Wax and Clay in Whitesville, NY

just behind Ken is near 200 pounds of dripped wax.

WHITESVILLE: The old feed mill in Whitesville has long been the home of the Candle Wizard, Ken Reichman. Ken and his candles, serious or silly in style, are gearing up for the 28^th Allegany Artisans Studio Tour set for October 16 & 17, 20015.

                Ken started making candles in his parents’ basement in about 1972 and sold to friends. He also sold candles in shopping malls and, in 1974, started doing shows in Buffalo and other places. Ken didn’t just make candles; he invented a method of creating them and burned them to study how to make them better.

                I asked Ken about trimming the wick on candles and he said that if a candle is well made, it should self trim. That is, the wick should burn at a pace with the wax so that the wick is never too long or short. A short wick sputters out and a long wick gives a smoky flame. Perfect is what people need and what Ken tries to make.

                One thing that makes a candle burn poorly is scent. Scents are oil based substances and can keep the paraffin wax from burning cleanly. He doesn’t add scent to many of his candles.

                Candles can drip too and while that isn’t always wanted, Ken has made about a 150-200 pound sculpture that he started by burning candles at a windy Renaissance Faire he often attended. Ken brought his candle-drip creation to his shop and continued to burn candles and over the decades. You’ll see it as soon as you walk into the shop. It’s very much a case of “you can’t miss it.”

                Ken is a long-time member of the Allegany Artisans but took some time off. He worked at Alstom for a few years and then went back to school. In addition to his Associate’s degree in Electrical Technology he now has a degree in Computer Information Systems and is Wellsville’s Howe Library Information Technologist.

                Two years ago, Ken rejoined the Studio Tour and this year he plans some changes to the characters he creates with his special method. Ken uses pieces of wax almost like pieces of cloth. Heated, the wax becomes pliable enough to bend, fold and drape wizards and cloaks and smiling faces with beards.

                The characters hold things but some of those things need to be updated. The cell-phone-wizard has a phone with an antenna so it might need a Smartphone while the wizard sitting at a huge old desktop computer may also change. “This guy might need a tablet now,” said Ken.

                The guitar playing wizard will always be in style and in tune. In the same way dragons, unicorns and rainbows in wax are as timeless as the hand-dipped candles that Ken carefully creates.

                Ken has some stained glass candle holders and a few stained glass mirrors. He has sun glow candles and decorative tapers in many colors. There are votives and pillars in stern straight lines as well as all the flowing fantasy creatures.

                Ken is always available at candlewiz.com and will be at his studio in Whitesville during the Studio Tour. If you suddenly realize a need for a candle dwarf, dragon or a seasonal candle, call him at 607-356-3193

                At the other end of Whitesville is the busy and inspiring studio where Marsha VanVlack puts her constantly changing ideas into clay. Marsha’s been working professionally in clay for over 40 years and she knows it’s the right thing for her to do because it’s still fun and interesting.

Some of the new totem inspired wall pieces

                She started making functional ware because she loves the rhythm of doing a series of pots and loved using and holding pottery – her own pots or pots made by anyone else.  She thinks the love of pottery started when she was a child exploring archeological digs with her Dad. She’d find shards of ancient pots with thumbprints in the clay and she would feel a connection with the ancient potter. 

                Marsha did functional pottery until about 1990 when she began to make realistic sculpture and did that for almost 10 years.  About 15 years ago she focused on tiles as a kindness to her body. She also found it a kindness to her mind because she so enjoyed painting the landscapes around her. Fantastically, people loved the tiles.

                When she started teaching at the Wellsville Creative Arts Center she felt that she could and should stretch in new directions in order to offer variety to her students. A few years ago she focused her personal work on totems with leaping fish and jumping turtles but now she’s making wall pieces with the sense of totem structure.

                She is working with naked raku, raku without glaze. The process uses heat, smoke and time to create cracks and crazes to give the work dimension. She’s built a raku kiln at her studio and is ready to share it with students. Sign up for one of her 3 hour workshops by visiting her studio during the Studio Tour or by calling her at 607i-356-3414.

                On Friday, October 16 some Allegany Artisans will open their studios for a pre-tour reception from 5-8 pm. Ken Reichman has chosen not to participate in this but Marsha will. There’s a full list of the studios to be open on Friday evening on the website AlleganyArtisans.com.

                Friday night participants are also indicated in the brochure. For a copy of the brochure send your mailing address to AlleganyArtisans@gmail.com or call the Allegany County Tourism Office at 800-836-1869.  

        

Fred and Susan Beckhorn, Allegany Artisans.

WHITESVILLE: I expected to learn and to be impressed when visiting Allegany Artisans, Susan and Fred Beckhorn, in Whitesville this September. They are, I believe, creative, knowledgeable, dedicated, sprouting with hundreds of ideas and interested in thousands of things.

                First Fred Beckhorn showed me around his studio, previously a sugar shack with an addition for workspace and a showroom. He’s created an exhibit of live edge wood slabs in the shop (Live edge means that the side of the log is the edge of the wood so it follows the bumps, bulges and curves of the tree, as it grew.) so that people can choose wood for commissioned pieces but there are also finished tables, beds, mirrors, lamps and benches.

                I asked Fred what his favorite wood was and he went to a small display on a workbench – an illustration of his answer. Maple is the wood and variation the reason. Maple can be quilted, curly, birds eye, line eye and ingrown bark with variations on all of those. Blocks of each type not only illustrate new words but invite touch. The wood looks textured but feels sleek. Maple deserves a call out.

