A great opening!

The opening last night was a huge success, thanks to the ceaseless efforts and enthusiasm of Keiko Sono, the inspiration and brains behind the whole thing!  And many thanks to all the artists and guests who came out after the deluge.  I was so impressed with the work in the show, and it felt great to be surrounded by so many talented peers with such a diversity of form and vision.  Let’s do it again next year and expand on this vision!  If you have photos, please email them to us and we can post them.  And if you didn’t go yet, the show is still up today and tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 2nd, 11-6 and Sunday Oct. 3rd, 10-1).

– Dave Hebb

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Installation Begins Tomorrow

Videos are almost all organized, burned and ready to go. Many of them are on their own loop in separate DVDs, but several are compiled together as a group. It is always fun figuring out the sequence of the videos.

This time, I also have to figure out which device each DVD is going to be played on, and then which furniture set it is going to use. It took a while to get my mind moving in that direction, especially after spending much energy on getting the word out, but once I began, it was pretty easy and fun. I just hope it’ll be that smooth tomorrow when we actually start setting things up…

Before

After

Meet the Artists(and Administrator): Dave Hebb

Dave Hebb is an artist who seems to thread all aspects of his life with one congruent sensibility. Juggling through parenting, teaching, making art, and showing in multiple venues at a time, you would think he would be constantly stressed out. But he is one of the blessed individuals with the ability to find enjoyment in the juggling act itself. He can do this, I think, because he maintains a larger perspective of life and enjoys the process and connection as much as the end result.

His video works reveal this. They are at once finished works, sketches, data files, and his way to enjoy the moment. He seems to take joy in traversing through these different contexts. And this festival is a huge beneficiary of such disposition. He is the one responsible for the design and function of this blog, and for the email invites.

Some of you may have noticed that he’s been diligently changing the headers, aiming in showing every artist’s image that he has on hand. Here are the snapshots of them:

This is the first header I did. It’s a still from Adie Russell‘s Never Had More Troubles, (Merv Griffin & Richard Nixon). Dave did the background.

This is Dave’s first version. We decided it was confusing with the vodpod on the sidebar.

Dave’s second. We both loved this one, but alas, it was from Robyn Tomlin’s Nice Girls Don’t Swear, not her Ulysses’ Daugther that is shown at the festival.

At this point, I realized that the background was the image of TV static, and Dave, horrified by the fact that I didn’t get it until then, changed the hue and the size of static.

I must say this is my favorite header. From Jason Martin’s Power Animals.

Dave will be showing a site-specific video projection called Wastewater Runoff Pipe.

Meet the Artists: Dorota Czerner and Russell Richardson

Video still from Poppies

Dorota Czerner and Russell Richardson will show their collaborative work entitled Poppies. It is a site-specific installation with a single channel video projected onto the exterior of tent-like material stretched over a corner of the room. The viewers must crawl under to view the image from inside, where a set of speakers will fill the intimate space with music by Benjamin Boretz. The video is made mostly of extreme close ups of the body lit only by candles, with red as the predominant color.

Russell and Dorota embody the reasons why I esteem art as a sanctuary for our soul. Their approach to making art is conceptual and sensual at the same time, and their commitment is untainted even in their veteran career. They expand their passion for art beyond their own creation, into the community and youth education. In today’s difficult and uncertain climate, their persistence in pursuit of ideal is a breath of fresh air and inspiration.

Video still from Poppies

Meet the Artists: Dick Crenson

Dick and Margaret Crenson live in a quiet nook amid woods and fields, hidden from the crowded streets of Poughkeepsie only 10 minutes away. Their warm and comfortable house is full of artworks, created by them, friends and family.

You would never guess that Dick did not start making video works until he was in his retirement. His little office is full of equipment, tapes and disks, neither meticulously tidy nor out-of-control messy. It feels just right and comfortable. And that’s how his videos are.

Many of his works are snippets of scenes from various localities in the Mid Hudson area. Their shots are simple and their editing minimal. Yet for reasons I cannot put my finger on, they are compelling and loving. Viewed alongside his other type of works which focus on form and texture, an understated tribute to an ordinary life emerges.

In this festival, Dick will show Infrastructure, hypnotic portraits of manholes, which was on view at Samuel Dorsky Museum in its 2009 Hudson Valley Artists show, along with Polar Bear, Rosendale Cemeteries, and a few other shorts.

Margaret Crenson’s solo show, Roadscapes, opens on October 23 at the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie.

Dick Crenson at his work station

Dick and Margaret Crenson in their garden

The Furnishings

Here is our plan for installation. The videos will be organized by artists and also by their nature, and will be playing on loops. Each set of videos will have one station, consisting of a monitor and pieces of furniture. Each station will be different—one will have a small DVD player on a cafe table with two chairs, while another will be shown on a computer monitor surrounded by office chairs, etc. Here are some of the pieces you will see at the festival.

The Space

These are photos of Image Factory where our festival will take place. It started out as an auto repair shop and was home to Lucky Chocolate until the end of last year. Its 1400 sq ft space has nice light coming through the windows on the side wall and shutter doors, and reflected on the metal ceiling and cement floor.

Photographer Fionn Reilly has been using it as his studio and gallery/performance space for several months now, and he’s had a couple of great shows with lively turn outs at openings. This festival would not have been conceived if it weren’t for his generosity.

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About, v.1

This festival is a show case for local video artists, an experiment of community event organization, and a celebration of this ever-changing genre of contemporary art and culture. It was first conceived as a small-scale video installation featuring two to three artists, but within weeks it ballooned to become a festival, and the roster of artists is still growing as of now.

What has propelled this festival to evolve so quickly is the eclectic nature and consistently high quality of the works. By high quality, it is not implied that they are technically sophisticated, polished, or perfectly executed; rather, these works are only loosely but strongly connected with one common thread—they are all about relishing the moment.

Many of them do not follow narratives. They do not have clear messages, or even purposes. They appear to have no commercial values what-so-ever. They don’t scream to demand attention. But they are all strangely satisfying. These works were motivated by curiosity, pleasure, and gratitude, and, without much expectation in return.

These works may be too soft-spoken when seen isolated as in a gallery, or in the vast and noisy environment of youtube, but planted with other works in one space like a garden, they enhance each other and create a sensory scape that is not unlike a secret garden.

Or so I envision. This is our first attempt at this, so we will learn as we go. Any suggestions, feedback, comments are welcome.

Welcome

If you came to this site via our Facebook page or our ad in Woodstock Times, bless your soul! This is an exciting event that has just hatched and keeps growing at a pace faster than the Tea Party, and I am fiercely working on this blog to bring you up-to-the-minute information. Please check back often and don’t forget to like our Facebook page!

Here We Go!

Finished this at 9 this morning. It will come out this Thursday in Woodstock Times.