Working
Troy
by
Colleen Skiff
APOLLO, a publication of the Albany/Schenectady League of Arts
Twenty
years ago Troy was a thriving cultural city. Today, it may seem
just a quiet community of beautiful buildings, but behind those
historic facades business people, educators and artists are sharing
ideas, forming partnerships and creating venues that are bringing
the city back to life . This creative energy is flowing out of
Troy into the Capital Region through artists window installations,
collaborations between artists and mentors, music and dance performances,
shared exhibitions and more.
As
the City awaits the opening of the new Rensselaer County Arts
Center, just a couple blocks away, the Ilium building is bustling
as a second hub of arts activity in the city. In addition to holding
several small businesses, this architecturally interesting building
on the corner of 4th and Fulton Streets, in downtown Troy’s
“arts district,” is home to a photography studio, vocal
teacher, two graphic designers, an art gallery, and fourteen resident
artists.
The
Fulton Street Gallery, located on the street level of the Ilium,
encourages artists to work together for greater visibility, self-improvement,
and empowerment. Through art exhibitions, theater performances,
musical events, classes and workshops, the gallery enriches not
only Troy and Rensselaer County, but ignites a creative spark
throughout the Capital Region. The gallery and its activities
are funded in part by a Troy Community Development Block Grant
and sponsored by the Broadway Gallery Membership Group, Inc.,
a non-profit arts organization based in Albany County and dedicated
to providing support and venues to artists region-wide.
Among
the cooperative alliances Fulton Street Gallery and the Broadway
Group have helped initiate are the Troy Arts Alliance, made up
of arts organizations and other cultural groups. Throughout the
year, the alliance hosts arts events, or “happenings,”
that coordinate exhibition openings, provide live music and offer
special discounts to restaurants and businesses in the neighborhood.
The Troy Arts Alliances works with other civic organizations to
pair arts events with draws such as the Victorian Stroll, the
Capital Region Flower and Garden Show and Canalfest.
The
Broadway Group also partners with various organizations to produce
and publicize events region-wide through the Visual Arts Alliance.
The VAA is made up of seventeen arts organizations and institutions
from Saratoga, Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady Counties, including
the Albany Institute of History & Art, Saratoga County Arts
Council, RCCA: The Arts Center, and Hamilton Hill Arts Center.
Among its most recent activities was a spring artist studio tour.
A quarterly Capital Region VAA Gallery Guide of exhibitions and
artist talks is available at numerous arts and cultural locations
in the four-county area.
Fulton
Street Gallery, in cooperation with Albany Center Galleries and
the City of Albany Office of Special Events, presented an exhibition
of artist window installations for Albany’s Celebration 2000
(formerly First Night) at eighteen locations throughout the city.
Twenty-one regional artists have created a wide array of installations
of paintings, photography, sculpture, and objects of art in the
windows of existing buildings as well as in unoccupied storefronts.
Many of the installations are site-specific with historic references
and were coordinated by Michael Oatman of SUNY–Albany. Among
the artists who are participating are Ed McCartan, Ted Lind, and
Wren Panzella. These window installations will be in place until
January 15th. A walking tour map is located at the BID office
on Broadway or at Center Galleries, located at 23 Monroe Street
in Albany.
As
its winter exhibition, Fulton Street Gallery is showing “Where
the Saints Are” in partnership with Albany’s Vision
Gallery from January 6–February 25. Co-curator Jim Lewis
notes that the show is about “the choices we make every instant
of our lives, and how we relate to our spiritual natures.”
It honors the unknown and unrecognized saints around us and the
way they elbow past the world’s demons. Artists in the exhibition
include Larry Kagan and Elaine Emmanuel. Two receptions will be
held for this show, on January 7th at Visions Gallery, the Pastoral
Center, 40 North Main Avenue, Albany and on January 14th at the
Fulton Street Gallery, 408 Fulton Street, Troy.
Arts
education is becoming more crucial to the growth of the arts in
the community. In the coming year, Fulton Street will be working
with Tracy Racicot of Questar III of Rensselaer County as part
of the Arts Exchange Program, bringing students to area galleries
and art and artists to them. In the year 2001, Fulton Street and
Questar will organize a three-county varied exhibition of high
school art students involving 20 school districts. Art teachers
from all three counties have expressed interest in collaborating
with the gallery in such an exhibit, citing the burst of artistic
activity in Troy as a wonderful opportunity to broaden student’s
horizons. Fulton Street is already working with Education 21,
hosting artist exhibitions and programs to enhance creativity
in their Virtual Learning Center on Third Street in Troy. Also
for students, the Broadway Group is producing artist interviews
on videos and CD-ROM through a grant from the State Education
Department of NY, and sponsorship by Atomic Industries.
Creativity
will also be nurtured when Fulton Street hosts “Art &
Soul” — an exhibition of collaborative works between
artists and their mentors. The purpose of the exhibition is to
reveal how creative ideas are formed. One collaboration will be
between Eileen LaBarge a former student at JCA and sculptor, Jerry
Weissman. Their work will be made of metal, ceramic and hand blown
glass. Both artists are interested in how this collaboration will
affect their individual work. This exhibition will run from from
February 15th to March 4th in an “Art & Soul” Ball
where the collaborative pieces will be sold at auction to benefit
the artists. During the February school break, Fulton Street will
sponsor an arts camp for children ages 6 to 16 in the Ilium building.
The camp will feature art, dance, music and theater activities.
Pat Douglass, voice teacher director of the Adirondack School
of the Arts in Schuylerville, NY will be one of the coordinators.
For
further information about our programs or partnering please call
Colleen Skiff director of the Fulton Street Gallery at (518} 274-8464.
Article
from APOLLO (January/February 2000)
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