                Fred remembers a bowl he made at the age of 10 using his father’s gouge as his first wood project. Fred’s father was an electrician who taught at Alfred State College but spent his spare time working with wood and lots of other things.

                Fred’s early jobs included farm hand and carpenter and he gave himself a lot of on the job training building a house with his wife Susan in the 80s. In 1994 he took a wood design and a wood carving class at the School of Art and Design, Alfred University. By 1996 his work was offered under the name Natural Form Furniture and he moved from making the occasional bed and table to a full time dedication to designing furniture and sculpture in the reworked sugar shack.

                Fred doesn’t favor one particular tool or focus on a certain piece of furniture. His work is one of a kind, tailored to a certain piece of wood. He has hand tools, power tools and ideas that transform this organic material into both cozy/ contemporary furniture for decades of use and appreciation.

                Fred finds cedar in New Hampshire around the family’s summer camp and uses it to make mirror frames, lamps, beds and whatever it seems the wood was meant to be. I was also taken with two sculptural pieces made from whole trees sandblasted to expose the hard, flowing, inner wood.

                He finds burls and local hardwoods on the land which is worked sustainably. There’s a permaculture project to grow American Chinese Chestnuts, not to produce wood but for a crop of large chestnuts.  Other trees grow pawpaws, mulberries and persimmons.

                Fred Beckhorn’s work is at NaturalFormFurniture.com. He has hours by appointment and will work with people to select the perfect slab for their table or bench or work to design a lamp that will suit a special space. Call 607-356-3700 to arrange to see his work or visit during the Studio Tour.

                At the same location, you’ll find Susan Williams Beckhorn - illustrator, singer, watercolorist, teacher and published children’s author.

                When people say they’ve written a book, what they likely mean is that they had an idea that started in their heads, grew in their hearts and matured in their minds until it was worthy of the vast effort of placing a rough version of it on paper, digital or old-school pads.

                One of Susan’s books started with wondering over a Luna moth on a screen at summer camp. The moth seemed like a magical fairy that chose her for company. As a 7^th grader, she labored over the story in a notebook and brought it to school. Over the decades, her story grew, changed and flourished until it became a children’s novel Sarey by Lantern Light.

                Now, when Susan presents workshops for children, she takes her first handwritten version of the story to schools. She feels that it demonstrates the value of a child’s work. Her child’s story became a real book. So can theirs.

                She remembers making up a song about a rooster on the way to Lincoln School. She sang it for Miss Cunningham, the principal who graciously applauded the proud second grader and years later came to celebrate Susan’s first book at a signing party.  

                All of her books are about animals, children and other touches of nature. Susan grew up in a woodsy area north of Boston where friends owned ponies and children got dirty. She spent summers at camp in New Hampshire and still goes there. She loves fantasy, children and nature.

                In the studio are copies of all 6 published books but, on the day I visited, in her excited hand was an uncorrected proof of her 7^th book sent to her by Disney-Hyperion and scheduled to be available for your hands in June 2016. She gave me a glimpse of the behind the scenes part of the book, The Wolf’s Boy.

                Susan spent over a year reading and rereading every picture book, chapter book, middle school book and young adult book she could find about dogs. She looked into the theories concerning the domestication of dogs and studies of dog and wolf behavior.

                She went to workshops - Writing for Boys and The Heart of the Novel for example. These workshops were short (expensive) intense sessions, followed by months of writing, rewriting and feedback and then another group session. She has also long attended local critique groups and, of course, spends hours writing, reading her work aloud to herself and rewriting.

                Mark Derr, author of How The Dog Became The Dog, corresponded with her to help choose a setting for The Wolf’s Boy. He felt that China, the Middle East, and parts of Europe were likely places where the first dogs might have joined humans. She chose to place her story in southeastern France and so traveled there with Fred to visit areas with ancient cave paintings and to actually go inside of some of the caves that have been opened to the public. She needed to see the caves and feel the area around them in order to understand what her characters would see in the story.

                On that trip, she and Fred went to the Neanderthal museum in Germany to build awareness of early people. Clearly, The Wolf’s Boy represents years of research and effort to capture and build the story but that’s only one side.

                The other side, the harder part, is marketing. It sounded like the sort of thing that requires one to plaster on a smile and boot one’s self out the door. Some people find making connections with agents, publishers and other writers at conferences helpful. Her website, SueBeckhorn.com, has information regarding this side of the effort but she does not offer direct assistance to other writers.

                Some of Susan’s books are now out of print but she has copies of all of them to sell and autograph during the Studio Tour. She is available for workshops and presentations with details at on her website with links from AlleganyArtisans.com.

                Visit Fred and Sue Beckhorn on Irish Hill Road in Rexville. They will be open for a preview on Friday, October 16 from 5-8 pm as well as during the regular 28^th Studio Tour hours from 10-5 on Saturday  and Sunday, October 17 & 18. Find directions to all the studios at AlleganyArtisans.com or call the Allegany County Office of Tourism at 800-836-1869 and ask to have one mailed to you.

Scenic Drive, Oil County Tour

BOLIVAR: On a blue-skied September day, my husband Rick and I gathered snacks and took off for “Oil Country,” one of the 6 Allegany County driving tours.

                We chose to start as suggested on Route 417 in Bolivar, traveling clockwise on the route. This meant that we drove from our home in Wellsville through Allentown where we stopped at the Allentown Antique Mart.

