Lunching with the Stars

County Executive Rob Astorino will be there applauding. So will BOL Chair Ken Jenkins, TV icon Ernie Anastos and First Niagara Bank prez Dave Ring. We’ll be shining the spotlight on people and places you will want to know at the 2012 Arts Award ceremony and luncheon at the Crowne Plaza in White Plains on April 4.

Take for instance the Castle Gallery of the College of New Rochelle (CNR). The college  has six campuses, a 4,500 enrollment and, I’m happy to say, three art galleries. Yes, the Castle Gallery really is a castle—the historic Leland Castle on the CNR main campus. Since 1980, when it beat out the Nursing School for the premium space, the castle has been home to one of the neatest art galleries in Westchester. CNR started in 1904 as a Catholic college for women and the gallery honors its past roots but moves with the times, according to its director. On March 27, it will be filled with contemporary art during its eighth Westchester Biennial. Just like the Whitney Museum in NYC, the Castle does its Biennial every other year. The gallery, run by director Katrina Rhein, highlights the work of emerging artists in mainly thematic group exhibitions with an educational spin.

Rhein was a BFA student at CNR when she began working at the gallery. By the time she got her MFA at Queens College, she was hooked on the Castle Gallery, becoming its director in 2007. Her own art work about notions of gender divisions, the unrealistic expectations of women and female super heroes, helps her to understand the depths of other artists’ work. The work of twenty emerging and established artists will be on view at the Biennial, among them Ivy Dachman, Rima Grad and more. Hopefully some of them will join us at the Arts Award luncheon when we celebrate the fine work of the Castle Gallery and the other prominent honorees. For the complete list of award winners, click here.

Photo: Judith Huntington, CNR President; Janet Langsam; and Katrina Rhein at the Castle Gallery