Art tour highlights renovations

HARLEM VALLEY — “I’m one of the first stops on the tour, holding down the fort for Amenia all by myself,†Peter Cascone joked in his art studio on Folan Road.

Last Saturday and Sunday marked the first of two weekends for the annual ArtEast Open Studios Tour, an opportunity to take a peek into the studios and working spaces of the area’s local artists. Separated geographically, the first weekend, Oct. 16 and 17, highlighted artists in the northeastern Dutchess County corridor, ranging from Millerton to Dover Plains and as far west as Stanfordville. This coming weekend will feature artists ranging from South Dover down to Patterson.

The ArtEast tour has been held for the last few years, but 2010’s tour, at least the northern half of it, was a bit crammed, with six artists in a cluster either in Millerton or just south of the village. The other three of nine total northern artist stops were spread way out, with one in Stanfordville, one in Dover Plains and the other, Cascone, in Amenia. There are 27 artists in total participating in the entire tour, with seven business sponsors.

There were also many ties to the burgeoning 14th Colony Artists collective, which had a gallery open for the tour. It’s proven to be a successful way for local artists to network and discover ways of getting their art out to the public.

“They’ve all embraced me,†said Cascone about the 14th Colony, which he said was responsible for letting him know about the tour. Cascone has been painting for nearly 40 years, but has only recently dipped his toes into marketing and publicly displaying his works.

“To some extent, the tour is a validation of what I’m doing,†he said.

Cascone said a fairly good crowd had stopped by his studio, and he was passing the time by working while waiting for visitors.

“I would say half have been civilians and half have been fellow artists,†he said. “They’ve all been very nice, although nobody’s bought anything.â€

“I feel it’s really intriguing to see other artists’ studios and see how they work,†said artist Amy Farrell, who was taking the tour as  a visitor the first weekend before opening up her own studio in Pawling for the southern Dutchess half of the tour this weekend.

While Cascone was painting a work-in-progress, several other artists’ studios themselves were a work-in-progess. There were several artists on the tour in the town of North East who had either just recently built studios or galleries or were knee-deep into construction.

Mark Liebergall had an intriguing open-spaced gallery built on his property not a few feet from his actual studio. It was built in two pieces from an Amish construction group based on Liebergall’s designs and was brought to the property and put together in a day.

And driving a few hundred feet up the driveway, his wife, Dianne Engleke, recently had her own studio constructed by the same group. Engleke is the political cartoonist for The Millerton News.

“There were 40 people here yesterday,†Engleke said on Sunday. “I was surprised at that. It was interesting how they came in shifts all day long.â€

And while Liebergall and Engleke have just about finished with their renovations, husband and wife Camilo Rojas and Virginia Lavado still have much work to do. They’re building an enormous three-story studio on their property on McGhee Hill Road, with each floor designated for working in different mediums.

“It’s picture-like,†Lavado said when asked why the couple, who are originally from Venezuela, chose the Harlem Valley as their new home. “It’s like a postcard, with the rolling hills. It’s beautiful.â€

For more information on the ArtEast Open Studios Tour, visit arteastdutchess.com, where a schedule and map of this weekend’s tour is available and contact information can be found for each of the featured artists.