ART Facts
Pocono Mountain Arts Council February 2010
As our son Daniel, the former Supervising Producer of The Tonight Show who just lost his job of 17 years,
try to be positive and upbeat. That is exactly what we all have to do in spite of conditions around us. We have
to remember what made us successful in the past and reclaim that attitude and continue working to be successful.
Be positive and upbeat in expressing yourself. Why would anyone purchase anything from someone who is
depressed and not uplifting. It is a new decade, be concerned with the marketplace and what it needs that you
have to offer.
Remember the old marketing adage, “The customer is always right.” Thus, it is up to you to find the right
customer. When you are working, keep positive thoughts in mind. Do not allow negative thoughts to overtake
you, it will show in your work.
Your officers are always on the lookout for opportunities for you to showcase your work. In baseball the
more times you get up-to-bat, the more opportunities to get a hit or a home-run. There are shows that charge
commission rates that exceed good judgement. It is our thought that commission rates should depend on the
amount of advertising and sales experience of the sponsor organization or business. A New York gallery may
charge forty percent; but, have a clientele that can and does pay the higher prices for the convenience of visiting
that gallery.
For photographers and artists try to, “Capture what nature provides.” For jewelry makers and crafters try
to, “Prepare for the spring and summer fashion collections.” In that way you can advertise using terms that turn
customers on. You might try, “This jewelry goes perfectly with the fall fashion collections” or “Bring home some
beauty of the Pocono Mountains.”
Have a wonderful, productive, healthy and successful 2010.
Fran Ferguson
President
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Rotating Gallery
Schedule for Feb - Mar
2010
Advanced Radiology Services
Christa Alford
Gary Embich
Joanne Bridgman
Sally Grotta
ESSA Corporate Center
Joan Sayer
Jody McGee
Mariana Russo
Melodie Higgins
ESSA Bank & Trust
Matt Abas
ESSA Heart & Vascular
Tom Augusta
Lake Naomi
Gita Rash
Sally Grotta
Tom Augusta
Pocono Country Place
Gary Embich
Rich Genova
sanofi pasteur
Will Daskal
The Meet and Greet will be held on May 22, 2010. The rain
date is May 23, 2010. If you have participated at anytime during
the last three years, you are cordially invited.
More information to follow.
Bob and I would like to thank all of the members of the Pocono
Mountains Arts Council for their participation and support
this year at the Rotating Gallery. Our goal is to promote
local arts and American products which makes us unique to the
Poconos. During the next two months we will be redesigning
the gallery and traveling to meet new Native American Artists.
In early March we will be sending notice of the revised gallery
program and look forward to your participation in 2010.
We wish everyone a healthy and happy new year.
Bob and Joan Schramm, owners
Silver Arrow Gallery
Save the date. You are invited to join us, Saturday, March 27,
2010, 11 am to 3 pm at 54 Chapel Drive, Lehighton, PA.
Celebrate Women in the Arts.
Bring a piece of your work or just come for the fellowship.
Dress casual. RSVP by March 15 to 570-386-3433 or email
Indianriverart@gmail.com. Please let us know if you will
bring a friend.
Swan Day Luncheon
Fran Ferguson on a Caribbean cruise in January read and
highly recommends “Waiting to Surface” by Emily Listfield,
a Simon & Schuster Astria Book, 2007. The story depicts
the life of a metal sculpture artist with all the successes, pains
and struggles.
Sorry guys, Fran says it is a book for the ladies!
Woman’s Book Recommendation
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Here we grow again!
Welcome to the following new PoconoMAC members:
Cathleen Repholz - Thornhurst
Maria Livrone - Plains
Pia Somerlock - Saylorsburg
Paulette Shaw- Pocono Summit
Anne Martino - Lake Harmony
Jodi McGee - Gouldsboro
Christa Alford - Hazleton
Lauren Livingston - East Stroudsburg
Elizabeth Ann Davenport- Pittston
Mary-Jean Bendorf- Cresco
Julia & James Thomas - Stroudsburg
Olga Studitsky - Edison NJ
Jane Kishbaugh - Shavertown
Nancy J. Hopping - Greentown
Marlana Holsten - Shawnee on Delaware
Elizabeth Tokarcsik - Blakeslee
TOTAL MEMBERSHIP 176
Most of our membership meetings start with a
short talk by one of our members speaking about
their passion. It is one of the greatest benefits of
membership in our Arts Council because of their
willingness to share their ideas.
