![Artist Sally Gifford O’Brien celebrated at Millbrook Library through September](https://millertonnews.com/media-library/a-coloring-book-produced-by-sally-gifford-obrien-delighted-children-in-millbrook-many-years-ago-with-pictures-to-color-of-many.jpg?id=48214270&width=980&quality=90)
A coloring book produced by Sally Gifford O’Brien delighted children in Millbrook many years ago with pictures to color of many of Millbrook’s well known buildings. Photo submitted
MILLBROOK — After what seems a very long time, the Millbrook Library has curated an art exhibit featuring beloved artist and children’s book creator Sally Gifford O’Brien, born in 1927 and now living in North Carolina. Closed due to COVID-19 for several months, the library opened a short time ago with restrictions, but also with several programs for their patrons using technology and common sense. The art exhibited, provided by the Millbrook Historical Society, is especially poignant as it reminds one of the good old days when life was simpler and much gentler.
The Millbrook Historical Society hasn’t met since February due to the pandemic, but partnered with the library to get this limited exhibit up and running. The year 2020 has been designated the “Year of Women’s Voices & Talents,” so it is entirely appropriate to honor one of Millbrook’s most talented and beloved citizens, Sally Gifford O’Brien, whom some affectionately refer to as “SOB.”
O’Brien was the artist who put together an amazing coloring book for children, featuring many of the special sites and buildings of Millbrook. She was a very talented painter, did wonderful sketches and was adept at needlepoint. But O’Brien’s story goes much deeper than her artistic talents, it’s also a story of someone who loved and did much for her community, and always with a laugh, a smile, or, as one person noted, “…with a twinkle in her eye.”
O’Brien was born and raised in Millbrook. Her father was Herman Gifford Sr., who purchased a lovely Federalist house and 108 acres of land on the Sharon Turnpike in 1924. Chester White farmed that land, it was a dairy farm for 50 years, well into the 1960s. O’Brien grew up there, and was a member of Lyall Memorial Federated Church, which still has pieces of her needlework on its walls.
Always community minded, she allowed the Boy Scouts from Millbrook Troop 31 to use her land for camping. She and her husband, Bill, then decided to sell their property in 1975 to the Cary Arboretum after building a new home on a different plot of land.
Along with some of her work, including some of her needlework on pillows and footstools, there are written testaments as to what O’Brien meant to so many people and the community as a whole. Said Fussy Prisco, a close friend, “She and Bill had the greatest parties; she was always welcoming to those who newly had moved into the community so that they would feel comfortable.” Prisco also spoke of O’Brien’s penchant for recycling, greeting cards, wrapping paper, clothing, things she found beautiful and for interacting with people of all ages.
Stan Morse, who took up drawing and sketching when in his 70s, said, “Sally is a very special human being.” They were fellow residents of Bennett Condos in Millbrook. Morse went on to add, “Sally was starting her transition to the Carolinas to live with her sister. She invited me over and encouraged me to take whatever artwork, books and materials of hers I wanted. It was so typically Sally, open and generous, to do so. Her words of encouragement were, and remain, well remembered.”
The exhibit will introduce O’Brien’s work to viewers not already familiar with it; it will also introduce O’Brien as a humorist, author, artist and most of all, a beloved member of the Millbrook community.
The exhibit will run through the end of September. For hours, requirements and other library programs and resources, go to www.millbrooklibrary.org or call 845-677-3611.
For more information on the Millbrook Historical website, go to www.millbrookhistoricalsociety.org.
Maxon Mills in Wassaic hosted a majority of the events of the local Upstate Art Weekend events in the community.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene during the Garden Tour in Amenia.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else. I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and
Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.