AMENIA — A new Amenia recreation program kicked off on Monday, Feb. 3, with an invitation to enjoy winter skating at Silo Ridge’s outdoor rink on selected Mondays during February.
Skaters of all ages and varied experience on the ice came to the first session with more anticipated to participate as the word gets out. A warming fire was a popular feature.
The open skating community invitation will be repeated on Feb. 10 and 24. Each session will begin at 3:30 p.m. and continue until closing at 6 p.m. Advance registration is required . For more information, go to www.amenia.ny.gov, or to register, email the Recreation Department at pbogin@ameniany.gov.
“This is a good opportunity for Amenia and Silo Ridge to collaborate and bring events to the town,” said new Amenia Recreation Director Paul Bogin. “This will lead to more events for people to enjoy.”
“It’s been a long time coming,” added Mark Hussey, Director of VIBE at Silo Ridge, responsible for setting the mood of the field club’s atmosphere for its residents. He said he was pleased to see the town being able to use the ice.
New Amenia Recreation Supervisor Paul Bogin was on hand on Monday, Feb. 3, for the first of three Open Rink community events sponsored by the Recreation Department in collaboration with Silo Ridge where the rink is located. The free community skating will be repeated on Monday, Feb. 24, inviting local and area skaters to enjoy using the expansive rink. Registration required.Photo by Leila Hawken
Also attending to the details of the open skate day were Zachary Spencer, outdoor pursuits coordinator and outdoor pursuits attendant Maebal Spencer — no relation.
Their efforts kept the fire pit stoked with wood, and a variety of tasks to ensure the skating experience would be positive for all.
“The more the merrier,” said Zachary Spencer, noting that the open rink idea was under consideration for a long time. “It’s definitely something I support.”
He was pleasantly surprised, he said, to see the local visiting skaters had impressive skating talent, some even managing some figure skating moves.
“It’s good to see the public enjoying it, the town coming together,” Maebel Spencer observed.
“It’s a good vibe,” Hussey added, pleased by the evident sense of community brought about by the event.
Little Sloane Oksenhendler, 4, of Clinton Corners was fearlessly enthusiastic about the experience, not her first time on skates, nor her last.
Finding it fun, she managed to skate along and remain upright with the help of an ingenious “walker” box for use on ice.
“I’m going to invite all of my friends to come skating with me,” Sloane said, adding that she particularly loved how they — the other skaters — do tricks on the ice.
Local skaters enjoyed free skating at the Silo Ridge Ice Rink on Monday, Feb. 3, the first of three planned open rink days sponsored by the Amenia Recreation Department in collaboration with Silo Ridge. The Open Rink program will be repeated on Mondays, Feb. 10 and 24, inviting local and area skaters to enjoy community skating fellowship. Registration is required.Photo by Leila Hawken
“Once Upon a Time in America” features ten portraits by artist Katro Storm.
Part of what became a capstone project for Wolgemuth, she left behind a comprehensive guide to help future student interns manage the gallery effectively. “Everything from who we should contact, the steps to take for everything, our donors,” Wilbur said. “It’s really extensive and it’s been a huge help.”
Art teacher Lilly Rand Barnett first met Storm a few years ago through his ICEHOUSE Project Space exhibition in Sharon, “Will It Grow in Sharon?” in which he planted cotton and tobacco as part of an exploration of ancestral heritage.
“And the plants did grow,” said Barnett. She asked Storm if her students could use them, and the resulting work became a project for that year’s Troutbeck Symposium, the annual student-led event in Amenia that uncovers little-known or under-told histories of marginalized communities, particularly BIPOC histories.
Last spring, Rand emailed to ask if Storm would consider a solo show at HVRHS. He agreed.
And just a few weeks ago, he arrived — paints, brushes and canvases in tow.
“When Katro came to start hanging everything, he took up a mini art residency in Ms. Rand’s room,” Wilbur said. “All her students were able to see his process and talk to him. It was great working with him.”
Perhaps more unexpected was his openness. “He really trusted us as curators and visionaries,” Wilbur said. “He said, ‘Do with it what you will.’”
Artist Katro StormNatalia Zukerman
Storm’s artistic training began at New Haven’s Educational Center for the Arts. His talent earned him a full scholarship to the Arts Institute of Boston, then Boston’s Museum School, where he painted seven oversized portraits of influential Black figures — in seven days — for his final project. Those works became the backbone of his early exhibitions, including at Howard University’s National Council for the Arts.
Storm has created several community murals like the 2009 READ Mural featuring local heroes, and several literacy and wellness murals at the Stetson Branch Library in New Haven. Today, he teaches and works, he said, “wherever I set up shop. Sometimes I go outside. Sometimes I’m on top of roofs. Wherever it is, I get the job done.”
His deep ties to education made a high school gallery an especially meaningful stop. “No one really knew who these people were except maybe John Lennon,” Storm said of the portraits in the show. “It’s really important for them to know James Baldwin and Shirley Chisholm. And now they do.”
The exhibition includes a wide list of subjects: James Baldwin, Shirley Chisholm, Redd Foxx, Jasper Johns, Marilyn Manson, William F. Buckley, Harold Hunter, John Lennon, as well as two deeply personal works — a portrait of Tracy Sherrod (“She’s a friend of mine… She had an interesting hairdo”) and a tribute to his late friend Nes Rivera. “Most of the time I choose my subjects because there are things I want to see,” Storm said.
Storm’s paintings, which he describes as “full frontal figuratism,” rely on drips, tonal shifts, and what feels like emerging depth. His process moves quickly. “It depends on how fast it needs to get done,” he said. “Sometimes I like to take the long way up the mountain. Instead of doing an outline, I just start coloring, blocking things off with light and dark until it starts to take shape.”
He’s currently in a black-and-white phase. “Right now, I’m inspired by black and white, the way I can really get contrast and depth.”
Work happens on multiple canvases at once. “Sometimes I’ll have five paintings going on at one time because I go through different moods, and then there’s the way the light hits,” he said. “It’s kind of like cooking. You’ve got a couple things going at once, a couple things cooking, and you just try to reach that deadline.”
For Wilbur, who has studied studio arts “ever since I was really young” and recently applied early decision to Vassar, the experience has been transformative. For Storm — an artist who built an early career painting seven portraits in seven days and has turned New York’s subway corridors into a makeshift museum — it has been another chance to merge artmaking with education, and to pass a torch to a new generation of curators.
