Reading between the lines with Jon Kopita

Jon Kopita reading between the lines at the David M. Hunt Library.
Natalia Zukerman
Jon Kopita reading between the lines at the David M. Hunt Library.
Jon Kopita’s work, with its repetitive, meticulous hand-lettering, is an exercise in obsession. Through repetition, words become something else entirely — more texture than text. Meaning at once fades and expands as lines, written over and over, become a meditation, a form of control that somehow liberates.
“I’m a rule follower, so I like rules, but I also like breaking them,” said Kopita, as we walked through his current exhibit, on view at the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village until March 20.
In 2007, Kopita and his husband, Olaf, an architect, took a trip to The Vitra Design Museum outside of Basel, Switzerland. Kopita found himself infuriated by the pomp surrounding the collection of what were once utilitarian objects, now absurdly canonized. “The irony is that a lot of that furniture was designed to be mass produced, taking really good design and making it accessible to middle class people,” Kopita explained. “It wasn’t supposed to be something so special.” Upon returning home, Kopita began repeatedly writing, “I hate Vitra” on lined paper. Channeling his frustration, he wrote the simple statement 100 times and through the act, found a cathartic release. “It harkened back to when you’re in school and you have to write out, ‘I will not speak in class’ or something 100 times on the black board.” Except for Kopita, what was meant to be disciplinary was not only a contemplative practice, but a healing act.“For me, the experience of repetitive writing became meditative and cathartic, more of an exorcism of thoughts rather than something either punitive or tedious.”
His current show at the library includes work spanning a decade, with many of the pieces created during the COVID-19 pandemic. An educator for over 30 years, Kopita found he had time and space during the pandemic to really investigate his process and to create work in volume.“I did 40 works during the first 150 days,” he said. The early pieces were instructional in nature with words like “wash hands,” “social distancing,” and “zoom” but soon began morphing into existential inquiry —with questions like “is this all there is?” repeating like a dark mantra. Some are reminders of the stark political divisions that emerged during those days. There is a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement with names repeated in grief: George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The whole display, Kopita delights, demands something that feels almost radical in today’s digital age: slowness. “This is a difficult show because you really have to stop and process. It asks people to read.”
In many ways, Kopita has spent a lifetime questioning the boundaries imposed on him, both literal and figurative. “90% of going to school is a hazing system where you’re just learning how to write between the lines — these are the rules.” He felt the pressure of conformity from an early age. His own father had expectations for him: a stable corporate job, health insurance, a 401k. Kopita tried it for a year and a half.“It was like my boss was saying, ‘if you work really hard, you can have what I have.’” Kopita took one look at “what he had”— a suburban house, a company car —and thought, “Yeah, I don’t want this at all.” He moved to New York, got a job in a Soho gallery, and never looked back. “I know really well firsthand what it means to step across the line and try to do things differently and do things on your own terms.”
In his piece, “Transition,” Kopita grapples with the fluidity of identity, a structured yet random exercise where “he” gradually transforms into “she.”
“There’s so much going on right now with ideas of gender and what gender means, a kind of war on how people identify,” he said. “There are days where I’m 100% he, and then maybe there are days where I’m more she.” The work, much like his larger practice, is about change, about pushing against the expected, about honoring the beauty in what falls outside the lines.
Kopita is fascinated by the tension between order and deviation, by the way small shifts — whether in handwriting, identity, or thought — can carve out new landscapes. But for all its rigor, Kopita’s work is not about control. It’s about surrender. The act of writing, for him, is like a river cutting through rock, shaping itself as it moves. “I think of it as how the words carve up the paper. So, it actually becomes a three-dimensional exercise in my head at times.” It is discipline as liberation, structure as rebellion, a practice that turns the most mundane act — writing the same word over and over — into something sacred.
Built in 1820, 1168 Bangall Amenia Road sold for $875,000 on July 31 with the transfer recorded in August. It has a Millbrook post office and is located in the Webutuck school district.
STANFORD — The Town of Stanford with nine transfers in two months reached a median price in August of $573,000 for single family homes, still below Stanford’s all-time median high in August 2024 of $640,000.
