Participating Artists

Patrick Milbourn

A visit to Milbourn's second floor Catskill studio is liable to find you rubbing elbows with celebrities such as Mike Tyson, John Kerry, Will Smith, and Elton John or lurking ringside with seedy denizens of the underworld! A keen observer of human nature, Milbourn is proudly self taught and recognized internationally for his distinctive caricatures and formal portraiture. His works have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker. Sought after for private commissions in Europe and the United States, he is enamored with the possibilities in his own backyard. New York is "that kind of town, full of interesting faces," he explains. He is represented in several solo shows in New York, a traveling show in Beijing, China and is recipient of top prizes in national and international competitions for his pastel and paint work. Tour participants will be especially interested in the working sketches of this gregarious artist.

Lucia Gannett

It is fitting that Gannett's north facing studio is flooded with clear and brilliant color. It is here that she crystallizes in watercolor ephemeral light and translucent tones with a magician's proficiency. Overlooking a venerable maple tree, a second studio in the back of her home nurtures explorations of a different kind. Here, prints hang suspended from a clothesline, works in oil, acrylic, and pastel wait in various states of completion for the artist's dictate. Earlier in her creative career Gannett was a dancer, weaver and dyer, tactile and sensate experiences that are especially evident in her collage and encaustic pieces and physical approach to her work. Her painterly investigations have been featured in exhibition venues including the Kleinhart Gallery in Woodstock, Hispanic Art Center in Peekskill, Galleria Boriken in Rhinebeck, and Cooperstown Art Association, Cooperstown, where she was awarded the Bertha Bartlett Sherman Prize.

Dina Bursztyn

Bursztyn describes her ceramic and found object sculptures as "contemporary artifacts for a democratic mythology that includes spirituality and sensuality, as well as politics and humor." An award winning and eclectic artist, this sophisticated, humorously pointed worldview resonates from her comfortable studio on Main Street in Catskill. Bursztyn's imaginative creations have been featured in a number of solo shows including venues in New York City, Japan, and the Dominican Republic and commissioned for several public spaces in New York. Equally fluent in two-dimensional media, her prints, book art, and sketchbooks will be on hand for studio visitors. Street level gallery will also be open featuring works by Julie Chase and Ms. Bursztyn. Newer to the art scene, Chase creates sculpture, collage and assemblage from found materials and already has several high profile group and solo exhibitions to her credit.

Fawn Potash

Perhaps best known as a photographer, Potash is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery in NY, Anne Reed Gallery in Sun Valley, Elena Zang Gallery in Woodstock, and public and private collections worldwide. Her recent work challenges the limitations of the medium by overlaying the photograph with encaustic wax and incised line. Active for more than fifteen years as an artist, arts educator and administrator, she is an experienced translator of knowledge, technique, and creative process and a visit to her large studio a treasured occasion. An onsite darkroom and the opportunity to preview a significant amount of new work by this articulate and versatile photographer is not to be missed.

Portia Munson and Jared Handelsman

Bordering the Kiskatom Creek, just outside of Catskill, on an old Dutch farmstead live artists Portia Munson, Jared Handelsman, and their two children. Their shared barn studio is a short stroll from their home and divided into two levels. Entering on the ground level, visitors are physically surrounded by Handelsman's large scale "photogram" landscapes. The photograms are highly original both in vision and process -- dramatic black and white images captured by the fleeting light of passing car headlights as it filters through the forested roadside. Throughout the surrounding landscape are site specific sculptures formed with rocks and trees and an extensive work in progress -- Blueberry Spiral. Handelsman is the recipient of a BA from Vassar, an MFA from Rutgers University and a number of grants and fellowships. His extraordinarily original work has been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the northeast.

Ascending to Portia Munson's studio on the second floor of the barn the visitor is immediately confronted with intensely vibrant color. Munson employs a variety of creative methods including still life painting, installation, sculpture and photo-based works. Some of the most striking of her current works are flower mandalas created with living material from her perennial garden. Her studio is currently dominated by the three-dimensional installation, Pink Project: Mound. Works finished and in progress fill Munson's studio space, offering provocative and exciting platforms to begin a discussion with the artist. She holds a BFA from Cooper Union, an MFA from Rutgers University, has been awarded residency fellowships at Yaddo, MacDowell, Skowhegan, and other facilities, and has exhibited throughout the USA and Europe.

Ruth Leonard

Tucked deep in the foothills of the Catskills, partially hidden by foliage, a well-worn stone path beckons the visitor into her quiet studio. A generous and creative teaching artist, it is here that Leonard's own accomplished voice is coaxed into expression. An exhibiting artist for more than twenty years, she is equally masterful in oils, drawing, and mixed media on paper and inspired by the ever-changing forms, textures, and linear structures of native fauna. Growth, seasonal changes, and hues are given solemn and emotionally provocative treatment in this orderly environment where nature is Leonard's intimate, yet impenetrable muse.