Great Adirondack Quilt Show, September 25th

The Second Annual Great Adirondack Quilt Show will be held at the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York on Saturday, September 25, 2010. Nearly fifty contemporary quilts will be displayed in the museum’s Roads and Rails building from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The show is part of the Adirondack Fabric and Fiber Arts Festival and is included in the price of general museum admission.

All of the quilts and wall hangings in the show were made after 1970- the natural beauty of the Adirondack region has inspired the design of each. This is truly an Adirondack quilt show. Communities from Piseco to Dickinson Center, Diamond Point to Watertown, N.Y., and many towns in between are represented.

The show will include quilts made from published designs (three from one book alone), original compositions, those that are quilted by hand and others by machine, a few tied comforters, and wall hangings constructed using modern layered fabric techniques.

There are a profusion of appliqued animals &#8211 bear and moose predominating! Visitors should look for the &#8220red work&#8221 embroidered piece, the round quilt, and the wall hanging made from forty-two rhomboid-shaped &#8220mini&#8221 quilts.

Some of the makers featured are truly &#8220quilt artists&#8221 with resumes listing the prestigious shows that they have done, and others are Grandmas who have lovingly fashioned special quilts for their grandchildren.

In addition, there will be a mini-exhibit of the textile production of five generations of the Flachbarth family of Chestertown, N.Y. From an 1877 sampler made in Czechoslovakia by Julia Michler Flachbarth to a contemporary quilt representing Yankee Stadium, the exhibit is a fascinating tour of textile history as interpreted by a single family.

Museum curator Hallie E. Bond has organized the Great Adirondack Quilt Show. Bond also curated the exhibit &#8220Common Threads: 150 Years of Adirondack Quilts and Comforters&#8221 which will be on display at the Adirondack Museum through October 2011.

The Adirondack Museum tells stories of the people &#8211 past and present &#8212- who have lived, worked, and played in the unique place that is the Adirondack Park. History is in our nature. The museum is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. For information about all that the museum has to offer, call (518) 352-7311, or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Photo: &#8220Late Summer&#8221 by Joanna Monroe is one of the entries in the 2010 Great Adirondack Quilt Show.

Arts Forum: Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn

The artistic and historic treasures of the Hudson Valley receive special attention from renowned appraiser and television personality, Leigh Keno, at Senate House State Historic Site on Saturday, October 23, in an arts forum, Appraising Art, Re-appraising Vanderlyn, 10 am to 4:30 pm. Also, regional experts on Hudson Valley art and culture examine the artistic Vanderlyn family, including John Vanderlyn, painter of six U.S. Presidents and an important American artist born in Kingston, NY. Tickets are $10. An evening reception with Leigh Keno in the Vanderlyn Gallery of the Senate House Museum, with wine, food and music, is $50. per person. For more information and to reserve tickets, please call (845) 338-2786.

Television personality and keynote speaker Leigh Keno shares his antiques discoveries, including the auction of early Kingston native Anna Brodhead Oliver’s portrait for $1.1 million.The forum introduces the Vanderlyn Catalogue Raisonne Project to document John Vanderlyn (1775-1852), first American painter to receive a gold medal from Napoleon Bonaparte for his art. If you have Vanderlyn family art or letters to submit for evaluation, call (845)338-2786.

Presentations include talks on Pieter Vanderlyn and John Vanderlyn contemporaries. Paintings and antiques from audience members will be evaluated by Leigh Keno and art experts during the afternoon session. Post-forum, join Leigh Keno for a soiree with chamber music, period French wine and hors d’oeuvres in the Senate House Museum. Tickets for the evening event are $50 per person. Senate House State Historic Site houses the world’s largest collection of Vanderlyn paintings, documents and ephemera.

“’Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn’ will be a fun-filled day for the home antiquer and the art connoisseur with a few surprises thrown in” stated Katherine Woltz, Vanderlyn Project director, who expressed her thanks to the Saugerties Historical Society and Historic Huguenot Street for their assistance in organizing the forum with the Friends of Senate House and the staff of Senate House State Historic Site.