                It’s not necessary to name names or admit guilt but someone had the unhappy experience of breaking the lid on Grandma Bonnie’s glass candy dish so we’ve been checking flea markets and the like on the off chance that some unhappy soul broke a similar dish and set the lid out for sale.

                We found a basket full off surviving lids for candy dishes and casseroles but none were right. Rick found a vintage vise that we hope will be an appreciated Christmas gift and I found some odd jewelry pieces that will work into earrings.

                The Allentown Antique Mart is open Monday through Friday, 10-4.  Your company there would be appreciated and you might find a treasure for yourself. The entire second floor is now on sale for 50% off.

Don and Pauline King with their work.

                Then, being in Allentown, we took a second detour to the home of Don and Pauline King. Don, a wood turner, is a member of the Allegany Artisans but we had never seen his studio. When I called from the Antique Mart, they were both home.

                We thought we would find them in minutes but followed the directions from our smart phone so went an extra few miles. Don and Pauline live on White Hill Road #1, an address that baffles navigation systems (Don has stories!) so if you go to see Don’s turnings during the Studio Tour on October 17 & 18, just turn on White Hill Road #1, across from the old school, and go up the hill until you see Don’s signs on the left.   

                We were lucky to find them since they often spend afternoons on a four-wheeler trundling the over 10 miles of dirt roads on their wooded hill. They search for burls and downed trees that Don turns into bowls.

                Don started by chiseling bowls. His first bowl is a sturdy oval on the kitchen counter. The second is a large dough bowl. Both of these were laboriously chiseled one hammer blow at a time. While both are beautiful pieces, Don’s family invested in a lathe for him so his bowls are now round.

                Pauline takes what she calls Don’s wood scraps and paints them, often with roosters or with fruit or flowers.  Pauline is an interior designer who was working with Don’s daughter who worked a little match/making magic between them.  She is also a trombonist and we have played together in summer bands over the years. Music and art often mix.

                We tore ourselves away since we hadn’t yet gotten to our official starting point an hour after leaving home. Our task was to look at Allegany County rather than just speed past it so, in that sense, we were always on track.

                We arrived in Bolivar and turned left to take the tour. Fittingly, the Pioneer Oil Museum on Main Street is at the start of Oil Country. The museum was closed for us but will be open to all on October 3 & 4 (10am to 3 pm) as part of the Allegany County Museum Trail. Eighteen museums and historical societies around Allegany County are scheduled to participate in the event. Many are free.

                We passed a hearing aid shop, a bridal store, the curiously named Horse Run Road and the busy Bolivar Country Club. Directions in the brochure are to turn at the end of the Country Club onto County Route 5 but don’t be tricked. The first right turn is County Route 5C, marked with 2 easy-to-read signs. The second road, with a sign not visible until the turn is made, is County Route 5. Every turn we made revealed locations with fire wood for sale.

Snowmobile Trail at scenic overlook

                After the turn is a small park with swings, charcoal grills and a picnic table in a small pavilion. On the other side of the street is a private home with a gazebo graced with a telephone booth and rail road crossing sign.

Overlook on Daggett Hollow

                The trail map indicates a Scenic Overlook on Daggett Hollow Road. We stopped at a large, mowed parking area with a tall, white wooden cross and hiked down two trails. It might have been an overlook when the trees were small but it isn’t now.

                The trail near the cross is posted as private property but also has round snowmobile trail markers. Snowmobilers also have a blue arrow pointing left where another trail goes into the woods but it seems all woods, not overlook.

A model of Main Street inside
Sloppy Joe's Deli

                We brushed off mud and seeds and got back in the car to get to Sloppy Joe’s Deli, soon to celebrate its 24^th birthday.  Sloppy Joe’s hosts live music on Tuesday nights and every morning there are folks who have crossed from customers to friends to family, all drinking coffee and talking.

Barn Sale

                The barn out back is open daily. If you need a pink accordion, this is your place. There is also a beautiful, little English sewing machine from about 1890 and a Larkin desk in addition to the more ordinary glass, china, books, decorations, and what-nots. Again, their candy dish lids weren’t a fit for us.  

                We missed the right turn onto Route 1 but came back to it shortly and then did a detour to Mt. Irenaeus, part of the St. Bonaventure ministry. Mt. Irenaeus is a Contemplative Center not open to the public except for their Sunday morning service.

                Roman Catholic Mass is held in the Chapel at 11 am and followed by a dish to pass brunch. Attendance can be large in spring and summer but sparse in winter though Brother Lewis said that the Town of Wirt is super about keeping the unpaved road plowed for them.

Mt Irenaeus Lodge

                Brother Lewis sat with us on the porch of the main house and we talked about the Pope’s Philadelphia visit, the perils of gardening among voracious deer and the enormous appetites of the St. Bonaventure Women’s Swim Team.

                Back on Route 1, we found “Times Square” and “Fifth Avenue” in the town of Wirt and then returned to our starting point in Bolivar after 3 hours and 42 miles, an extra 20 miles of exploration.

                The Allegany County Office of Tourism and Culture offers the Scenic Drives brochure in addition to those focused on History, Hunting and Fishing, Outdoor Sports, Artisans, and Events. All of these can help you appreciate hidden pockets of Allegany County. Call 1-800-836-1869 or find information at DiscoverAlleganyCounty.com.

Our map - 1 is where we walked around a bit, 2 is
the side trip to Mt. Ireneaus and 3 is our wrong
turn.

