Margaret Irwin, lead consultant with River Street Planning and Development and one of the grant writers and consultants for the application for the NY Forward Grant, presented the projects that Copake hopes to develop if they win the 4.5 million dollar grant. The grant will help revitalize downtown Copake.
COPAKE — Members of the New York Forward Advisory Committee held their second community meeting to discuss their progress and to invite public comment at Town Hall on Thursday, Oct. 10.
Margaret Irwin, lead consultant with River Street Planning and Development and one of the grant writers and consultants for the application, opened the meeting saying that this year they have “stronger projects” and “a shared vision and the backbone to succeed” in winning the grant. It is the third time they will try for the grant.
Irwin said there are twenty projects under consideration for the 20 page application. Important to the application are 39 proposed affordable housing units and a possibility of 174 new jobs in Copake.
The “Copake Spur” is a key element to the revitalization plan. This is a foot trail that will connect the town of Copake to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail.
Included in the plan are three catalyst projects. One is the renovation of the historic Copake Grange. Repairs and upgrades are proposed for the whole building as well as the 94 seat theater.
The second catalyst will be improvements to Route 7A, with plans to reconstruct and pave 1.74 miles of road, add storm water drainage, curbing, sidewalks, and lighting to improve safety.
The third catalyst project is the Astor Court Gardens. A proposed agrotourism hotspot, the bed and breakfast will host wellness workshops, fitness classes, spa treatments, event space, a farm market and 24 rooms.
Other projects include restaurants, farm stores, renovation of the Copake schoolhouse and the Copake Inn and rehabilitation of fire damaged buildings for apartments.
Winners are to be announced in January and if Copake should win, the entire process begins again with projects being reviewed and picked.
In response to a question from the crowd, Irwin advised the best way to help Copake win the grant is to write a letter. Irwin also urged the crowd to take the survey on the Copake Waterfronts website.
Go to www.copakewaterfronts.com/nyforward to find the email address to send letters to, take the survey and find out more about the New York Forward Grant and the projects that are being proposed.
“Dolores,” the documentary about legendary civil rights activist Dolores Huerta will be at the Norfolk Library on Oct. 19.
On Sunday, Oct. 19 at 5 p.m., the Norfolk Library will host a free public screening of “Dolores,” a critically acclaimed documentary about Dolores Huerta, one of the most important — and often overlooked — figures in American labor and civil rights history. Now 95, Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers union with César Chavez and helped lead the grape boycott of the 1960s, a powerful act of economic resistance that brought national attention to the exploitation of farm workers.
Directed by Peter Bratt and executive produced by Carlos Santana, “Dolores” presents an unflinching portrait of a woman whose voice, body and will shaped the political terrain of the United States.
In 1970, Huerta was organizing in Arizona when a group told her change was impossible.
“They said, ‘Oh, Dolores, in California, you can do these things but here in Arizona, you can’t,’” Huerta recalled in a recent interview by phone. “And my response was, ‘Sí se puede in Arizona.’” When she shared that message at a rally, the crowd rose to their feet, chanting “Sí se puede,” and a call to action was born.
President Obama adopted the slogan for his 2008 campaign. “Yes We Can” posters and stickers were everywhere. Obama, having mistakenly credited Chavez with coining the phrase, later apologized as he honored Huerta with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
Huerta wears the badge of feminist icon with pride. “I always thought I was a feminist because my mother was a businesswoman,” she said. “She divorced my dad because he was abusive and always taught me to have my own bank account, always pushed me to speak out.”
But, like many raised Catholic, Huerta once believed birth control and abortion were sins. Through her friendships with Gloria Steinem and Eleanor Smeal, that changed. Huerta is a founding member of the Feminist Majority Foundation, led by Smeal, which promotes nonviolence, equality, and women’s empowerment.
“There are two big issues in the Feminist Majority Foundation,” Huerta explained. “One is a woman’s right to abortion — women must control their own bodies. The second is back in 1987, we launched the Feminization of Power campaign to get more women elected. With one campaign, we succeeded in getting the largest number of women of color into California’s state legislature.”
How does she feel about the word feminist now?
“Well, now we have to use the word. There’s a difference between women’s policies and feminist policies. Look at the Trump cabinet — there are many women, but the policies don’t protect women. Our goal is to get more feminists elected. We will never have peace in the world until feminists take power.”
There are few moments more urgent than now to gather in community to reckon with these powerful words and the rest of Huerta’s radical legacy. This film offers not just biography but revolutionary remembrance — telling the story of a leader, a mother, an uncompromising feminist and a visionary who still fights for liberation.
Huerta still believes deeply in the power of economic pressure and solidarity. “We saw it with the Target boycott,” she said. “They were going to drop DEI policies, so people stopped shopping. No picketing — just word of mouth. And it worked. Shares dropped. The CEO resigned. Now we have to be bigger and more coordinated in our efforts.”
She also praised recent community resistance to ICE raids. “In L.A., people stood in front of a business to stop ICE detentions. What ICE didn’t expect was the Anglo community to show up too. That kind of solidarity is powerful. ”
Huerta’s nephew, John Fernandez, who lives in Colebrook, Connecticut, will introduce the screening and share a personal perspective on her legacy.
Asked what advice she has for young activists, Huerta pointed to today’s digital tools. “Social media, cell phones — people can organize fast. Look at George Floyd. That one video sparked a global movement.”
Huerta reminds us that organizing takes discipline, clarity, and a refusal to accept the violence of poverty, racism, misogyny, and xenophobia as inevitable. Economic resistance — boycotts, strikes, direct action — remain among the most potent tools we have.
“You can’t learn leadership by osmosis,” she said. “You’ve gotta live it.” And live it she has — and does. At 95, Huerta still dances weekly at a jazz workshop in Bakersfield and leads her foundation’s work on voter turnout and redistricting reforms in California.
