Catskill High School’s Wendy Doney was among CHS Art Teacher Hone45 area high-school art teachers who were honored at Columbia-Greene Community College this month, as part of Colloquium 2018: Making Art Making Artists.
In a ceremony held in the Kaaterskill Gallery adjacent to the C-GCC Library prior to the Colloquium, art instructors at the secondary-school level from 28 different school systems were honored for their work cultivating new artists in the region, with certificates and commemorative sketch books from C-GCC.
Yura Adams, adjunct art professor at C-GCC and director of the college’s Foundation Gallery, explained that Colloquium 2018, co-sponsored by C-GCC, The Olana Partnership, and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, was designed to examine the role of mentorship in the Hudson Valley arts community, and welcomed acclaimed landscape painter Stephen Hannock and independent curator Carrie Feder as guest speakers in a discussion moderated by Adams.
“This event took a closer look at how mentoring affects the art world, with an emphasis on the art that has originated in the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill, Adirondack, and White mountains,” she said. “Our high school art teachers are the mentors of today, and may now be teaching the next Thomas Cole or Frederick Church. That’s important for us to recognize.”
Betsy Jacks, executive director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Sean E. Sawyer, Washburn and Susan Oberwager President of The Olana Partnership, kicked off the evening by detailing the relationship between artists Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, and Frederick Church, his pupil and creator of Olana property in Hudson, N.Y.