Simple Gifts Part 2

WELLSVILLE: This series started because my mind is often on gifts and my hands are often making them or admiring things made by others. The goal is to encourage people to make gifts of objects or time during these overlapping family seasons.

Making things is a valuable use of time. A gift seems a double gift when given with the words, “I made this for you.”         

Have you made a gift for someone lately? If not, there is still time and here are other ideas to infuse holidays with simple gifts, simple times, social interactions.

Simple Gifts Series, Part 2 of 4

This proposal is about promises and coupons, kits and ideas.

          Our children always made coupons for us. Computer programs and websites make coupon design easy, or at the least possible. You might print your own holiday cards and send them to people with a coupon good for one dinner out together or for a New Year’s Eve hike in the woods with wine, cheese and a glorious sky.

            You might give a coupon for a lesson in making jelly, in canning tomatoes, in baking a pie with a fluffy crust, in wiring a lamp, in using a smart phone or in the fine art of drywall. Is there someone you could teach to knit or to even just to join for a day of baking things your mother baked?

          If coupons don't appeal to you, consider a kit. In searching the internet for kit gift ideas, it’s easy to be buried or at the least distracted, by the tens of thousands of ideas out there. Here are some websites that offer craft ideas

www.craftsolutions.com – nestled among hundreds of advertisements are ideas

www.craftster.org – general crafts, foods, some special projects that would be one of a kind items

www.busybeekidscrafts.com - simple kid projects with instructions

          This website has many craft instructions. Print the instructions and gather the materials into a box or plastic bag and there’s a gift to go.

http://craftbits.com has all kinds of instructions including a page of gifts-in-a-jar.

          If you aren’t interested in coupons or kits, make something with a friend.

          You might get a group of people together for a workshop at The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass. Have you ever gone there? You can schedule a group party to make a project, pay the fee and go for the fun of it. One all-ages workshop involves making a picture frame. Another is about 

sandblasting designs on a glass. See cmog.org for more or call (800) 732-6845.

 (Here are some of the projects that one can make at The Studio, Corning Museum of Glass.)





          Did you know that Sarah Phillips is a marvelous teacher with a studio full of stuff and the grace and patience of a seraph? She has an open workshop on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10-3:30. Bring your lunch and ideas and pay $5 plus some additional fees if you choose to use some more expensive materials. Sarah can give you more information if you call her at (585) 437-5225.

       Having said all that, if there is snow, forget it all, grab a carrot nose and get to work on Frosty. Use your own lawn or go to a nursing home and work in view of their largest windows or find the home of a fragile person and work there. You’ll get an audience and sometimes a cup of coca afterwards. Call ahead first.

          If you want handmade and some connection without doing the making yourself, find marvelous craftspeople and artists at alleganyartisans.com. Many of us have hours by appointment. Shop slowly and hear the story behind the work to get inspired to work yourself or to buy handmade.

            There will also be a show at the Community Hall behind St. Philip's Church in Belmont on December 12 &13. There will be things hand stitched, hand formed, hand carved, hand drawn, hand strung, hand hammered, hand woven, hand built, hand thrown and otherwise carefully hand made. Find makers, their stories and some great cookies. Call (585) 808-0385 for information on this Friday/Saturday show. Maybe you can talk a one of the people there into giving private lessons.

Missing the Gentle Hands of Bruce Greene

Bruce’s Hands

ALFRED STATION: The leaves are gold and red among pumpkins turning orange but inside some hearts the world is blue. As Allegany Artisans dust off their signs and clean their studios, many will pause to think of two long time members, Charley Orlando and Bruce Green, who will not be adding their warmth and welcome to the 27^th Annual Studio Tour on October 18 & 19.

                Much has been written about both of these generous men. Both were treasured in their families. Both were teachers whose voices wove permanently into the lives of hundreds of students. Both created objects now found comfortably within thousands of homes across the country, working into family traditions as well as everyday life. Both helped to build their communities with a generosity that is less and less common.

                Susan Greene spent some time with me in the home that she and Bruce filled with memories and history as she described to me the hero of her life, her husband, Bruce Greene.

                Bruce Robert Green was born in 1939 and worked pretty much ceaselessly until September this year.  FDuring

During 40 of those years his were the hands that created Hillbottom Pottery in Alfred Station.

                For 24 years he guided Alfred Almond’s high school students as they gained critical thinking proficiency, planning skills, social behaviors, self expression methods and the myriad lessons of math and science needed to employ various mediums of art in their coursework.

                Susan said that she and Bruce were in concert in their beliefs and attitudes. Both felt that much of the work they did was an act of worship. Bruce valued creating things with his hands and worked with gratitude and respect.  This generous, gentle man and his wife found objects created by long-gone hands and brought them into their home to honor the lines, the designs, the craftsmanship, the color, the utility and the labor of their involved.

                “These look like things but they’re not. These are memories. They represent a place we saw or they stand for a conversation Bruce and I shared.” Susan said while showing the collection that she and Bruce gathered over decades.

                How does she most remember Bruce?  As many others, Susan remembers her husband as a teacher. Teaching was important to him. Students were important people and they knew it. It’s why so many came to celebrate his life at the memorial service at the Alfred Station Seventh Day Baptist Church. It’s why several of them created a “Teacher Quilt” to warm him in his last days at the Hart Comfort House.

