by Paul Smart I haven't used watercolors since ninth grade, and then only reluctantly when told I had to pbutt through the medium to get beyond pastels to the oils and acrylics I really wanted to get my hands on. But I'm feeling no fear, even though I've had to borrow my teacher's paints and paper. That's because my teacher is the Woodstock School of Art's popular Staats Fasoldt, as understanding a guide as one could ask for. And, even better, there's something I'm finding in the venerable WSA's newly renovated main studios that's not only inspiring - as was hoped for from the beginning when these stone and many-windowed buildings were first constructed by the Works Progress Administration during Roosevelt's New Deal answer to the Great Depression of the 1930s - but comforting as well. It's not the new air conditioning (radiant heat in the winter) that's lending the room, and me, this feeling, I figure. The big doors are open and the rain is coming down in sheets outside. It's not the lights, really, which haven't changed all that much. Or even the cleanliness of the rooms, not yet given the decades of use that lend all artists' studios a certain patina. Tables are set up here and there, with a haphazard sense of wabi-sabi, that ephemeral Oriental sense of imperfect beauty. A half-dozen students are on hand, each with their own kits, their own buckets and pots for water. Loads of brushes. Talismans. Photos they are working from. Past works. Fasoldt puts my table together with another new student's, the better to guide us as we work. He's patient and warm-spirited, funny and accessible. Did I mention that he's got a new show of his masterful watercolor work, of the Cape and Maine as well as local scenes, opening at Saugerties' Dog House Gallery on Phillips Road this coming Saturday, July 8, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.? Or that, as part of the town's Second Saturday art events, the WSA is hoping to entice people to its beautiful campus for a noontime slide lecture by landscape painter Kevin Cook in honor of its twenty-fifth year of such events, to be followed, from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. by a special sale of etchings, lithographs, monotypes and block prints by Kate McGloughlin's printmaking students in the School's Graphic Workshop. The person I'm learning with - Fasoldt seated between us - is an artist whose work I've lauded in these pages. She's had a hiatus and is looking for a new start. She, like me, has heard that Staats is the way to go, and that this Wednesday morning clbutt is less harried, in some way, than the Saturday morning sessions he also offers. I'd gotten the idea of doing something at the WSA after attending the opening of its Deane Keller Memorial Exhibition - a monumental show simply because of the exquisite expertise of a series of giant pencil renderings of Middle East characters plucked from the streets - Board President Paula Nelson had asked if I'd seen the newly completed renovations and then excitedly taken me through, showing off everything from the grand new studio rooms to the handicapped-access bathrooms, complete with a crusty painter's palette toilet paper holder. She pointed out how there was more to do; how what I saw there needed replication in the gallery and administration building, the better to allow the WSA to start having exhibits year round. As well as to give those who worked for it, including Nelson, adequate heat each winter. Luiz Anderson's buttbuttinationThe whole truth must be established about the buttbuttination of the Brazilian trade union activist Anderson Luiz Souza Santos It is with great sadness and sense of revulsion that we have received... And so here I am. Fasoldt pulls out copies of a clbuttic Edward Hopper painting of a Maine lighthouse. Says that, despite appearances, the artist had a deep love for abstract forms. He shows us the shapes at play, the interplay of light and dark. "I'm going to teach you about mid-tones," he says, explaining that we will be working in a three-value system that uses no white paints. The paper will be our white. "Most artists think in terms of light and shadow. It's like genesis, really, with the light coming out of the darkness..." He gets us playing with water and color, showing how this medium is more about moving water around on the page than pinpointing details. We do exercises in solid color, then in gradations, where added water creates a softening of tone. He explains the color wheel. The ways in which pigments differ from dyes. Intensities and hues. We joke about Mark Rothko. Then Fasoldt renders an expressive, instantly recognizable and moody translation of the Hopper before our eyes, starting with a watery blue, then adding bits of green, some red highlights, and a second, darker blue here or there. My turn, he says, handing over the brushes. It goes well, at first, with my bold use of color and quick decisions getting me pegged as an instant impressionist verging on expressionism. But by the time I've finished what I started, blotches have appeared and my lighthouse keeper's house looks demented, as though it's borne devil horns. Never mind, Staats tells me. I've taken a leap. Making my way around the room, I notice the various elements people are each working on. Few are aiming at finished masterpieces, but learning exercises. An exploration of the medium so they can get comfortable with it and have a few tricks up their sleeves. Many of the students, I realize, are frequently-showing local artists better known for what they do in oils or printmaking, photography or pastels. They're here, I sense, because Fasoldt reminds them of the underlying truths all art relies on... at least, that which is prettiest and most accessibly recognized for what it's meant to be. "This is a wonderful spontaneous medium that allows one a great splash of color," Fasoldt says at one point. "Watercolor will give you anything you want... but when starting off, it's best to work within limitations." As I play with lessons involving the angle and speed of my brushstroke, Staats delightedly points out a bird that's entered the studio. Then, just as excitedly, yet in his calm voice, he speaks about how different papers serve "as the painter's lifeblood." "You know, nothing's going to dry right today," he says, as the rain begins to peter off some. I notice that none of it has entered the building. And yet, with a glint of sun coming through the surrounding trees, I want to run outside and jump puddles, search for rainbows. When I tell my teacher how long it's been since I've done what I am now doing, he says he's often found people talking about having been natural artists up to that same age, 12 or 13. Was it something to do with the education system? he wondered. My table partner suggested it might have more to do with puberty and the distractions posed by opposite genders. I think to myself that it might also have to do with the doubts that race into one around the same time, for all the same reasons. I get ready to leave while everyone's still working and look how all are doing. And I realize that the joy I'd felt in this room has probably always been here. It's that of creativity, of learning new tricks, even as adults. Even as professionals at whatever we do, be it writing or the visual arts. And then I realize why it is the renovations here are so important. They validate this feeling that's been here. And renew it. The WSA is located one mile east of Woodstock Village on Route 212. Its openings are fun, its clbuttes even better. For further information call 679-2388 or visit the website www.woodstockschoolofart.com. Dog House Gallery is located at the corner of Glasco and Phillips Road. Call 246-0402 for further information.
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