Senate House State Historic Site is located at 296 Fair Street, Kingston, NY 12401, and is part of a system of parks, recreation areas and historic sites operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the site is one of 28 facilities administered by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in New York and New Jersey. For further information about this and other upcoming events please call the site at (845) 338-2786 or visit the State Parks website at www.nysparks.com.

Illustration: Miniature portrait of John Vanderlyn (1775-1852). From the collection of the Senate House State Historic Site.

Albany Institute Offers Shoe Exhibits

The Albany Institute of History & Art has announced two related upcoming exhibitions: “The Perfect Fit: Shoes Tell Stories” and “Old Soles: Three Centuries of Shoes from the Albany Institute’s Collection.” The exhibitions open on October 16, 2010, and close on January 2, 2011.

Since the invention of protective foot coverings by early societies thousands of years ago, shoes have become not only an essential element of our clothing, but also symbols of status, utility, amusement, and art. “The Perfect Fit” features more than 100 examples of fanciful footwear created by contemporary American artists between 2004 and 2008. The shoes are made of materials ranging from clay, metal, fabric, wood, glass, and paper, and transcend everyday style and function to illustrate various themes pertaining to issues of gender, history, sexuality, class, race, and culture.

The exhibition, curated by Wendy Tarlow Kaplan, is organized by the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA. An illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition and will be on sale in the Albany Institute’s Museum Shop for $10.00.

Accompanying “The Perfect Fit” will be a complementary exhibition entitled “Old Soles: Three Centuries of Shoes from the Albany Institute’s Collection.” The selection includes a variety of shoes ranging from a pair of brocaded silk women’s wedding shoes from the early 18th century to modern men’s and women’s footwear from the 20th century. The collection also includes protective over-shoes, pattens, slippers, jeweled buckles, work shoes, boots, and more. The Old Soles exhibition will be located in the museum’s Lansing Gallery, in proximity to many historic paintings in which the subjects are wearing shoes similar to those that will be on display.

Photo: Red riding shoes awarded to Miss Catherine Fitch for “Best Equestrian Rider” at the Albany Agricultural Society Fair, September, 1856, Wool felt and leather, 1856,
Gift of Margaret Boom, 1941.45, from Old Soles.

Antiques Show and Sale at the Adirondack Museum

The Adirondack Museum will host it’s annual Antiques Show and Sale on August 14 and 15, 2010. Forty-five of the country’s top antique dealers will offer the finest examples of premium vintage furnishings and collectables. For a complete listing of dealers, visit the &#8220Exhibits and Events&#8221 section of the Adirondack Museum web site at www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Show hours will be 11:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. on August 14, and 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. on August 15. The Antiques Show and Sale is included in the price of general museum admission.

The 2010 Antiques Show and Sale will include: vintage Adirondack furniture, folk art, historic guideboats and canoes, genuine Old Hickory, taxidermy, books and ephemera for the collector, fine art, oriental and Persian rugs, camp and trade signs, Olympic advertising, and everything camp and cottage.

A shipping service will be available on each day of the show. Porters will be on site to assist with heavy or cumbersome items.

Rod Lich, Inc. of Georgetown, Indiana will manage the show. Rod and his wife Susan Parrett have 32 years of experience organizing premier antiques shows throughout the country. To learn more about Rod Lich, Inc. visit www.parretlich.com.

The Antiques Show Preview Benefit will be held on August 14 from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. Guests will enjoy exclusive early access to the show, a champagne brunch, and music. Proceeds from the benefit will support exhibits and programs at the Adirondack Museum. Preview benefit tickets are $125 and include admission to the Antiques Show and Sale on Saturday and Sunday. To reserve tickets call (518) 352-7311, ext. 119.