                It’s why his voice still guides them in their lives and careers. Though their careers are not art-centered, they are always Mr. Greene-assisted. One past student became a ceramic engineer who feels that Mr. Greene put art into his personal and high tech life. Another said that art is communication and so is useful in all fields.

                Bruce and Susan both saw making art as a vulnerable act. She worked with elementary students giving them background information and confidence to move toward creative works. When they met Bruce in junior and senior high school, they felt secure in making creative leaps. Art was part of life for students of all grade levels at Alfred Almond Central.

                As a teacher, he was a gentle man but he had expectations and presented structure with lots of room for exploration. His interactions with students gave them room to find happiness and made them aware of their environment.

                As a potter he was pragmatic. He spoke, at times,of his love/hate thing with clay. He’d get tired of a design or a process but he always pressed forward because of the pride he knew with the making of  attractive, appealing, appreciated objects. 

                He felt that he was given the role to bring beautiful, satisfying things into people’s lives. He didn’t want a lot of “ballyhoo” about it but he enjoyed that sense that so many potters have of being written into someone’s life by virtue of the favorite mug or the morning cereal bowl.

                In this way, Bruce Greene continues in many lives. A mug handle connects him with a person, a place, a time and his memory is honored by this.

                Bruce felt that there is good and God in handmade things. Artisans know that there is beauty in a piece of wood, a silver wire, a ball of clay or an old can and as they pass that material through their hands they bring out this beauty. This creative act, the Greenes know, connects with the idea of creative people having been themselves created.

                During his last months, Bruce’s brain was under assault and his body suffered from it but he pushed himself to do things so that there would be greater room in Susan’s life to finish the book she published in January. She didn’t know how hard the struggle was for him until the spring because he didn’t complain. He just helped. This she sees as heroic and typical. He was always ready to help anyone.   

                His studio still holds his clay tools and some of his last pots. The Allegany Artisans have agreed to an exception in their policy to allow Susan Green to sell this pottery during the hours of the 2014 Studio Tour on October 18 & 19, from 10 am to 5 pm.       

                There will be 39 other studios open and hosted by 46 members of the Allegany Artisans ready to show what their hands have created. You may want to establish a connection in your life with something handmade and humbly presented.

                Call the Allegany County Office of Tourism at 1-800-836-1869 or write to AlleganyArtisans@gmail.com to request a brochure listing all participants.

               

Wearable Prints, 1760-1860, History, Materials, and Mechanics was published by Susan W. Greene in January, 2014.  It is available on Amazon.

When I suffered a hip injury years ago, Bruce Green taught me to throw standing up. Bruce stacked things on the floor to stand on and made measurements and sketches. Thus armed, Rick Hardman did a bit of welding and carpentry to change a foot operated wheel into a hand operated model. The modified machine has what Bruce called a “belly bar”. His invention makes it possible to lean into the clay with steady pressure easing the stress on back and hip. 

Charles Phillip Orlando

BELMONT: Charley and Betsy. Betsy and Charley. So many thought of them together, a partnership brimming with energy, knowledge and creativity, always ready to teach or to learn. On January 23rd, Charley (Dr. Charles Phillip Orlando) died while Betsy held his hand and silence wrapped around them.

            I’d met Charley as Dr. Orlando in 1974 during my job interview for a position as special education teacher at the Allegany County BOCES. I walked into the Learning Center a bit nervous but dressed, I thought, presentably in my new coat-dress. Charley suggested I hang my coat in the closet.

            “This is my dress,” I said.

            His eyebrows strained upward, struggling with disbelief. “That’s a dress?”

            Luckily style wasn’t part of the job so we talked about behavior management, lesson plans, educational philosophy. Hours later I had a new job and had begun learning from one of my greatest teachers.

            My arrival at the Belmont Learning Center came about after my husband joined the faculty at Alfred State College but what brought Orlandos to Belmont? A job, of course.

            Charley was teaching at Penn State in 1972 when he was asked to inform his students that the Learning Center in Belmont needed a director. Instead, he sent his own application and landed an interview. He spent the night at the motel (now the ACCORD building) near the waterfalls in Belmont.

            Arriving late, he found a key under the mat. The room was cold but he showered, dressed (even donning his coat) and burrowed under frigid blankets. In the night, he woke up sweltering. The heating system had turned the icy room steaming-hot.         

            At his interview he discussed not only education but fly and trout fishing. Job in hand, he and Betsy went house hunting. At the time there were only 2 homes for sale in Belmont and neither suited. 

            Still Belmont was the best choice for anyone working work half time at The Learning Center in Belmont and halftime teaching at Alfred University. Locals know that hills dictate road placement so other towns were just not as reasonable for someone splitting time between those towns.

            Luckily a home on Ackerman Hill was listed. It was a mobile home which wasn’t to their liking but the land was wonderful. The previous owner had a runway for his plane, his way to cover a huge service area. Orlandos added another 30 acres to the property and they, their 3 girls (miracles Charley called them) and a parade of dogs, cats, horses and goats moved in.

            Betsy had several years at home and in service groups. She was president of the 4H Committee and Charley took charge of the 4-H horse club. The girls presented horses, goats, dogs, sewing and crafts at the county fair. Over time, Betsy served on the Belmont Library Board, and performed with the Genesee Valley Chorus and the Allegany County Players. They both served as board members for the Allegany Artisans where Betsy is currently secretary.

            Charley was a member of the Amity Town Board and worked as the town assessor. He was on the Alfred State College Council for 17 years and, a person full of ideas, insights and inventions, he was always learning, teaching and supporting his family and friends.

