Road Trip: Hudson, New York

[SinglePic not found]When one of Sean’s paintings was accepted into a juried group show, he declared it was time we went on a road trip. Destination: Hudson, New York. Home of antique furniture, art, and the Limner Gallery, where the Emerging Artists 2009 Group Exhibition launched on March 7, 2009 and for three weeks “Things That Should Not Be Inside Eggs: All the Things we Love to Hate to Love” is being promoted.

We decided to head down through Buffalo, cross the Peace Bridge and drive along the I-90, and would you believe it? Not a snag, hitch or snafu. Everything went brilliantly. The border guards were friendly; even the toll booth attendants were quite happy to pass us our toll tickets which we would pay when we exited the highway.

The last time I accompanied friends on a road trip through the Catskills was for Joey Ramone’s Blitzkrieg Bash, a punk festival in Woodstock, New York. It was summertime and the trees were thick with foliage. Verdant hardly seems adjective enough to describe the thick, lush canopies that extended over the the Catskills. Absolutely gorgeous mountain country.

This trip, however, wasn’t quite like the first. Instead of listening only to the Ramones during the drive, we instead enjoyed an eclectic variety of music: David Bowie, The Dave Matthews Band, Moody Blues and The Beatles to name a few. Instead of being in the car nine hours, this time it was a little over seven hours.

Also unlike the first trip, instead of driving during the summer, we drove during the tail end of winter. In the lazy style of modern writing, which tends to use a popular culture reference to describe something, it was very Blair Witch. For those who haven’t seen the movie…

The trees were bare. Charcoal gray trunks twisted upward, limbs jutted out at odd angles. Wire fences usally entwined with ivy looked as though thin black snakes undulated over them. The sky remained a dull, soft gray the entire two days we were there, and tucked away in circles of trees were a couple of little graveyards.

Misty vapours hovered above the ground in the distance, and when we were engulfed in fog on the way home, we understood Stephen King’s reasons for setting most of his books in the New England area. Then we were reminded of his story The Mist and crossed our fingers hoping no gargantuan loping alien beasts would emerge from the fog.

As horror buffs, we quite enjoyed the haunting scenery, which was frequently interrupted by German chalet style complexes for the weary traveller looking for a bathroom break, some greasy fast food morsels and coffee, and to refuel the car.

Eventually, we arrived in Hudson in the early afternoon, where we wandered up and down the lower end of the main strip, which is about a mile long on a downward slope ending at the river. Along both sides, buildings have been painted in pastels, bringing soft colour to the harsh gloom of winter.

[SinglePic not found]During our walk we saw two churches. One was delicate and ornate in structure but also run down, boarded up and seemingly abandoned. The other church was old as well but more sturdy and robust, and looked to be still in use. Hudson seemed to have been around a while.

During our walk, we quickly perused and chatted up the owners of galleries nearby: the Limner Gallery, the Deffebach Gallery, the Carrie Haddad Gallery, and the John Davis Gallery. To kill some time before the launch at Limner, we attended the Hudson Opera House, a Multi-Arts Center, where we listened to artists from the New York Foundations in Art Mark Program talk about their work in an exhibition called “Marking Time”.

There we listened to several artists speak, but I’d like to focus on the one whose work struck a chord. Tatana Kellner is a tiny lady with a tiny voice yet big ideas. Her works are faces with words. When I looked at them prior to hearing her speak, it was evident there was something political about them.

[SinglePic not found]Tatana soon revealed that she looked toward newspapers as her source for documenting the cultural changes we undergo as we respond to the world around us as reported in the media over time. Our feelings, the words we use, both change over time. Her sensitivity toward politcs becomes very evident in her artist statement.

During her talk, someone asked her if the faces came first or the words. My muse silently answered the question: the faces. After contemplating the question for a moment Tatana finally answered, “The faces.” It would have been nice to chat with her a moment but the launch at the Limner had already started. 