As always, she reminds us: “We have to stay active. We have to participate. Change doesn’t happen by itself — we make it happen.”
For more information about the work of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, visit:
https://doloreshuerta.org. To RSVP for the Oct. 19 screening, visit: norfolklibrary.org/events/documentary-film-dolores
Sergei Fedorjaczenco, Garth Kobal, and Zoe Fedorjaczenco of the David M. Hunt Library’s ArtWall Committee, standing in front of “Works on Paper” by Rika Laser and Gail O’Donnell which continues through Oct. 17.
Arts advocate Garth Kobal leads the ArtWall Committee at David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“We aim to engage and inspire individuals of all ages in the creative process through art exhibitions, art talks and workshops,” Kobal explained, “in a welcoming public space.”
Kobal schedules the shows, serves as artist liaison, writes the press releases and manages promotional materials.He shares curating duties with fellow committee members Zoe and Sergei Fedorjaczenco, who also install the shows. Rika and Sara Laser, Yonah Sadeh, Caitlyn and Brent Jenkins, and David Noonan complete the team.
Kobal grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, were he spent hours going through art books at the local library, his “imagination leaping higher and higher.”
“I came to Falls Village in 1983 to work for Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller. That is where my knowledge of art and the art world exploded.”
He moved to New York City in 1987. “It was at Jersey City’s Grace Church Van Vorst where I began curating art exhibitions,” Kobal said. Working there, he learned how to organize large group shows.
He moved back to Falls Village in 2006 and began volunteering at the library in 2009. He served a year as board president.
Sergei Fedorjaczenko came up with the idea of a permanent exhibition space in 2011, expanding the size and frequency of the library’s exhibits.Art Talks, which give the exhibiting artists a chance to explain their work, were added in 2024.
Kobal observed, “The Hunt ArtWall has become a cultural hub in the Northwest Corner.”
The library often collaborates with the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society on exhibits. The nearby Lee H. Kellogg elementary school visits frequently.
In November, students will meet with artist Vincent Inconiglios, whose show, “Face Time” runs Oct. 25 through Nov. 13. The students will make their own face collages, which will appear this January in the library’s annual Emerging Artists show.
Kobal remarked, “The exhibition that generates the most significant community engagement is 12x12, our annual year-end fundraiser often featuring up to 50 artists and 70 pieces of art.12x12 is a great opportunity for talented self-taught artists to show their work alongside well-known professionals.”
This year’s 12x12 show opens Dec. 6 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m.(Artists who’d like to participate next year can email HuntArtwall@gmail.com.
With the guidance of Kobal and his team, Hunt Library’s work for the arts continues to expand. Kobal stated, “We want to add a film component to our arts programing so film and video artists can show their short works on a video monitor accessible to library visitors.We also hope to have screenings where filmmakers can present their work and discuss it with the audience.”
To find out more about Hunt Library’s ever-changing shows and art talks, go to: huntlibrary.org/art-wall/
“Transcendence”:Kathy Moss and Suzanne Onodera at Argazzi Art.
Argazzi Art in Lakeville will open “Transcendence,” a two-artist exhibition showcasing new works by Kathy Moss and Suzanne Onodera on Saturday, Oct. 11. The show brings together two accomplished painters whose practices, while distinct, both explore the sublime and ineffable through nature-based abstraction and symbolic form.
This will be the only major show of the year at Argazzi, lending “Transcendence” a heightened poignancy as the gallery prepares for an uncertain transition. With the building soon to be listed for sale, and programming for 2026 yet undecided, this exhibition may represent the culmination of a chapter in the gallery’s storied history under founder Judith Singelis.
Originally from California and now based in upstate New York, Suzanne Onodera bridges abstraction and realism in richly layered paintings that capture the complexity and chaos of the natural world. Her compositions offer “a sublime floating world, simultaneously chaotic and unsettled, exalted and sublime,” she writes in her artist’s statement. Her brushstrokes are lush, gestural and physical, evoking landscapes not as they are, but as they are felt.
Kathy Moss, known for her stark and symbolic botanical forms, brings eight new contemplative and minimalist pieces to “Transcendence.” Her work uses silhouetted flowers, seed pods, and organic shapes as archetypes, what she calls “a poetic depiction of the internal self.” Presented in glistening oil and chalk on luminous surfaces, Moss’s paintings investigate dualities: beauty and darkness, fragility and power, concept and representation.
“She doesn’t usually do that pink,” said Singelis, pointing to one of Moss’s larger canvases in the show. “Kathy is really well known for the rosebuds and trees and there’s a fragility to her work, but these are very graphic, very solid.”
Installed in the light-filled rooms of Argazzi Art, with fall foliage just beyond the windows, “Transcendence” is a meditation on impermanence — of nature, of personal and artistic transformation, and perhaps of the space that houses it.
“The physical part is really hard,” said Singelis, reflecting on the work that goes into preparing and hanging an exhibit. “It took me three weeks to put this show together and there I am up on a ladder, just this morning. It’s not easy,” she continued.
There are the physical demands of curation but there is also the interdependent relationship between gallery and artist in an ever-changing and inconsistent art world. “Curating isn’t just about hanging art,” said Singelis, who said that she would love to find a successor, someone with whom she could share the vision and passion for Argazzi. “They have to really want to do this,” she said. “They have to have a passion for it, because it’s not easy.”
And so “Transcendence” is not only a remarkable pairing of two wonderful artists, it is also a moment of reflection for the gallery itself. As Argazzi Art contemplates its next chapter, this show reaffirms what has made it such a beloved and enduring presence: a commitment to beauty, depth and meaningful artistic relationships.
“Transcendence” opens on Oct. 11 with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. The show will be on view until December 1.
