion for the past 35 years.  This recent series of watercolors is the counterpart to bluestone cairn sculpture I have been working on for the last 12.  Inspiration comes from the quarries, stone walls and Native American stone piles near my studio at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.  They are a study in personal opposites - hard or soft, compressed or full of light.  The flow of transparent watercolor displays the aggregate in their natural yet abstract form, line and pattern.

 

Nancy Campbell:

The paintings on display at the gallery of the Woodstock Playhouse are all gouache, and all represent the local landscape, from Catskill Mountain glens and waters, to my backyard in Saugerties.  All depict places which are familiar, and subjects which never fail to inspire me. I am not a painter of the grand romantic landscape in the mode of the Hudson River School; I find the greatest satisfaction in portraying the light as I see it in more intimate spaces: in a shady wood, on a sparkling waterfall, on a fresh snowfall, or in my yard, as it bounces off sheets hanging on a clothesline, revealing the beauty of things and places we see every day. 

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Elliott Landy's Woodstock Vision: The Spirit of a Generation

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Elliott Landy, born in 1942, began photographing the anti-Vietnam war movement and the underground music culture in New York City in 1967.

He photographed many of the underground rock and roll superstars, both backstage and onstage, from 1967 to 69.

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His images of Bob Dylan and The Band, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Joan Baez, Van Morrison, Richie Havens, and many others documented the music scene during that classic rock and roll period which culminated with the 1969 Woodstock Festival, of which he was the official photographer.

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After that, Elliott moved on to other inspirations and art forms, photographing his own children and travels, creating impressionist flower photographs and doing motion and kaleidoscopic photography in both still and film formats.

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His photographs have been published worldwide for many years in all print mediums including covers of Rolling Stone, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, etc. and album covers, calendars, photographic book collections, etc.

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He has published Woodstock Vision, The Spirit of A Generation, in book and CD-ROM format, and authored the book Woodstock 69, The First Festival.

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He is currently publishing a series of limited edition lithographs of his classic rock photographs. To additionally view and purchase Elliott Landy's photographs and merchandise, click here to visit his website.