Adirondack History Center Annouces 2010 Schedule

The Adirondack History Center Museum, located in the old school building at the corner of Route 9N and Hand Avenue in Elizabethtown, Essex County, has announced it’s 2010 Season of events and exhibits.

In addition to the season’s events, the museum displays artifacts from over two centuries of life in Essex County and the central Adirondacks. The diverse collection includes 18th century artifacts, an 1887 Concord stagecoach, an iron bobsled from the 1932 Olympic Games, a 58 foot Fire Observation Tower to climb, a colonial garden patterned after the gardens of Hampton Court, England and Colonial Williamsburg, and more.

The Museum is open 10am &#8211 5pm, 7 days a week from late May through mid-October. The Brewster Library is open all year by appointment only. Admission: Adults $5, Seniors $4, Students $2. Ages 6 and under are free.

The 2010 Schedule includes:

Exhibits

A Sign of the Times May 29- October 31

Curators have mined the museum’s collection, scoured the region, and called upon the citizens of Essex County to gather SIGNS! The exhibit focuses on SIGNS &#8211 all things that convey ideas, information, commands, designations or directions. Displayed wall to wall and ceiling to floor this exhibit prompts the viewer to discuss and ponder facts, purposes, qualities, and gestures conveyed by signs.

Swan Furniture June 19 – October 31

This exhibit highlights the Swans and their craftsmanship as important symbols of Westport and Wadhams cultural heritage. The furniture places the Swans into historical context as representatives of our human landscape. A unique blend of pieces provides visitors an opportunity to reflect on the furniture as art objects and artifacts in a museum setting.

ACNA Cover Art Show Sept. 20 – October 31

The 23rd year of the Arts Council for the Northern Adirondacks (ACNA) Cover Art Show featuring local artists. Thirty donated artworks for a Silent Auction are included in the exhibition. The winning Cover Art show piece is to be raffled at &#8220Field, Forest and Stream Day&#8221 on September 25th, 2010.

Events

Can History be Reconciled? A Conversation on Compassion & Courage

July 9, 4pm

Whether we’re reading the esoteric histories of others or dealing with our own, some issues are difficult to grasp and process. Don Papson, President of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, will engage the audience in a discussion on compassion and courage in light of oppression, slavery and liberation.

Lecture: Captain Brown’s Birthday Party by Amy Godine

July 11, 4 pm

From 1922 into the 1960s, black pilgrims from northern cities joined ranks with white Adirondackers to honor the May 9 birthday of the militant abolitionist John Brown with speeches, concerts, sermons and prayers, earning Lake Placid a reputation as an oasis of interracial tranquility in the age of Jim Crow. How was each group able to find common cause in John Brown? How did each group use the other to promote its own agenda? And whose version of John Brown prevails at his home and gravesite in North Elba, a state-managed historic site since 1897? Join us to hear Historian Amy Godine answer these questions and examine the struggle it both enabled and concealed over John Brown’s public image and the meaning of freedom itself.

Fundraiser: Elizabethtown Historic Slide Show for the Town Hall Stained Glass Window Project

July 18, 4 pm

Back with added photographs and materials, local historian, Margaret Bartley, is offering the Elizabethtown Historic Slide Show for a second year as part of the Elizabethtown Day celebration. Proceeds from this event benefit the restoration of the Elizabethtown Town Hall stained glass windows, a project of Historic Pleasant Valley and the Essex County Historical Society. Any and all donations are welcome.

Museum Benefit: Come as you ART

July 24, 8pm

An evening of dance, delicacies, and expressive dress. Design and create your own clothing. Let your artistic side or a work of art inspire your attire. Music provided by the Chrome Cowboys.

Performance: Bits & Pieces

About a Bridge

Fridays: July 30, Aug 6 & 13, 11am / Sunday August 1, 4pm

This theatrical elegy weaves together voices from the life of the Champlain Bridge.