The upcoming schedule includes:
Feb 4 Pat Transue “Excitement”
Apr 1 Barbara Case “Creative Thinking Workshop”
May 6 Austin Davis “Change with a Chance
of Possibility”
Jun 3 Jill Sandt Swersie “Anatomy of a Painting”
Jul 1 Lucia Castro Alvarez “Ecuadorian Woodcarving”
will offer studio classes in copper foil techniques for stained glass. Instruction will run
for five Tuesdays, Apr 6-May 4, 2010,from 7-9 pm. Participants will design a small free-form piece, cut the glass, apply copper
foil, and solder the project, producing a small window ornament. A $125 fee for this introductory class includes basic materials
and use of tools, and is due at the first class. Students bring a pencil, ruler, apron and a felt-tip pen or glass marker. If
you know the basics, register as “advanced” and come the same hours. You will receive pointers from Jay or Mary Ann as you
design and fabricate in either lead or foil, at your own pace, for the same fee plus materials. Total class size is limited to six
students and the deadline is March 30th. Sign up for “Stained Glass Copper Foil Method” or “Advanced Work” by giving your
name, phone number and email address to either Jay or Mary Ann at 570-585-2096 or to glass@PaulukonisStudio.com; or
mail to Paulukonis Studio, RR1 Box 376, Dalton, PA 18414.
Artist who recently wrote a memoir “The House on the Sixth Floor” has been invited to speak about her
book and the process involved in writing and publishing, at the Hawley Library on May 11th. All are invited to attend; time to
be announced. Joan’s Come Paint With Me 2010 schedule for plein air artists will be published in April...sessions begin on
Thursday, June 3 at Grey Towers in Milford. A special demo and workshop on plein air painting will be held on Saturday,
June 12 from 11-4, at Grey Towers, presented by the Grey Towers Heritage Association and Come Paint With Me, featuring
well known Bucks County artist George Thomposon. Reservations and fees...info from Grey Towers at 570-296-9630.
More Member News can be found on page 6
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Meet our Board Member...
Jim Brown
Jim came onto our Board of Directors in
2008, and we love having him! A native of our
area (raised in Mountaintop), he has a diverse and
interesting background in the sciences and arts,
and is a successful business owner.
Jim attended Penn State, leaving there
with a B.S. In biology, and shortly thereafter, he
headed for Booth Bay, Maine where he opened
his first shop, a venture dealing in handmade
products. From there he went to Boston and the
University of Massachusetts, where he completed
a bachelor degreee in nursing. Moving between
Boston and Cape Cod’s arts communities, he
spent about 10 years working in nursing and
starting to develop his own artwork (started at an
early age) more fully, working primarily in monotype
print-making.
Mid 90’s, he returned to our Pocono community,
and continued to work in nursing for
another 10 years, while starting Red Run
Gallery’s first location in Blakeslee in 1996. He
moved it to its’ present location on Route 940 in
Pocono Pines in 2004, where he developed it into
an arts gallery with an eclectic mix of mediums
and styles.... There you will find paintings, sculpture,
metalwork, fiber arts, jewelry, photography,
metalwork from many of our talented local artists
and artisans, as well as some pieces from artists
working outside of the Pocono area.
Jim’s own artwork has evolved into many
areas. He creates sculpture in metalwork and does
some “found objects” in jewelry. Taking some
painting classes with John Pacovsky, who uses an
Old Masters Technique (and working on the Absinthe
and Absolut campaigns), led Jim to combining
his print-making and painting onto some of
his metal pieces. Clay is a newer medium for him,
and he works on this with Ricky Boscorina at
Luna Parc.
We find Jim’s expertise in art, his knowledge
of the arts community, and his experience in
the business of art to be invaluable to us on our
Board.