            During those early years in Belmont, the family took 3 westward road trips in a pop top camper. They went to Yellowstone, to Albuquerque, and then back to Yellowstone with a side trip to Glacier Park.

            During the first trip, the family trained in behavior management. Charley and Betsy wore golf counters. They set a timer and if, when the bell rang, all the behavior during that period had been acceptable each girl got a click or 2. If there was a behavioral disruption, they tuned the timer back. Now and then they caught someone being good and gave an extra click. Two clicks were worth 1 cent so that clicks converted to spending money for ice-cream or trinkets.

            Everyone had click-earning jobs at meal time and during camp set up. Betsy said she wasn’t sure she wanted this program, especially for 4-year old Jessica, she but clicked into position as a believer. Consistency teaches and all of them modified their behaviors.

            “We had such good times just being together on those trips,” Betsy said. “We went to ranger talks, read stories around the campfire, worked together and just enjoyed each other.”

             After Jessica started Kindergarten, Belmont Schools asked Betsy to apply for a job. She didn’t think she wanted to teach where the girls attended but she went to the interview. It was her first. She’d never had to have a job interview before.

            Here’s some recent history. There was a time when teachers were hard to find and schools begged for applicants. Interviews included asking women if their husbands approved of their working.

            Betsy was also asked if she would ignore her years of experience and accept beginning pay. No, said Betsy, she would not. After a different job interview, Betsy began teaching Kindergarten in Rushford to the great benefit of many children and several adults.

            Betsy provided experiences in her classroom. Many children arrived for Kindergarten never having used crayons or scissors, never having heard a story read to them. Betsy’s classroom was about practicing, learning and growing and not about any product to take home.

            The best part of teaching, she said, was the kids. Kindergarteners have no filters. Their thoughts and ideas pop into their heads and fly out of their mouths. No filters needed.

            Both Orlandos earned reputations as skilled, energetic, creative artisans, in part through the Allegany Artisans. One might wonder how they started their creative lives.  Charley started knitting in 4^th grade. During WWII, every child knitted weekly for the war effort. Younger kids made squares for lap robes while older kids and teachers made socks and sweaters for the military.

            For his 80+ years, Charley learned things. He’d start with an idea, get stack of books on the topic and the girls would say, “Great, we’ve got another hobby.”

            When Charley mastered one thing, he moved to another but when he discovered artistic blacksmithing, he said it was a medium so complex and versatile he’d never master it. 

            He started as a farrier, in part to save money on shoeing all their horses.  He had a portable forge mounted on his pickup and shoed horses on site. After a while, he made hooks, spatulas, pot hangers, glass table bases. Whatever entered his mind, heat and hammers helped him forge.

            Then there were his musical accomplishments.  As a child, Charley was told that he was a listener, decidedly not a singer.  When school groups performed, he was told to silently mimic until in 8^th grade when teachers decided that each student would sing a solo. “No way,” Charley said, “I’m a listener.”

            The listener turned singer when he and Betsy had summer jobs at Camp Snipatuit. They learned the rudiments of guitar so they could lead camp fire songs. Betsy still thinks of it this way: “Down in the valley, valley so (change-the-cord-now) low.”

            Likely 8^th-grade-Charley didn’t expect to build and master several instruments but over time, after Bobby Hansen introduced him to tin can folk art, that’s what he did. He built and played banjo (his favorite), mandolin and violin. He also sang, solos if you please, and he was pretty good.

            Betsy’s mother and grandmother knitted, sewed, embroidered and made many things so Betsy grew up thinking that she could make anything with a pattern. About 25 years ago she tossed out patterns and came to know her inventive mind through art dolls.  She knits and felts and creates with paper and intends to build the studio that she and Charley planned.

            At heart, Orlandos are teachers and in the past many years they’ve taught or learned basket weaving, knitting, paper arts, tin can folk art, blacksmithing and more at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Betsy recently joined people there to celebrate Charley’s life and was touched by their regard for her husband.

            The Orlando family would like you to join them on Saturday, May 31 at the Amity Rescue Squad from 2 to 4 to share food, lemonade and memories in honor of Charles Phillip Orlando, 1932-2014.

 

BOX

As his 80^th birthday project, Charley Orlando wrote an autobiography so that his children and grandchildren could know him as a person. Life Has Been Good by Charles Orlando is available on Amazon.com in kindle edition or as a paperback. It can be borrowed free for one month with Amazon Prime and there’s a copy at the Belmont Free Library.

 

Should you wish to make a memorial donation in his name, the family thanks you and proposes the Amity Rescue Squad, the Belmont Free Library or a charity of your choice.

Broken Calculator upcycled into earrings

Rick tried to throw away a calculator. First he took it apart and I found the pieces and then, well, then there were earrings. The first pair is on its way to Baton Rouge to Michaela because she's a mathematician and that seemed right.

These earrings are made from the broken calculator, scraps of wire, beads from an old necklace and brand new, handmade, niobium earwires because nobody is ever allergic to niobium.  My earrings sell for $11 per pair plus tax and or shipping or you can just stop by the studio and look.

At Hot Dog Day in Alfred, if the weather is friendly.