At the beginning of October there is a large inventory of single-family homes listed for sale with only six of the 18 homes listed for below the median price of $573,000 and seven above $1 million.
July transfers
79 Ernest Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 6.87 acres in 2 parcels sold to Matthew C. Marinetti for $1,225,000.
29 Drake Road — 3 bedroom/3.5 bath home on 2 acres sold to Harper Montgomery for $850,000.
6042 Route 82 — 4 bedroom/2 bath home on 1.09 acres sold to Spencer Thompson for $795,000.
125 Tick Tock Way — 3 bedroom/2.5 bath ranch on 1.9 acres sold to Fleur Touchard for $475,000.
August transfers
102 Prospect Hill Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on 6.35 acres sold to Karl Creighton Pfister for $565,000.
252 Ernest Road — 2 bedroom/1 bath cottage on .85 acres sold to Meg Bumie for $465,000.
1196 Bangall Amenia Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 2.16 acres sold to Roderick Alleyne for $875,000.
Hunns Lake Road (#759929) — 59.1 acres of residential land sold to Argos Farm LLC for $3,325,000.
* Town of Stanford recorded real estate transfers from July 1 to August 31 provided by Dutchess County Real Property Office monthly transfer reports. Details on each property from Dutchess Parcel Access - properties with an # indicate location on Dutchess Parcel Access. Market data from One Key MLS and Infosparks .Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office Harlem Valley area activity reportSept. 18 to Sept. 30.
Sept. 23 — Deputies responded to 1542 State Route 292 in the Town of Pawling for the report of a suspicious vehicle at that location. Investigation resulted in the arrest of Sebastian Quiroga, age 26, for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree. Quiroga to appear in the Town of Pawling court at a later date.
Sept. 30 — Deputies responded to Woodside Street in the Town of Pine Plains for a past-occurred verbal domestic dispute between a stepfather and stepson.Matter resolved without further police intervention.
PLEASE NOTE:All subjects arrested and charged are alleged to have committed the crime and are presumed innocent until proven guilty and are to appear in local courts later.
If you have any information relative to the aforementioned criminal cases, or any other suspected criminal activity please contact the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 845-605-CLUE (2583) or Emaildcsotips@gmail.com.All information will be kept confidential.
Hunt club members and friends gathered near Pugsley Hill at the historic Wethersfield Estate and Gardens in Amenia for the opening meet of the 2025-2026 Millbrook Hunt Club season on Saturday, Oct. 4. Foxhunters took off from Wethersfield’s hilltop gardens just after 8 a.m. for a hunting jaunt around Amenia’s countryside.
Joining in the fun at the dedication of the new pollinator pathway garden at The Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4, local expert gardener Maryanne Snow Pitts provides information about a planting to Lorraine Mirabella of Poughkeepsie.
MILLBROOK — Participating in a patchwork of libraries that have planted pollinator pathway gardens to attract insects and birds to their native plantings was one of the accomplishments being celebrated at the dedication of a new pollinator garden at the Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4.
“A lot of work went into it,” said Emma Sweeney, past President of the Millbrook Garden Club, who started the local library’s initiative two years ago.
The Pollinator Pathway program is a national effort to plant native plants that native insects depend upon for sustenance and preferred plants for their own seasonal reproduction.
Jana Hogan of Ridgefield, Connecticut, Executive Director of the Pollinator Pathway program, was on hand to present a plaque to the library for its successful participation.
“A garden is not just a garden,” said garden designer Andy Durbridge of Wassaic, designer of the library’s garden. “It may serve as a model for other gardens along the line.”
Speaking to the 50 visitors at the dedication, Durbridge said that the library’s garden has a mission, that it is a working garden, planned to serve insects and birds over their seasons. The earliest plants support pollinators, while the full range of plants continues to serve the needs of those they attract, offering habitat, shelter and food.
A pollinator garden is akin to a prairie, rather than a formalized European garden, Durbridge noted.
The garden project was supported by the library’s Friends group using funds raised during the Holiday Silent Auction and ongoing book sale. A grant from the Millbrook Garden Club also provided support.