ARTISTS GATHER IN SARATOGA
Art show in its 10th year
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.» The 10th annual Saratoga Arts Celebration brought artists and art-lovers from near and far to the Spa City show, now a decade-old tradition.
Event-goers flocked to the front lawn of the National Museum of Dance, on South Broadway in Saratoga Springs, to admire and possibly purchase artwork by the show’s many talented artists.
This year’s juried show included a mix of handmade fine art and fine crafts.
With stations set up outside and inside the museum, the artists were on hand to talk about their work and how they created it.
Some of the artists travel in from different areas to be part of the Saratoga Arts Celebration, held each year during the height of the city’s tourism season, and “really plan
their whole year around being here,” said founder and organizer Sue Brown Gordon of Greenfield Center.
Several artists have been part of the show since its inception. “It’s really nice to have a supportive, loyal following,” Brown Gordon added.
Long Island-based photographer Daniel Jones has been participating in the Saratoga Arts Celebration since its early days. “I like the laid back atmosphere and being on the ground of the museum. It’s a really pretty setting,” Jones said, “and the patrons are very inquisitive. They’re really engaged. They ask a lot of questions, which is great.”
On the Saratoga Arts Celebration now entering its second decade, “It’s really exciting,” said Brown Gordon, who puts on eight art shows each year, primarily in Connecticut, with her company Gordon Fine Arts. “It feels like it’s always a new experience because it’s a new group of people, but it’s a very comfortable feeling to be up here. It feels more neighborhoody and there’s more of a community feeling, as opposed to sometimes doing shows in busy cities where the speed and the pace make it a different vibe all together. Saratoga has its own flavor.”
While the show has physically grown a lot over the past 10 years, Brown Gordon said the level of quality has grown, too. “We have a good reputation and artists tend to tell their friend about it, or kind of tip off the other people that they feel are at that same par, share the same patrons,” she said, adding that being located at the museum lends itself to raising the bar as well. “When we correspond with artists, we say ‘Bring your A game. Really challenge yourself.’”
Because of the Saratoga Arts Celebration’s popularity, Gordon Fine Arts has expanded to also offer a Saratoga Holiday Arts Fair in November each year.
This year’s Saratoga Holiday Arts Fair, featuring gift-able works of art, is scheduled for Nov. 10 and 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, at the National Museum of Dance. The exhibitors to be presented are some of New England’s top artists and craftspeople working in a variety of media. Handmade jewelry, fine woven garments, hand crafted wood vessels and utensils, sculpture, functional stoneware and raku pottery, quilts, mixed media, paintings, photography and much more will be available for show and sale. Admission to this event is free. More information is available online at www.gordonfinearts.org.