Palisades Community Center Welcomes Noted Artist
Elaine Smollin will be working as artist-in-residence at the Community Center this spring. Elaine was a visiting scholar at New York University's Center for Art and Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts for 2004-2005: serving as a cultural historian, she worked with earth scientists and archaeologists who allowed her to draw or photograph their findings. These drawings have been exhibited in Europe and are the center of several essays published in the British magazine Next Level.
A graduate of Pratt Institute, Elaine taught painting and drawing at Rhode Island School of Design and NYU. Her specialty is drawing from nature. After living in Snedens Landing in 2003, she amassed hundreds of sketches of elevations of the Palisades landscape and is now at work on five drawings using handmade cherry branch charcoal on watercolor paper, each measuring 8 x 10 feet. She is also a field archaeologist; her naturalistic drawings recently won a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Recently interviewed about her feelings for Palisades, Ms. Smollin commented, "The first time I saw this landscape in 2001, I was deeply moved by not only its intimate beauty, but, moreover, by how the great variations among land forms defy the ability to made a straightforward pictorial depiction of a scene here."
"My student life in New York City, with studies at Pratt and NYU, led to a long association with intellectual matters that threatened to overpower my eagerness to be true to naturalist form. The film essay I wrote in Palisades in 2003 combined philosophy and semiotics (the study of symbolic visual language); this made my non-verbal appreciation all the more pleasurable! I was saved from over-intellectualization by the force of beauty in nature here. The opportunity to work here again will allow me to advance the naturalistic side of my work over the intellectual."
Drawing Workshops and Demonstrations Ms. Smollin's drawing workshops/demonstrations will be held from 2:00 to 4:00pm on Sunday, April 30 and Sunday, May 21 at the Palisades Community Center. For further information or to reserve tickets contact the Community Center at our e-mail address: community.center@palisadesny.com
Attention Area Artists
The Palisades Community Center is currently searching for new artists from the area who could utilize the space for their creative endeavors on a limited basis.