event
Curator's Talk with Andrea Callard: The Avocet Portfolio 2023

About the event

Saturday, June 17, 4pm

Join us for a Curator's Talk by Andrea Callard as she discusses The Avocet Portfolio 2023, an exhibition of fine art screen prints by 31 artists made at Art Awareness between 1985 - 1991.

An Opening Reception will follow the talk from 5 - 6pm.

Curator's Statement:
During the summers of 1985-1991, 31 artists created the 48 editions of screen prints of the Avocet Portfolio at Art Awareness in Lexington, New York in the Catskills. Over seven summers, we worked together to initiate a more social and more collaborative production model than the traditional Master Printer/Artist relationship. We tested new, non-toxic, water-based products being developed by Vince Kennedy of Createx, Ltd. So, the prints have both vivid and subtle color interactions. 
 
Every summer, Art Awareness hosted visual, theatrical, and musical artists as residents and presenters. Decades before the current population bloom of the Hudson Valley, a mix of regional year-round and summer residents gathered as an arts audience. In previous eras, Art Awareness had been a resort hotel through the Depression and a camp for creative children in the 1950's, all run by different generations of the same family. 
 
Run by Pam and Judd Weisberg, Art Awareness was one of only two non-profit arts organizations supported by the NEA and NYSCA that were not located geographically in a city. It was located on many acres in a beautiful valley on the Schoharie Creek in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The town dammed up the river each summer to make an excellent swimming area. The weather changed often and we could see it blowing towards us up the valley. 

- Andrea Callard