Lecture: Asanath Nicholson: Adirondack Teacher and World Humanitarian by Maureen Murphy

August 8, 4 pm

Maureen Murphy, Professor of Curriculum and Teaching in the School of Education in Health and Human Services at Hofstra University conveys the history of Asenath Hatch Nicholson, an early 19th century woman, schoolteacher, health reformer, traveler, writer, evangelist, social worker and peace activist. Asenath Hatch Nicholson (1792-1855), born in Chelsea, Vermont, made her way across Lake Champlain to Elizabethtown, New York. At age 21, she started a boarding school on Water Street for students from the town and neighboring farms. While in Elizabethtown, she met her husband Norman Nicholson, a local widower with a young family. The couple moved to New York City where Nicholson became a disciple of the health reformer Sylvester Graham. Nicholson opened a Grahamite boarding house and worked among the poor. After she was widowed, she set out from New York on a fifteen-month visit to Ireland to “investigate the condition of the Irish poor,” reading the Bible to country people, and sharing their hospitality, leaving us with a glimpse of Ireland on the eve of the Great Irish Famine in her book Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger (1847).

Festival: Field, Forest & Stream Sept 25, 10-3:30

A harvest festival sponsored by the Arts Council for the Northern Adirondacks and the Elizabethtown-Lewis Chamber of Commerce featuring demonstrations and exhibits by regional craftspeople, antique dealers, storytellers and musical performances.

Brooklyn Museum to Host Annual Brooklyn Ball

The Brooklyn Museum will celebrate the major exhibition &#8220American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection&#8221 and the landmark collection-sharing partnership between Brooklyn and the Metropolitan Museum of Art at its annual gala, the Brooklyn Ball, on Thursday evening, April 22, 2010.

The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. with cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres in the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing on the fifth floor and an exclusive opportunity to preview American High Style. Featuring some eighty-five masterworks from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition traces the evolution of fashion in America from its nineteenth-century European beginnings through the twentieth century. It marks the first time in more than two decades that a large-scale survey drawn from this preeminent collection will be on public view.

Included in the exhibition will be creations by such legendary American designers as Charles James, Norman Norell, and Gilbert Adrian- works by influential French designers including Charles Frederick Worth, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeanne Lanvin, Givenchy, and Christian Dior- and works by such first-generation American women designers as Bonnie Cashin, Elizabeth Hawes, and Claire McCardell. Among the objects presented will be Schiaparelli’s Surrealist Insect Necklace, considered by experts to be one of the most important works in the collection- elaborate ball gowns and day wear by Charles James- evening ensembles by Yves Saint Laurent, Halston, Scaasi, and Mainbocher- street wear by mid-twentieth-century designers Vera Maxwell, Claire McCardell, and Elizabeth Hawes- a group of hats by celebrated milliner Sally Victor- and dazzling evening wear by Norman Norell.

The Brooklyn Museum’s groundbreaking collection-sharing partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art went in to effect in January 2009. At that time Brooklyn’s renowned costume collection of 23,500 objects, acquired over the course of a century, was transferred to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it is fully integrated into the Institute’s program of exhibitions, publications, and education initiatives and remains available for exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.

Co-chairs for this year’s Ball celebrating American High Style include chef and restaurateur Mario Batali and his wife Susan Cahn, European Editor-at-Large for Vogue Hamish Bowles, New York Times Style Editor Stefano Tonchi, Museum Trustee Stephanie Ingrassia, decorative arts specialist and educator Susan Weber, photographer Annie Leibovitz, fashion designer Zac Posen, and collector Carla Shen.

An interactive dining experience, designed by Jennifer Rubell, whom New York Times senior critic Roberta Smith credits with &#8220laying waste to the prolonged ordeal that is the benefit dining experience,&#8221 will begin at 8 p.m. in the magnificent Beaux-Arts Court on the third floor. The interactive food journey through the Museum is titled Icons and includes drinking paintings, suspended melting cheese heads, and a larger-than-life dessert surprise. A hybrid of performance and installation art, Rubell’s food projects deconstruct the ritual of the meal and are often of monumental scale.

