Our exhibition, “Brick by Brick,” is inspiring stories as warm and loving as any brick fireplace. Diana Costello’s grandpa, Pietro Viscogliosi, sounds like the quintessential brick mason, just like Serafino Laboranti, my former neighbor in Queens and the only person I would trust to build a brick floor in my kitchen. Serafino was a master mason […]
Many of us remember exactly where we were when John F. Kennedy was shot. For me, the scene is emblazoned in my mind. I was in my kitchen spooning mashed banana into my toddler’s mouth. The radio soothed some Sinatra… perhaps it was The Summer Wind. From bliss, I went into panic mode […]
Can it be true that, in terms of size and production, the brick industry in the Hudson Valley was second of importance in our region to IBM? So George H. Hutton told us in his book The Great Hudson River Brick Industry. We can quibble with his hyperbole, but the truth is that in its […]
Every year, when the wind begins to blow and the leaves start to rustle, we hear strains of a ghost story called The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It’s a scary short tale written in 1820 by Washington Irving whose home, Sunnyside, is transformed annually by Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) into an adventurous dwelling. HHV is the keeper of […]
Just when I think that collaboration is one of the hardest ways to work in the arts world, I become encouraged anew by what I see happening among artists in Westchester. What makes collaboration so difficult is that its success depends upon a shared vision. This shared vision may be hard to achieve, but it […]
Upward bound in an elevator in a Tel Aviv hotel, I shared a lift with an Israeli preteen chattering in Hebrew but wearing a t-shirt that announced “Hear Me Roar”. The reference on her shirt was of course a reference to the Helen Reddy song of 1973. I wondered how those lyrics made it to a kid’s t-shirt in Israel. […]
Good news comes in many forms. Yesterday, there was good news out of Washington D.C. which is, in itself, is a “surprise” since good news out of Washington is as rare as hen’s teeth. Indeed, it seems that the U.S. Senate has voted to support funding of the Arts and Humanities Endowments at […]
In order to learn about Baroque music, I checked in with Karen Marie Marmer and Jorg-Michael Schwarz of the duo the Black Marble, who tell me that Baroque music, popular from about 1600 to 1760, is “absolutely glorious…a blending of different voices…and emotional without being melodramatic.” These two musicians take their Bach and Handel so […]
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