View Arts Center-Old Forge, NY
We spent the last few days up in the lower part of the Adirondacks, around Old Forge. Being just a day or so past Labor Day, most of the tourists were gone and the region was beautifully quiet. It sometimes felt as though we had the place to ourselves. One of the highlights of the trip was visiting the View Arts Center, formerly the Old Forge Arts Center. It was my first time visiting the View Arts Center. What a gorgeous facility! It is a 28,000 square feet gem with four galleries, a spectacular performance center and several large classroom and studio spaces, including a ceramics center that has an artist in residence. Exhibitions Manager Cory Card gave me a tour and I was so impressed with every aspect of the place. Just a beautiful arts center, one that would be the pride of any place fortunate enough to have it.
I had first heard of the Arts Center because of its fame for hosting the annual Adirondack National Exhibition of American Watercolors, a prestigious juried exhibit of some of the finest examples of watercolor and other water based media painting from around the country. This year’s edition was hanging and definitely did not disappoint. Just a spectacular show with something for every taste, including some from artists who had inspired me early in my career, before I had ever dreamed of a career as an artist. For instance, Dean Mitchell, a watercolor master whose work rally drew me to painting early on, had a prize winning entry in the show. The painting used in the image above on the right is excerpted from one of my favorites from this show, Geek from California artist Will Bullas.
The show hangs until October 5 so if you have a chance , I highly recommend that you head up to the Adirondacks for some wonderful scenery and some great art at a first rate arts facility.
Another highlight was heading out to North Lake, a little known mountain lake that is well off the beaten path with only a handful of seasonal cabins around it. I wanted to visit this place because it had once been one of the locations for my great-grandfather’s logging camps in the late 1800’s. He built one of the original dams and sluiceways there that create the North Lake Reservoir which forms the headwaters of the Black River. Standing on the newer dam that stands in that location made me feel a bit closer to this ancestor, to look across that pristine mountain lake and possibly feel the same sense of awe at the natural beauty that he once felt in that same spot. I was glad to finally see that spot.
Just a nice getaway to the lakes and streams of the mountains that makes me want to head back again soon…
North Lake, NY -View from the dam
Redtree Times 