Possible subjects for future Art projects
By Donna ‘Kay’ Kinsley
(In preparation for the 13th Coolbaugh Twp. Historical
Assoc. Annual Art Exhibition, please note the special
project of preparing pieces for the Historical calendar in
the near future.)
Coolbaugh Township has a large and varied
venue of natural and constructed subjects that can be
illustrated on an artist’s pallet. The following list includes
suggestions that could possibly be used for a
future calendar highlighting our magnificent township.
Mother nature has been so kind to us. Wild life
is everywhere; birds, ducks, geese, turkeys, hawks, eagles
and many more. Animals such as deer, bear, squirrels,
chippies, ground hogs, beavers, (dams), rabbits,
turtles, frogs, fish and whatever else you might find in
your back yard. Flowers, shrubs and trees of endless
variety abound. Any of these could be used in the
background or in the foreground of a familiar Coolbaugh
landmark.
Landmark suggestions: Ice house/box car, (Mill
Pond #1 with its stumps has a lot of character in both
winter and summer), Parapets on Rt. 423, Churches
(Pocono Community Church at Christmas), Stone bridge
and stream on Main Street, Baseball fields/Skate Park,
Walking trails around Brady’s Lake/Tobyhanna State
Park (Beach at the park), Schools, Golf course at the
Farms/Echo Lake and Club house, Steamtown train at
station/fall foliage, Service station at the entrance of the
village (a true landmark), Club house at Stillwater.
Any of the developments that have a picturesque
club house or commons area with wildlife or flowers
might help us sell calendars. Any of the above items in
the different seasons. Fishermen and fowl on the lakes.
Ice fishing is also popular in Coolbaugh. Don’t forget
blueberries are a big part of our past and present. We are
more than willing to share our collection of turn of the
century photos with you all. Your interpretation of these
photos is bound to be a hit. As you know, It’s All About
Coolbaugh.
(Kay Kinsley is the President of Coolbaugh Township
Historical Association and a frequent participant in the
Annual Coolbaugh Art Exhibition.)
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Show Talk - Show Talk - Show Talk
Annual Member’s Show at the Clymer Library May 1 -29, 2010
This will again be a judged show of artwork from members of PMAC. Cash prizes will be awarded in the categories of
watercolor, oil, pastels, sculpture, acrylics, and mixed media. Members are asked to prepare a piece of art that represents
the theme of “CELEBRATE SPRING” . Each member is allowed to enter one piece of artwork with dimensions
up to 35”x45” to be delivered on May 1 between the hours of 10:00 - 2:00. More information and a registration form
will be send out as the date comes closer. If you want more information, please contact Nancy Pitcher at
pitch2@epix.net or 570-646-8014.
“The Arts For Education” - a three-way collaborative effort with our Council, the Pocono Arts Council, and
Northampton Community College - will be a live and silent auction, and will be held (by invitation) the evening
of Wednesday, May 5th at a private home in the Stroudsburg area.
The goals for this project are: to show the arts community’s support for the new Monroe campus, which will
bring many new opportunities for the arts to our area; to present our artists’ work to a fresh regional audience;
and to raise some money for the Building Fund for the new campus. To that end, 50% of the bid price for each
piece will go to the contributing artist, and 50% will go to the Building Fund. (Artists who want to donate
100% of the bid price for their piece will have that option.)
The auction will be inclusive of many artistic mediums, including painting, photography, pottery, jewelry,
glass, woodwork, fiber arts and others. We hope you will be excited about this opportunity! We will contact
you a bit later in the winter with more details, and to invite you to participate in the event.
“First Annual Arts Celebration” is an art exhibit and demonstration in the Community Room at the Monroe
campus of Northampton Community College, which will take place on Saturday, May 8th from 9 am to 3pm,
with a “Meet the Artists” reception from 11am to 1pm. It is being coordinated for NCC by Dr. Beatriz Villar, a
faculty member at NCC - Monroe, and one of our PMAC Board of Directors members.
This event will feature an exhibit of the two-dimensional artwork of NCC’s Monroe campus students, faculty
and staff, and the pieces submitted will reflect the show’s theme: Social Justice. The demonstrations will feature
our own artists, who will set up a small exhibit of their work and demonstrate various techniques throughout
the day.