At the Annual Snowman Show on Mother’s Day Weekend at St. Philips’ Church Hall on Route 19 in Belmont, always at the Studio Tour in my studio on the weekend after Columbus Day and whenever you have time to stop by.
www.facebook.com/StoneFlowerPottery

www.StoneFlowerPottery.com

Sarah Carmen presents Senior Thesis Show

A few years ago I thought I had a basic understanding of “art” but as a result of listening actively and looking deeply, of concentrating intently as various students described their work, I’ve realized that art is a small word holding an entire world of meanings.

Is art about what I see or about a practice of exploring materials and processes? Maybe it’s about discovering relationships and linking science with thought or past with present. Maybe it’s about making people slow down and put words to their responses as their eyes or even hands explore an object or idea.

Maybe, all I know is maybe so it’s time to work at that definition some more. It’s time for Alfred University’s 2010 Senior Thesis Shows. All seniors in Alfred University’s School of Art and Design create a thesis and present work to explore that thesis - a senior show. Every student will have a different thesis and will present their answers in different ways – using clay, paint, rocks, dirt, glass, paper, gesso, time, fur, wood, dance, sound, machines and whatever other material seems to suit the thesis. The shows will be held on Saturday, May 8. The opening reception is from 4-7 pm and you’re invited. Bring a friend and share rides. Parking is hard to find.

In preparation for the shows, I spoke with Sarah Carmen. Sarah’s major is Art and Design with a concentration in photography and a minor in Education. Sarah came to Alfred to study art and she always intended to include education in her program but she didn’t jump into photography until she signed up for classes for a semester overseas in Scotland last year.

She filled out paperwork choosing graphic design as her course work while in Scotland. As soon as she saw those words on the paper she realized that she wasn’t a bit interested in graphic design. She wanted to study photography. She changed the answer and has been snapping up antique cameras and photos on 2 continents. “Art has been heaven ever since,” according to Sarah.

Sarah’s camera of choice is a circa 1950 Ansco Flex medium format camera. It has 2 lenses, one for her to frame her image and the other to expose light to the film. She can’t get film for this camera so she buys black and white Kodak 120mm film and takes it off the spool to rewind it onto other spools that will actually fit inside the camera. The process of loading film takes her about 30 minutes.

Sarah has a friend, a psychology student, who understands Sarah’s language of photography. She knows how to stand and how to look to capture the aspect of the setting that Sarah wants in her photo. That’s an uncommon skill, she says.
Sarah’s project involves using her photos as well as photos she has found and copied and manipulating them by cutting them, changing the textures, blowing them up and changing them.

One of her projects in Scotland was to present a single photo 50 different ways. She really liked that project and doing it made her stretch her understanding of images. When she returned from Scotland she brought that challenge with her and has spent her senior year manipulating photos in even more ways. While working with photos this way she realized that the processes made her photos more like her memories of Scotland.

“The mind sheds memories,” said Sarah. “Our minds take in an image through our eyes but change that image to fill it in with textures and related experiences – current or from other time periods. Our minds work on those images, superimposing some parts and erasing others but we think those are the images we really saw.”

Sarah makes copies of her images and then puts them on heavy, gesso-coated paper and then washes off the paper to reveal grainy images on the large sheets. Photographic representation of mind-fuzzed memories. She also layers photos in light boxes putting several images on plastic or glass and piling them up in groupings that seem related to her.

The light boxes will be small and the washed images will be huge and they will all represent Sarah’s mind and memory and her sense of “heaven” in a space shared with Rayanna Bump’s stained-glass show in Harder Hall on the second floor painting area.

Starting Small, show at The Artist Knot

Boats by Molly Dougherty (photo provided)

Amy Brown meant to start small but her first show at the newly remodeled gallery, the Artist Knot in Andover, drew a huge crowd – enormous in enthusiasm and massively impressed.

Among the first guests to walk in were Rick and Sarah Recio from Wellsville. Rick said that several forces nudged them to attend the show. They read articles about the store/gallery in 2 area papers and then their neighbor brought a gift from the Artist Knot. Rick drove past it twice a day for a while – always too early or too late to stop – but the postcard about the show made them set the date for a visit.

Recios found three “favorites” on display in the show as well as in the main gallery: a Salvador Dali print, a painting of elephant tulips and a Dick Lang bowl. They sipped wine, visited friends, snacked on an engaging spread of food and in the end chose the Dali, an intricate design wonderfully framed and matted.

Ann and Rich Hampshire, present, were pleased that there is a place like the Artist Knot to show off all our local artists.

Anthony Lipnicki, proprietor of the Mustard Seed Inn, said, “This is a wonderful addition to the community of Andover. Andover is turning into “the place to be” and this opening gave me the chance to appreciate the talent in our area. It also made me realize the quality of art made by some of my friends.”

Another guest, Ty Houston from Hornell, spent a great deal of time studying Bob Chaffee’s wood carvings as well as an oil painting by Jay Pullman of Hornell. Pullman’s painting, Time for a Rest III showed a pile of logs, large diameter pieces on the bottom and smaller on the top, a blue jacket hanging on one log and a maul leaning against its future task.

Houston works for the Tribune in Hornell. Last week, her job required her to visit a sawmill so the topic in Pullman’s piece caught her eye, surprising her. While working, she had walked past stacks of wood, mundane things unworthy of note, but Pullman had looked at much the same scene and turned it into art. “He took a small part of life and made it bigger. He saw something I would never have seen,” she said as she continued to study the patterns in the wood.

“The title is Time for a Rest III and that makes me want to know the story. Was the jacket still on the person in number one? Was there a number 4? Was it the painter’s jacket?”