During the evening, the Brooklyn Museum will honor the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and former Mellon Program Officer Angelica Rudenstine. Donald Randel, Mellon Foundation president, will accept the Museum’s highest honor, the Augustus Graham Medal, on their behalf.

Immediately following the Ball, the Museum will host High Style: The After Party in the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion. The festivities will feature artists’ fashions and dancing to live music.

Tickets to the Ball range from $500 to $1,500, and tables are available from $5,000 to $50,000. All tickets to the Ball include admission to High Style: The After Party. Tickets to the after party start at $75. Tickets may be purchased online through Monday, April 19. You may also download, print, and complete a ticket request form and send it by fax to (718) 501-6139. Further information about ticket options and table purchases is available by e-mailing [email protected] or by phoning (718) 501-6423. Proceeds from the event will support the Museum’s public and education programs.

The Augustus Graham Medal is being presented to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in recognition of its outstanding support of the Brooklyn Museum, including funding for the survey of the costume collection and the endowment of curatorial positions at the Museum. Through the foundation’s generosity, the first complete inventory, collection review, digital photography, and cataloguing of the Museum’s holdings of approximately 23,500 American and European costumes and accessories has been completed. More than 5,800 of the most important works are now available to scholars, students, and the public through ARTstor, an innovative online initiative of the Mellon Foundation that provides access to curated collections of art images and associated data for noncommercial, scholarly, and not-for-profit educational use.

The Augustus Graham Medal is named after one of the founders of the Brooklyn Apprentices Library in 1823. That institution, which Graham nurtured and expanded, grew into the Brooklyn Institute and later became the Brooklyn Museum.

NY Folklore – Textured Stories: The Works of Denise Allen

The New York Folklore Society will be presenting &#8220Textured Stories: The Works of Denise Allen&#8221 at its gallery at 113 Jay Street, Schenectady through March 26th. I asked the Folklore Society to describe Lisa’s work for us and this is what they sent:

She lived for many years in Bedford-Stuyvesant (in Brooklyn), her hometown. Her mother was a seamstress in the sense that she made a lot of the family cloths, etc. Denise, however, was not a trained seamstress. She worked as a legal secretary, and had no intention of becoming an artist. After her mother died, however, she became very depressed. She walked into a Woolworth’s store one day, saw the embroidery kits there, which reminded her of her mother, and felt &#8220called&#8221 to take that up to feel a connection with her mother. She has been doing needlework ever since.She does a unique kind of textured embroidery, not only involving needlework, but layering and adding material onto the fabric, such as wood, cardboard, wire, etc. She also creates dolls from the original design to the finishing touches. Her signatures pieces are her story cloths, textured artwork that often tells specific stories from her own life, as well as fictional stories that otherwise capture an expressive truth.

Her work focuses on themes of African-American life, particularly in the colonial period in America, and country living. She addresses themes of slavery, traditional life, life in the country, and so on.

After her son was killed in 9-11 (he worked in Tower 1), and her husband barely escaped (he worked on the 97th floor as a drafter for the Port Authority), she became extremely despondent. Because she had always been fascinated with country life after seeing a county fair event that had come to Brooklyn when she was a little girl, she and her husband decided to move up to upstate NY and live on a farm. She moved up to Palatine Bridge, and has been living there among the Amish for the past several years. She has a wonderful relationship with her neighbors, some of whom contribute wooden frames for her art. She has been working on a 9-11 story cloth, and recently completed it. It is now under consideration to be placed at the 9-11 Museum that is scheduled to be completed in 2012.

Call for Quilts From The Farmers’ Museum

The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown is seeking submissions for its 2010 quilt contest entitled A New York State of Mind. The entries will be exhibited October 16 and 17, 2010 and will be judged by a team of museum professionals and textile experts.