So far, Jen LaRosa, Nancy Pitcher and Mariana Russo have signed on to be demonstrating artists. We have
room for one more! If you are interested, please call Catherine Schratt at 570-595-3157.
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MEMBER NEWS !
received the Second Place award at the 2009
Doylestown Art League 50th Annual Member Art Show held
Nov. 15, 2009 to Dec. 5, 2009 at the Mercedes-Benz showroom
in Doylestown, PA.
won a First Place blue ribbon for her watercolor
entitled “The Outback”. This painting was on display at
the Silver Arrow Gallery in Tannersville in September.
Local award winning photographer, is
pleased to announce that his show, “Visions” was on display for
the month of November in the East Wing Rotunds of the Pennsylvania
State Capitol. Various subjects were featured, including
breath-taking work from the Highlands of Scotland, majestic and
touching photos of equines, stunning photos from the Boston area,
and a unique black and white study of the State Capitol that
includes a controversial chiaroscuro interpretation of the Honorable
Governor Rendell. The works can be seen on his website
located at http://www.silverstein.com.
*Correction to November issue of Artifacts: Carl’s winning
photo at the Northampton Photographers Show was entitled,
“The Foal”, not “The Foul”.
holds art workshops for Pocono Arts Council,
Northampton Community College, Chestnuthill Park and Emerald
Lakes. Art lectures are also available for special interests
groups (ex. Women Artists, Sport Artists, American Impressionists,
Spanish Art/Artists). Interested parties can receive her seasonal
schedule by contacting Jean by email at
jgpmobeel@epix.net or by phone at 992-2598.
For information on continuing classes in watercolor in the
Tannersville area, call at (570)788-1505.
Stroudsmoor Country Inn, Stroudsburg, PA Presents
“Paintings and Pastels”, A Collection of Artwork by
At the Auradell Gallery
January 21 - March 21, 2010. Gallery Hours 9am -5pm.
Open 7 days a week
Haiku
By Dan Ferguson
Cold naked landscape
Dark days with colors of death
Oh spring where are you?
A Letter from member, , named
PMAC’s Emerging Artist at the Skytop Fine
Art Show in November:
Hello, I am Austin Davis. I was born March 18,
1987 at Pocono Hospital in Stroudsburg, PA. Growing up
in the Poconos has forever instilled within me a great love
of the natural world. I learned to ski at Camelback, perfecting
my technique every winter since the age of three. I
learned to love falling asleep to the chant of the first spring
peepers’ chorus of love songs. They sang to unknown
mates in the swamplands around my house. I romanticized
their dialogue as if it meant more than the song of a cat crying
down an alleyway. At the edges of the man-made pond
in my backyard I caught fireflies, frogs and turtles. I hiked
seemingly endless trails, intrigued by the magnificent processes
that created the exquisite waterfalls and the picturesque
geology of my home.
Watching the leaves change in the Poconos is a lot
like watching a human life bud. Attaining a full beauty, a
certain ripe quality, the leaves on the mountainside seem to
burst, while performing a graceful slow-motion dance in the
theater of a constantly changing universe. I developed my
theory of the leaves as I grew and observed my own body
and soul ripen, as if I held a stopwatch that counted in geologic
time. I was lucky to have, in my backyard, a perfect
view of the seasonal fall foliage cascade over the folded
mountain range of the Appalachian like a tie-dye blanket in
the sky. Even then as a child younger than the child I am
now, I played with metaphors that overpowered the shine of
my own life story.
I started taking art courses when I was in high
school and won my first and only art contest as a freshman.
I knew art was more than a high school elective when I enrolled
in a life drawing course at Monroe County Arts
Council my senior year with a friend. How embarrassed we
were to show up late to our first class and see for the first
time the naked, unshaved body of our first female model!
After high school I drew and painted all the time. I always
loved surrealism and recreating all those beautiful Pocono
landscapes in new and interesting ways. This is where my
love for art and nature became forever fused.