Houston left those questions hanging but later Pullman arrived with answers. Before painting this series, he had been living in the south but hurricane Katrina destroyed his home so he moved to the “family homestead” in Hartsville. There he faced that pile of wood, wore that jacket and wielded that maul to turn chunks of tree into winter heat. His wood piles were neatly stacked with an artist’s eye toward pattern - and the pattern came to this series of paintings. The larger logs at the bottom of the stack were those that refused to yield to his maul.

The Artist Knot is filled with the work of 48 artist and artisans but Starting Small has small works created by 12 of them. The show includes drawings by Jerry Brown, paintings by Tom O’Grady and o’bhriuthiann, wood carvings by Alec MacCrea, silver jewelry by Trina Allen and pottery by Mark Corwine. Molly Dougherty, of Richburg, was not only the youngest artist but the most popular among patrons Starting Small opened on Friday, March 12, 2010 and continues on Tuesdays through Saturdays until April 23 during regular hours. In addition to art, the Artist Knot also sells professional art supplies and materials. Visit www.ArtistKnot.com for hours.




Bob Chaffee's Lonesome Indian (photo provided)



Trina Allen's Free Falling Leaves necklace (photo provided)


Dick Lang's Brown Covered Jar (photo provided)

Stop the Pottery -Time for TV

Being president of the Allegany Artisans is one of those jobs pointing in more directions than a porcupine’s quills.
Last Wednesday was like that. I was trying not to skid into panic mode over the Studio Tour (just 11 days off) and was making one of my to-do-list/calendars that would map my way through the studio and end with all pots dried, bisque, glazed, priced and displayed when I remembered that one of my points of duty involved calling Lea DiCenso, executive producer at AM Buffalo. I had talked with her a week earlier and she said that hosting the Allegany Artisans on the show this year unlikely but she never knew what might happen. She has managed to feature the Artisans every year for a while now. We couldn’t complain about a year off.
I dialed expecting voice mail. She answered. I expected her to accept a few photos and information for WKBW’s website but she jumped into business mode. There was a cancellation. 6 minutes were available on Thursday – 18 hours hence. Could I make a few things happen?
My first use of the to-do-list/calendar was to flip it over to take notes from Lea while swallowing concerns for pottery. Pots could dry while I was on TV on Thursday.
I started mental calculations and plans. Sarah Phillips agreed to throw her gardening aside and go with me. She would pack up some paintings. I started taking tracking down 6 photos – 300 dpi – horizontal orientation.
Lea needed a poster that would work on TV. She had rattled off pixel dimensions that I immediately forgot. (Don’t tell her that.) The Allegany Artisans always have a vertical poster and she wanted horizontal. Sarah and I brainstormed options and I remembered that Hope Zaccagni had sent a pdf of part of the brochure for our website. Rick dropped what he was doing to work on that. If he cut off the top and bottom and photo-shopped the Tourism phone number and website over the group photo, we could call it a horizontal poster.
Hope Zaccagni designed the brochure so had all the photos but she was in meetings all day but Steve Walker had some and so did Kandace and Alec and so did I. Mine were from 2008 but a Bruce Greene teapot is timeless. WKBW had jpgs in a couple of hours.
Russ Allen agreed to drop off a wooden train and Bob Chaffee promised a carved plate and a never-wrinkles table cover. I packed my Pete Midgley vase from the mantle, Hope’s drawing from the dining room and chose a shirt that would show off my Jim Horn pin in googly-eyed splendor.
In the morning Sarah and I drove to Buffalo. Security at WKBW is strict. There are lots of doors but visitors go to the front door and call the person who is expecting them. Inside there are reception areas, offices and rooms filled with monitors, keyboards and blinking lights all held together by miles of cables and wires.
AM Buffalo is a live show and the studio has a few areas – the jackpot drawing set, the sofa set, the rolling table and the kitchen. There are 5 cameras aimed in different direction. Each wears a monitor for the text above its unblinking eye but there are no people behind the cameras. The people are off in those equipment-filled rooms. At least I expect they are during the show. When we arrived just after 9 a.m., the crew that came to work at 4:30 that morning was having lunch.
Sarah and I set up our art and talked about it. Linda Pellegrino laughed at my cow bank while Lea insisted it was a pig. Mike told me to bring in the table and clay demo stuff that Lea said to leave in the car. “Ask Lea,” I said, not wishing to be stuck in the middle of anything.
As if Sarah and I had a smidge of Linda’s experience and ease we were given a 2 minute sketch of our 6 minute show. It was my 3rd show and I knew not to try to prepare. What I hoped to say would never fit with what Linda would shoot out as a question.
I set my inner monitors to keep with the conversation and mention as many artisans as possible. Push the phone number. Name the website. Keep breathing. Try not to look doopy. Don’t cough. Don’t sneeze on Linda.
Seconds later the segment was over. Linda said it was easy to go on air with us. We were so confident and at ease. Could have fooled me.
I stopped at the Allegany County Tourism office on the way home. Patience Regan jumped out of her chair saying I should have warned her before getting myself on some big TV production. She had 18 phone calls in just 2 hours. Whether or not you caught us on WKBW, come to my studio for great pots, Jim Horn’s pins, and refreshments. Sarah says to see her in Rushford for paintings, silk scarves and better refreshments.
Of course there are more choices. Visit www.AlleganyArtisans.com to find all 36 locations and all 47 artisans offering locally made, quality work during the 22nd annual Studio Tour.