Quilters are welcome to submit an original quilt project that fits one of the three contest categories: New York Beauty Quilts &#8211 quilts based on traditional motifs, styles and construction methods from the 18th- through 20th-centuries- Hometown New York Quilts – quilts that celebrate the hometown of the crafter in original designs- and Carousel Quilts &#8211 quilts drawing on the color and creativity of the carousel tradition.

Category winners will be exhibited in Cooperstown at the Fenimore Art Museum and The Farmers’ Museum as a precursor to a major quilt exhibition that will run from April through December of 2011. Additional prizes will be awarded for audience favorite, judge’s choice, and others.

The Farmers’ Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum have long been associated with collecting and interpreting decorative and utilitarian textiles &#8211 including a large collection of quilts that date back to the 18th century. The Museums’ quilt collection has now grown to several hundred. Contest winners will have their quilts displayed alongside many of these rare works during the 2011 exhibition.

For additional information, a complete list of contest rules, or an entry form, please contact Kajsa Sabatke at The Farmers’ Museum, Box 30, Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326, (607) 547-1453, or via email at [email protected]. Information can also be downloaded from the Museum’s website at www.FarmersMuseum.org. All entries must be postmarked by August 2, 2010. Entry fee: $20.

State Museum Showing Major Stoneware Exhibit

“It’s a prime example of American folk art, probably one of the best collections of decorated stoneware in the country,” is how John Scherer, Historian Emeritus of the New York State Museum characterized the Weitsman Stoneware Collection. The over 200-piece collection was donated to the museum by Adam J. Weitsman, one of the leading collectors of 18th and 19th Century stoneware.

Forty unique vessels from the collection titled Art for the People: Decorated Stoneware from the Weitsman Collection are currently on exhibit at the Albany museum’s New York Metropolis Gallery. The show was recently extended due to popular demand through the summer of 2010. “We are delighted with this collection. It attracts a lot of visitors to the museum. They are very, very impressed and almost overwhelmed by the quality of the collection,” said Scherer.

The exhibition features decorated stoneware vessels, including jugs, crocks, pitchers, jars and water coolers. The designs are considered premier examples of American folk art. Most were created in New York State and many are “presentation pieces,” oversized and often richly decorated with cobalt blue designs and folk art illustrations. Decoration tools, early pottery related graphics and photography complement the exhibit.

After the exhibition, it will become a permanent part of the New York State Museum. The collection is also the subject of a color, coffee-table format book being published by the museum that will be released this spring. The book is being funded by the generosity of Mr. Weitsman.

“We had a few important pieces of stoneware, but nowhere near the quality that Adam donated. The Weitsman Collection is supreme,” said Scherer.

Adam Weitsman collected his first piece of stoneware in 1980 at age 11 and the experience sparked his passion for the genre. Since then he acquired rare pieces at antique shows, estate sales and auctions. One example was a water cooler decorated with a portrait of a Civil War general and his wife. He purchased it at auction for $88,000 which set a record price for American stoneware at the time.

In 1996, Weitsman donated 100 pieces to the museum to ensure his collection would be preserved. From those and pieces acquired subsequently, 40 were carefully selected for the current exhibition. Most have never been publicly displayed.

Stoneware was vitally important to the development of New York State and its central role in western expansion of the country via the Hudson River, the Erie Canal and its network of feeder canals, and through the Great Lakes to the western river systems. Stoneware was in high demand for storage and preservation for things like drinking water, milk, butter, eggs, beer, ale, whisky, pickles and salted meat. Clay deposits ideal for making stoneware were found in what is now South Amboy, New Jersey, lower Manhattan and eastern Long Island. As a result, New York State became a large stoneware producer.

Potters sprang up along the Hudson River and throughout the New York State canal system making vessels of various shapes and sizes. During kiln firing, salt was applied to vessels that combined with clay silica to create a smooth, lustrous finish. Chocolate brown Albany Slip, named for where the clay was mined, was used to coat the insides of vessels. To identify or decorate the vessel, a painter applied a metallic oxide clay slip that turned a rich blue when fired. Sometimes manganese that turned purplish-brown was used. Simple identification included the makers’ mark and the vessel’s capacity. Elaborate designs and highly creative illustrations such as those found in the Weitsman Collection represent the sublime expression of this folk art period.