In the fall of 2007, it was here in the Poconos my
life changed forever. On September 1, I had a diving accident
that broke my neck, leaving me paralyzed from the
chest down. My diagnosis is C5-6 (C - cervical spine)
quadriplegia, which means I have functional use of most
my arms and wrists, and no use of my hands or fingers.
I remember lying in my hospital bed staring at the
ceiling hooked up to an IV, a feeding tube in my belly and a
ventilator in my throat. The drugs gave me horrible, scary
hallucinations.
....Continued on next page
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ART Facts Editor Cathy Yoost 646-1148 Kathy142@epix.net
Featured Journal Artist Valerie Sagheddu 972-7939 Apostleart@epix.net
V.P. of Fund Raising Donna J. Israel 894-0326 Djisrael@evenlink.com
V.P. of Rotational Gallery Barbara Case 972-5554 Barbaracase@theladylaughsalot.com
Web Host Carl Silverstein 350-1589 Carl@silverstein.com
Executive V.P. Webmaster Pat Transue 421-0562 Datpat@ptd.net
V.P. of Programs Marianna Russo 894-4521 Rocio3@optonline.net
When the medication finally began to wear off, I could not stop thinking about all of the things I would never be able to do again -
I’ll never ski again-
I’ll never see the waterfalls and hiking spots I love-
I’ll never draw or paint again-
I’ll never finish school-
When night came, sleep did not. Trapped in my hospital bed, I thought endlessly into the long nights. No one well ever love me
again, I’ll never wear a dress again, I will never see the world. Nothing, never, it’s all over!
Well, it has been two years and one month. I’ve gone skiing four times with the adaptive program at Camelback ski area.
I’ve taken several trips, even got back into a pool for the first time this past July! It is a rare site to see me in a dress, but when it is
nice my boyfriend of three years and I can be seen hiking in the area. I push the limits of my increasingly fragile power chair just
as I used to push the limits of my body. I have also had the privilege of sharing my art and story with the public. I sold my first
painting in March 2009 at a benefit auction for the Pocono Arts Council. I was also featured on the cover of the Magee Rehab art
therapy calendar for 2010. I never thought anything that I have done would ever be possible, but I truly have made the best out of
a bad situation.
It is my hope that people will look at my art and feel as though they are not quite as limited as they may have thought. I
have to constantly remind myself of all the situations worse than my own and find humor in the day-to-day rigors of being
handicapped. My life is a constant test of patience and perseverance.
Thank you for reading, and remember - Don’t be surprised when you surprise yourself.
Don’t miss Austin’s presentation of “Change With a Chance of Possibility”
at the May 6, 2010,
Pocono Mountain Arts Council member’s meeting
at 7 pm at the Wills Mansion, Tobyhanna, PA.
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OFFICERS
President............................ Fran Ferguson
Executive Vice President... Pat Transue
Secretary............................ Nancy Pitcher
Treasurer............................ Dan Ferguson
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Catherine Schratt............... Chairperson
Tricia Lowrey-Lippert....... PMAC Member
James W. Brown................ Red Run Gallery
Joseph O’Boyle................. Township Official
Rosemary Rinkowski......... Accountant
T. Axel Jones..................... Attorney
Dr. Beatriz Villar............... Northampton Community College
CORPORATE SPONSORS
Advanced Radiology Services sanofi pasteur
Edelweiss Restaurant Inn at Skytop Lodge
Northampton Community College Weiler Corporation
BUSINESS MEMBERS
A Pocono Country Place Lake Naomi Club
Coolbaugh Township ESSA Heart & Vascular Institute
The deadline for the next issue of is April 30th for the May publication. Articles and
information should be forwarded to Cathy Yoost via email to kathy142@epix.net.
Pocono Mountain Arts Council
PO Box D
Tobyhanna, PA 18466
www.poconomac.com
ART Facts
Future Meetings: * Mar. 4, 2010 * Apr. 1, 2010 * May. 6, 2010
7 pm at the Wills Mansion, Rt. 611, Tobyhanna
“Celebrate Spring”
Clymer Library
Pocono Pines, PA
Silent Auction
Northampton Community College
9 am - 3 pm
Meet the Artists Reception, 11 am to 1pm