local inspiration Archives - The Cutting Garden

July 22, 2023July 22, 2023

En Plein Air – Lessons with Helena Pittman

En Plein Air with Helena Pittman July 30th

Enjoy the outdoors and capture its beauty in this class

The Cutting Garden is pleased to host a plein air class with artist and instructor Helena Clare Pittman on July 30^th,at 2 pm. (Rain Date: July 31^st) She will guide you through the steps of painting directly from nature, teaching you ways to better understand the landscape and to successfully transfer what you see to your work. Bring the medium of your choice (watercolor, oil, pastel), brushes, a hat, a stool, and an easel. Paper will be supplied. The class fee is $20.00

Helena majored in Painting at Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York, and was awarded her Bachelors of Fine Art degree there. She took her Master of Arts at Antioch, in Painting, Writing and Education.

Helena has taught Color, Illustration and Drawing at The Parsons School of Design; Design, Drawing and Life Drawing at The State University of New York at Farmingdale; Writing and Classroom Methods at The City University of New York, Queens College School of Graduate Education; and Painting, Drawing and Illustration at The Nassau County Museum of Art. She has also taught both children and adults at the Art League of Long Island, as well as worked as an Author/Illustrator in Residence in many public and private schools.

Helena has published 17 books for children, most notably “A Grain of Rice” and “The Gift of the Willows.”

November 25, 2018November 25, 2018

On Writing and Painting

An afternoon with Helena Pittman and Scott Woods

Join author/artists Scott Woods and Helena Pittman for a lively discussion on writing and painting on Sunday, December 2^nd at 1 pm. WJFF’s Valerie Mansi will facilitate the discussion.

Helena has written and illustrated 17 books for children and her best-selling book “A Grain of Rice” has just been published in a new edition by Penguin Random House. On the origins of this book on exponential progression, Helena writes “Math was never my strength, anything but! But I worked out the transactions up to one hundred doublings of the numbers. Kids would love this, I thought. I hadn’t yet imagined the pictures the numbers would ultimately inspire me to conceptualize and draw—the book was published in black and white, its drawings in pencil. I was just taken with what the numbers did.”

Scott started his career illustrating boys’ adventure novels for Simon and Shuster, then moved on to the film business in LA, animating for Amblin’ Entertainment and DreamWorks. He spent his childhood summers in Callicoon Center and that landscape provided the inspiration for many of his later illustrations. Eventually the Catskills called him home and his recent book “We Hillfolk” describes his re-entry into country life, a real-life, grown-up boy’s adventure. He is a portrait artist and painter whose work captures the charm of each subject.

November 12, 2018November 21, 2018

Winter Show opens November 17th

Ann Higgins, Elise Hornbeck, Valerie Taggart, Laverne Black and Kate Hyden, have created an early winter show featuring their vibrant watercolors and drawings of landscapes, wildlife, flowers and faces. This professional group of local artists and friends meet regularly, getting together to paint, share their expertise and have some fun.
Join us for an opening reception Sunday, November 18th at 1 pm. The show will run until December 16th.

Don’t know these artists?
Ann Higgins is a former Liberty, NY teacher, a founding member of the Catskill Art Society, a signature member of the North East Watercolor Society (NEWS) and a renowned artist who continues to exhibit her work from the Adirondacks to Connecticut.
Elise Hornbeck has a passion for drawing and painting the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains, including the old covered bridges and barns of New York State. She is also a signature member of the North East Watercolor Society and has exhibited locally and throughout the region.
Valerie Taggart is a former Art Teacher with an MA in Painting/Printmaking from SUNY Oswego. She is also a signature member of the Northeast Watercolor Society. Watercolor is her favorite medium, about which she says “it allows for direct and immediate expression.” Invoking the quiet solitude of rural life, she strives to create a sense of place in her work.
LaVerne Black grew up on a small farm in Sullivan County and she holds dear the rural landscape and country lifestyle. She has exhibited widely throughout the region and in NY City. For many years she roamed the countryside photographing the rural scenes that were rapidly disappearing. She has returned to painting, drawing upon her photography for inspiration.
Kate Hyden has a degree in Painting from FSU and is a resident of Livingston Manor, NY. She is a member of the North East Watercolor Society, Catskill Art Society and has exhibited in the area for the last several years. She is also a member of the Sullivan County Audubon Society. Her love of birds is reflected in her work. She created and participated in the three Audubon and Friends Too exhibitions in Sullivan County.

October 26, 2018October 26, 2018

Sunday, November 11, 2 pm — Two Local Authors chat about their work

Two local authors will read and discuss their books on Sunday, November 11 at 2 pm. Both writers have set fictionalized stories in part in Sullivan County, each with historical backdrops; and both infuse government conspiracy theories into their work.
Gray Basnight will talk about his new political thriller, set against the 50^th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival and government crimes of the J Edgar Hoover era: Flight of the Fox (July 2018).
Bill Klaber will talk about his historical novel set in part in Sullivan County in the 1880s: The Rebellion of Lucy Ann Lobdell (2015), and his recently updated historical investigation: Shadow Play: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy (April 2018).

More About the Authors and Their Books In Gray Basnight’s new political thriller Flight of the Fox, an innocent math professor tries to decode a mystery file while hitmen chase him from Bethel to NYC and down the East Coast. Their goal is to suppress dark government crimes from decades past. His goal is for the truth to be told. The action switches between the historical backdrop of the J. Edgar Hoover era and the forthcoming 50^th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. The professor runs for his life, armed only with his wits and intellect, worrying whether the truth will be told, and if he’ll be seen as a hero whistle blower or a pariah. Basnight is deeply immersed in his third career — fiction writing, after almost three decades in broadcast news; preceded by a few years pursuing an acting career. His other published novels are The Cop with the Pink Pistol, a modern NYC-detective mystery with some scenes in the Catskills; and Shadows in the Fire, a Civil War historical novel about two young slaves on the edge of freedom as Richmond falls in April 1865. Basnight and his wife split their time between Sullivan County and New York City. He has lived in New York long enough to consider himself a native, though he grew up in Richmond, Virginia.

William Klaber, who lives a short way upstream from where Lucy Lobdell lived 160 years ago, originally set out to write a non-fiction account of her life after learning that the farmhouse he and his wife bought in 1980 had a history with Lucy’s legend. Klaber ultimately decided it would be better as a fictionalized account, tapping her story through echoes and dreams to create the award-winning novel The Rebellion of Lucy Ann Lobdell. Just-updated for the 50th anniversary of the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, Shadow Play explores altered evidence, ignored witnesses, and coerced testimony. It challenges the official assumptions and conclusions about this troubling, and perhaps still unsolved, political murder. It’s also the basis for a new podcast that debuted at #1 on the iTunes chart this year. Bill Klaber is a part-time journalist who has lived in an old farmhouse on a hill overlooking Basket Creek since 1980, where he and his wife raised their three children.