Events

The 2024 Hudson River Valley Ramble will occur on August 31st and every day in September. Event leaders will be able to submit events in Spring. If you have questions about hosting an event for the Ramble, please email ramble@hudsongreenway.ny.gov.

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Elemental Forces

Location

The Catherine Konner Sculpture Park at Rockland Center for the Arts
27 South Greenbush Rd.
West Nyack, NY 10994

41.090622 -73.947782

County: Rockland
Region: Lower Hudson

Date(s)

  • September 9, 2018, 11:00AM

Details

Event Type Sculpture and Walk Description Identifying renewable energy sources is an important issue facing humanity going forward. It is a task requiring the collaboration of scientists, entrepreneurs, businesses, governments and consumers. How can the artist play a role in advancing the emergence of renewable energy? How can artists help inspire dreams of what might be and work towards a better future?? This public art exhibit invited artists to create sculptures using renewable energy utilizing solar, wind, and geothermal to the potential of alternative energy. These sculptures set in The Catherine Konner Sculpture Park harness a component of renewable energy. We feel very fortunate to have six amazing artists who are known for their innovation in public art as well as their activism with the environment and sustainability. Artists include: Professor Robert Dell, Jeff Kahn, James Murray, Aurora Robson, Peter & Cassie Strasser, and Chuck von Schmidt. RoCA is proud to have on display one of Professor Robert Dell’s geothermal-powered sculptures, created and originally powered by hot springs during a Fullbright Senior Research Fellowship in Iceland. Dell, a MacDowell Fellow, is the Founding Director of the Center for Innovation and Applied Technology at The Cooper Union in New York City. The Smithsonian has now recognized him as a “progenitor of sustainable art” and for his geothermal installations. His papers on this subject are in the permanent collection as part of The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. As an engineer, inventor, author and sculptor he has developed several green technologies, including an outdoor system of heated ground agriculture that was constructed and tested at the Agricultural University of Iceland. Jeff Kahn’s “Wind Shear” is among the kinetic sculptures harnessing the wind. Kahn’s pieces are created and calibrated to move with breezes under 1 mph, under the heat of the sun, or the weight of the morning dew. He explores balance and gravity and the way almost imperceptible air currents interact with them. Gravity is the motivating force and the element that holds these kinetic sculptures together. Kahn uses his 40 years of experience as a jeweler, machinist and woodworker in his kinetic sculpture. His work is in the permanent collections of such places as the National Air and Space Museum, The Franklin Mint and the New York Botanical Gardens. Kahn along with artists Peter & Cassie Strasser and Chuck von Schmidt explore the interaction of the natural element of wind with movable art. Peter and Cassie Strasser created an old fashioned wind vane to harness available air currents, titled Where Do We Go From Here. The movement will cause its walking people to rotate on its tripod axis high in the air. Peter and Cassie are both adept at restoring and working with many mediums and objects, having both worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Conservation and Restoration departments. Chuck von Schmidt embraces the awesome effects of weather on our lives in his Polly Von sculpture. The piece harkens to the folk song in which a hunter mistakenly shoots his beloved when he mistakes her for a swan. The swan pivots and balances on the arrow which pierces it. It weathervanes with the wind and tilts when the pan on the “head” fills with water. The water spills and the swan tips back up into balance. Von Schmidt’s work is in such permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Neuberger Museum and the Musei Vaticani. Aurora Robson and James Murray utilize solar power. James Murray’s Totemic Charge, made from salvaged phone cubicles are welded into a column. These recycled and reclaimed materials, along with a solar panel captures the sun to provide renewable and useful energy enabling visitors to recharge their cell phones or tablets through the sculpture. Murray’s work can be found through New England and New York. Aurora Robson is best known for her huge installations of plastic. She has developed a teaching course to encourage a shift of paradigms in art and science education while helping restrict the flow of plastic debris to our oceans. Gypsy Moths consists of three hanging pieces, made from plastics, saved from the wastestream, and powered by solar. Robson founded Project Vortex A few of the major collections her work can be found include: The Figge Art Museum, IA; Kingsbrae Gardens, NB, Canada; The South Carolina Aquarium, SC; and the Poipu Beach Hotel, HI. The exhibit opens Saturday, June 16th, 2:00- 5:00pm and is on view through April 30, 2019. Free to the general public. For more information contact: Rockland Center for the Arts (RoCA), 845-358-0877, info@rocklandartcenter.org or visit www.rocklandartcenter.org. RoCA is located at 27 South Greenbush Rd., West Nyack, NY 10994. The Catherine Konner Sculpture Park is open Dawn to Dusk 7 days a week. RoCA’s programs are made possible, in part, with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Organization Hosting the Event Rockland Center for the Arts

Registration

Advance registration required.
Suggested Registration 845-358-0877

Additional Information


Event Duration (hours): 1

Family Friendly
Wheelchair Accessible
Barrier Free or Wheelchar accessible? Yes
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