At the launch, we marvelled at how quickly the gallery filled with people while we were away. We chatted with Tim, the gallery owner, then walked around. Discreetly I observed people’s reactions to Sean’s work, which ranged from “Wow!” to fits of giggling at his depiction of a penis finger (or is it a finger penis?). Given the high quality of artwork in the exhibition and the sexual themes of the subject matter, Sean’s piece fit in perfectly.

[SinglePic not found]After quite a bit of time, we bumped into another artist from the show, Elliott Lunsen, whose massive piece “Stretched” certainly dwarfed all the other pieces in the show by its sheer size. Travelling all the way from Texas for the show, Elliot was very easy to talk with and I was struck by the fact that he had no southern drawl. He spoke just like us. Or, perhaps we spoke just like him.

Previously, while touring the John Davis Gallery, the woman who tended the front desk had commented on how we didn’t sound Canadian, to which I jokingly countered, “Well, you don’t sound American.”  (I couldn’t resist. ) This was soon followed by a discussion of the similarity of dialects along the east coast of Canada and the United States.  It seems there is a universal diction (probably due to television speak) which has travelled as far as Texas at least, and so for most of the trip it seemed like we hadn’t left Canada at all.  

Elliott was very friendly as were the gallery owners of Hudson, offering us tips on where to go for good coffee. In fact, while checking out the menu of an Italian restaurant, the owner of the Deffebach Gallery drove by and from the rolled down window of his car told us Vico was excellent.

[SinglePic not found]After being on our feet for about four and a half hours, we’d worked up quite an appetite. We slipped into the Vico Restaurant  & Bar, where we were sat at a table in the back room and enjoyed privacy, a big bottle of bubbly mineral water and fine Italian cuisine all made from scratch (according to our waitress).

Sean enjoyed Lasagne al Cinghiale, a hearty lasagna made with boar ragu, and although I chose to remain vegetarian in my choices, selecting the Fettucine Alba, salmon in a white-wine cheese sauce, I forewent portion control and ate the whole thing. A highly recommended restaurant for anyone passing through the area.

Sated and exhausted, we toddled back to the car and drove to our hotel, where we called it an early night since we would be leaving early in the morning. The return drive seemed quicker, probably because we knew where we were going. Again, we met no muss ups or snafus on the way home, except for a lack of Tim Horton’s on the return drive. Instead, we settled for a Burger King breakfast with tater tots that tasted liked deep fried fish. 

After paying highway tolls and bridge tolls, we had one final chuckle when we had to pay yet another toll to get back into our own country.

The people we met on our trip were very friendly. Conversations ranged from the recession to 9/11 but mostly were about art. We saw all kinds of people in Hudson–the ritzy, fur coat wearing kind  and those who probably have an upcoming guest spot on the Jerry Springer Show. We mostly gravitated toward folk who fell in between these two extremes and it made the trip very worthwhile.

I suspect Hudson would be a great place to visit on a sunny afternoon in the middle of the summer, with all of its antique and curio shops, cafes and galleries. It certainly would be worth the drive to see New York’s mountain country in full bloom again. 

Kudos to the Adirondak and Catskill Mountain reserve parks–we counted 24 hawk sightings there and back. They were easy to spot, sitting still on high tree branches against the sky, their white chests full and proud, emanating confidence and reassuring all creatures that yes, they were indeed hawks. In contrast, the skitterish black birds, crows and ravens, flicked their wings and bobbed in the most animated of gestures, expressing their annoyance at not being hawks.

As Sean and I finish writing our recollections of the trip, Sean has asked me where I picked up a pamphlet called the Hudson River Museum & Gallery Guide. I cannot remember which of the galleries it belonged to, but I do remember thinking it was free… Of course, Sean leaned over and pointed to the $2.50 printed in the bottom left hand corner. Damn it! Now I’m a thief. I only hope Hudson will forgive me, because I’d like to go back there some day.

For more details about this trip, please read Sean’s account, Sean Chappell at the Limner Gallery.