Big and Small and Fragile and Strong—Oh My! Cooperstown NY — The Art Garage stunning first summer show, big. small. fragile. strong. will be on view through Saturday July 20. The exhibition features ‘spun glass’ free-form sculptures, beautiful and ominous suspended paper constructions , shimmering tapestries of cut beer cans and exquisite clay and watercolor pieces. Featured are established artists Tina Betz, Kate Dodd, Christina Hunt Wood and Megan Adams Irving The gallery is open Saturdays June 29, July 6, 13 and 20, 11am-3pm and every day of the week with your appointment: simply text or call 315-941-9607 or leartgarage@gmail.com. See FB / Instagram @ ArtGarageCooperstown for images. Accompanying the show are free programs: A flameworking glass demo Fri June 28, 3PM; an artists panel discussion Fri June 28, 4PM; an artists panel discussion Thursday July 11, 5PM and a final glass demo Saturday July 20, 2PM. Programs are free. Reservations recommended. First-time visitors as well as the regulars are welcome. The four-person exhibition, deceptively delicate of appearance, packs a powerful punch upon closer examination. Tina Betz (Clayville) forms everyday objects –sexy high heels, birds — with strands of hand-torched colored sheet glass; Kate Dodd (Burlington NY & Orange NJ) repurposes old textbooks into elegant eloquent feather-weight constructions of super-thin, text-dense paper ribbons. Christina Hunt Wood (Delhi) photographs wilderness closeups with gold crushed ‘road sodas’ intrusions; she also shreds said cans to assemble shimmering wall-hangings, and presents a beautiful but ominous swarm of embroidered spotted lanternflies. Also informed by nature, Megan Adams Irving (Westford) bears witness to the smallest bits of the natural world, sticks and stones and foliage, on paper and in clay. The Art Garage has been serving the community for more than 14 years. Its year round contemporary art exhibitions present all disciplines as well as self-taught artists. It represents the estate of farmer-folk artist Lavern Kelley (1928-1998) whose work is in numerous private and public collections including the Smithsonian, the International Museum of Folk Art (Santa Fe) and Fenimore Art Museum. Collectors may inquire and make an appointment to see what work is available. The exhibition big. small. fragile. strong. will be followed by Crazy Cool! In high summer. ABOUT THE ARTISTS: Tina Betz was awarded degrees by Tyler School of Art (BFA) and Alfred University (MFA). In the vanguard of the integration of technology and art, in her varied career as a professional artist, she also coordinates and executes FIRST Tech Challenge youth robotics competitions throughout NY State which serve 1200 middle and high school students. And she teaches and inspires women pursuing a Manufacturing Associate Certification. An established glass artist, she has developed an intricate flameworking technique over many years. She paints sheets of glass with colored glass enamels then fires in a kiln to present a painterly organic palette. She then cuts the sheets and pulls these strips into strands in a flame, She fusing them with a hand torch to build– entirely free form– confections of lace-like glass. Her subject matter elevates everyday domestic objects –a watering can, boots, pears —into art, to celebrate the feminine, family, and nature. She creates metaphorical associations using imagery that is fragile and precious but very strong. This dichotomy is part of the narrative in the work. Her art is in numerous collections including the Daiichi Museum in Nagoya Japan and the Seagram’s Ltd collection in New York City. Betz will present a mini demonstration of her method at the Art Garage prior to a panel discussion with Dodd Friday June 28 at 4PM, and again on Saturday July 20 at 2PM. Kate Dodd studied at Pratt Institute (B.F.A.) and Columbia University (M.F.A).She lives and teaches in New Jersey—and spends time in Burlington NY in the summer. She focuses on the ephemeral. “My deep love of manipulating nontraditional art media has led me to working primarily with discarded materials, and therefore to addressing issues of consumption and waste in much of my recent work,” she noted. Most sculpture in the show is assembled from strips of text excavated from out-of-date text books. She has exhibited her artwork nationally in museums, galleries, and colleges, and has been teaching art in public and private schools for 30 years. She has been awarded residencies at MacDowell, Rutgers Center, Connemara Conservancy, Cummington Community for the Arts, Vermont Studio School and numerous schools in the tri-state area. Besides site-specific installations, she has created large-scale commissions for NJ Transit (Bayonne, Newark, Hoboken, etc.). Her installations provide a heightened sensory experience for the viewer\occupant and reexamine institutional and conventional notions of architecture, and its relationship to the environment.Recently she led a collaborative site-specific installation project for Pennsylvania’s Perspectives grant program at Nurture Nature Center, Eaton, PA. The installation explores the effects of plastic on life in the Delaware River. Megan Adams Irving will present translucent watercolor studies of small stones separated by the ghostly shapes of hemlock sticks; and ceramic work informed by the world she observes. A mixed-media painter and ceramic artist, she examines “the temporary and fragile qualities of life, balanced with the persistence of nature and geological time.” Living close to the land is critical to her lifelong study of the landscape and its connection to humanity. A recent Individual Artist Grant awarded through NYSCA’s Community Regrants Program supports her development of a body of ceramic art inspired by 1800s found remnants of botanical wallpaper. She studied studio art at Bard College (BA, painting), then undertook investigative stints in the Hudson Valley, Seattle, WA and Washington DC (Corcoran Art Library). She worked remotely in Southeast Asia and Central America. She now exhibits regularly in artist-run pop-up spaces and more traditional venues, including the Samuel S. Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY, the Corcoran College of Art Design, Washington, D.C., R and locally, the Smithy, Roxbury Arts Group, the Art Garage and CANO. Her pursuit of ceramics has been largely self-driven with the support of the local clay community including Elizabeth Nields’ workshops and the Smithy Clay Studio, where she creates work, learns from other artists, and teaches workshops. Christina Hunt Wood grew up in the Catskills and identifies as an African American multimedia artist who works with assemblage, photography and time-based media. ”I am interested in the dynamics of race and power within my region,” she noted. “Through my artistic practice, I try to shed light on ways in which the status quo is upheld through symbols, actions, and the absence of action.” She continued, “My work [is] an exploration into the underlying motivations behind regressive ideas of exclusion and environmental degradation, as well as how these ideas are expressed.” She studied at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva NY (B.A.) and (Lesley University, Cambridge MA (MFA). She was awarded a Creatives Rebuild New York AEP Fellow in 2022-24 (Mellon Foundation and Tides Institute) ); a NYSCA Individual Artist Grant (2021); she was named a “Steward of the Catskills” by the Catskill Center (2019). She has exhibited work throughout the East Coast, with notable exhibitions at Bushel Collective (Delhi, NY), Davis Gallery at Hobart & William Smith Colleges (Geneva, NY), Maxon Mill at Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), The Torpedo Factory (Alexandria, VA), and The Painting Center (NYC). Locally she was featured at Glimmerglass Film Days and has exhibited at the Roxbury Arts Group, Fenimore Art Museum and the Art Garage. Hunt Wood and Irving will participate in the free artists talk on Wednesday July 11 at 5PM. For further information please contact the Art Garage at b607-547-5327; leartgarage@gmail.com; text 315-94109607. Also see FRB / Instagram @ArtGarageCooperstown.