Kaaterskill Falls, Hunter NY

POSTPONED: 2021 Plein Air Workshop with Ken Salaz

Kaaterskill Falls, Laurel House Road, Trail location (map)

Thomas Cole painted the clove from the top of Haines Falls, Asher Durand from nearby Santa Cruz Falls, and Sanford Gifford from near Poet's Ledge. Their paintings helped Americans form a sense of national identity. Here was a quality of nature wild, sublime, and distinctly different from anything known in Europe. The clove was of such importance to these painters that Durand chose it as the setting for the painting Kindred Spirits, his tribute to Thomas Cole with poet William Cullen Bryant. The area today is largely as it was in the 19th century due to its inclusion in the Catskill Forest Preserve.

Kaaterskill Falls
Introduction by Kevin J. Avery, Senior Research Scholar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Why, there's a fall in the hills, where the water of two little ponds that lie near each other breaks out of their bounds, and runs over the rocks into the valley. . . . The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet, and the water looks like flakes of driven snow, afore it touches the bottom; and there the stream gathers again for a new start, and maybe flutters over fifty feet of flat-rock, before it falls another hundred."  —

So was the lofty (about 260 total feet in height), two-tiered Kaaterskill Falls described by Hawkeye, the colonial scout of James Fenimore Cooper's 1823 novel, The Pioneers.  Kaaterskill Falls was the scenic prize of any walk in the vicinity of the great hotels that crowned the mountaintop near Palenville and Haines Falls from 1824 to 1963.  Such a tourist magnet did the falls become that the proprietor of a mill near its crest, and after him a hotelier, charged a fee to open a dam gate constructed to regulate the flow in timed "performances."  (To watch, hotel guests and day visitors descended a wooden staircase—removed long ago—beside the cascade.)  Numerous artists represented the falls throughout the period, especially the first of them, Thomas Cole, whose earliest paintings (1825-26), showing the cataract from in front, behind (inside the cavern), and the top eventually helped earn him the nickname, "Father of the Hudson River School."

Yasgur’s Farm, Bethel NY

PEACE. LOVE. AND PLEIN AIR
Plein Air Paint Out: 2020/2021

ADDRESS: 34 YASBUR ROAD, COCHECHTON (BETHEL) NY

HISTORY: In 1969 a dairy farmer by the name of Max Yasgur allowed 400,000 youth to gather on his alfalfa field and celebrate 3 days of Peace, Love, and Music. A few years after the Woodstock festival Max Yasgur passed away and his wife Miriam began selling the 1100 acre estate. In 1988 Roy Howard purchased 104 acres of the property which included the original Yasgur homestead and calving barn.

Following the 25th Woodstock Anniversary on the original site, the property was closed to the public and no longer offered for use of a gathering to commemorate the festival that took place there so many years before. Starting in 1996, Roy opened the Yasgur homestead to the thousands of hippies who had made the annual pilgrimage to Bethel, and allowed the spirit of Woodstock to continue. Since then we have worked to keep the true spirit of Woodstock alive and well.

The property still remains in the Howard family and now exists as a seasonal campground, ensuring it will always be available for the public to come and enjoy the spirit of Woodstock, as well as the natural beauty of Bethel.

Governor’s Island, New York Harbor
Maritime Workshop with Ben Lussier (TBA)

ADDRESS: New York, NY 11231

Governors Island is a 172-acre (70 ha) island in New York Harbor, within the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located approximately 800 yards (732 m) south of Manhattan Island, and is separated from Brooklyn to the east by the 400-yard-wide (370 m) Buttermilk Channel. The National Park Service administers a small portion of the north of the island as the Governors Island National Monument, including two former military fortifications named Fort Jay and Castle Williams. The Trust for Governors Island operates the remaining 150 acres (61 ha), including 52 historic buildings, as a public park. About 103 acres (42 ha) of the land area is fill, added in the early 1900s to the south of the original island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_Island