Historically significant of examples of stoneware from the Weitsman Collection include:

A Jar made by Paul Cushman of Albany in 1809&#8211Weitsman acquired it from the personal collection of PBS’ Antique Road Show host Leigh Keno.

A Jug created by William Lundy & Co. of Troy, New York in the 1820s that depicts cobalt blue caricature of a merman, a male version of mermaid.

Crocks displaying a prancing zebra and a camel were inspired by the traveling circuses of the era.

A Jug displaying a fisherman with a pole on a lake signed Nathan Clark, Lyons, NY.

A Crock decorated with a Dutch or German-style church with a gambrel roof and round tower and a weather cock, signed W. A. Maquoid, Little West 12th Street, New York City.

A two-gallon crock made by Charles W. Braun of Buffalo around 1870 is decorated with what appears to be a caricature of Buffalo Bill.

A humorous long-necked gooney bird on a six-gallon water cooler made by M. Woodruff of Cortland, New York around 1860. It was acquired from the collection of Donald Shelley, former director of the Henry Ford Museum.

A highly decorated five-gallon water cooler came from the famous George S. McKearin Collection. It was created by Julius and Edward Norton of Bennington, Vermont and shows three types of decoration commonly associated with potters at Bennington, Troy and Fort Edward, New York.

One of the rarest is a six-gallon crock made by Nathan Clark & Co. of Rochester, New York in about 1845. Decorated with the mythical phoenix firebird, it was rendered in such detail that it has a three-dimensional quality.

“I emphasized to Adam how important his collection was and how important it is to New York State. He not only donated it, but also acquires new pieces every year to add to it which is wonderful for us,” Scherer concluded.

While not engaged in collecting stoneware and fine art, Mr. Weitsman is busy with his other passion as President of Upstate Shredding LLC. With numerous locations, Upstate is the largest privately owned metal processing and recycling operation on the East Coast.

Photo: Two-Gallon Jug, (c. 1815) by Israel Seymour (1784-1852) of Troy, New York. The finely incised figure of an American Indian decorates this early ovoid jug. He carries a sword in one hand and a banner with the letter T (for temperance) in the other. Some intricately decorated stoneware pieces commemorate special events and historical figures. The Indian is believed to be Handsome Lake (c. 1734-1815), the Seneca religious prophet who in 1799 began to tell his people to refrain from drinking and doing evil.

Managing Your Historical Photographs Workshops

The New York State Archives is offering two new workshops on managing historical photographs. The first, offered at three locations around the state in October is intended to present strategies for taking physical and intellectual control of photographs to ensure their long-term access and use. Participants will hear methods of organizing and making accessible photographic material, and preservation guidelines for photographs, along with reference, exhibition, and outreach strategies will be outlined. The workshops are free and open to the public. The second workshop in the two part series, &#8220Digitizing Your Historical Photographs,&#8221 will be available next year.

Schedule and Registration

October 13, 2009, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Hanford Mills, East Meredith, NY
Presenter Ray LeFever, Coordinator of Archival Advisory Services, NYS Archives Register by downloading a registration form from Upstate History Alliance

October 20, 2009, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
New City Library, New City, NY (Rockland County)
Presenter Ray LeFever, Coordinator of Archival Advisory Services, NYS Archives
Register by emailing Dianne Macpherson at Greater Hudson Heritage Network.

October 20, 2009 9:15 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.
Schenectady County Library Schenectady, NY
Presenter Denis Meadows, Regional Advisory Officer, NYS Archives Region 4
Register online with the State Archives.

For more information e-mail [email protected].

Photo: Bart Warren and helper in his blacksmith shop, West Sand Lake, NY c. 1900
@greaterhudson.org>