A ‘Last Chance Last Glance’ Day for the seven-person art show, Made in Middlefield III, will be Saturday April 12, 11-2PM. Three artists featured in the exhibition— Cleo Mook, Linda Tracz and Nanci Wentworth will also present a mini Meet-the-Artist program starting at 1PM. They will show other examples of their work and informally discuss their diverse art-forms and approaches to being creative. Ms. Mook will answer questions about her silk scarves and lamps, artfully created from salvaged materials. Linda Tracz, a photographer, will augment the photographs on display with other examples; and Nanci Wentworth, who presents one-of-a-kind upcycled and embellished denim-wear, will demonstrate some of her sewing techniques. The gallery will  provide  limited seating. Reservations are recommended for those who wish to sit.  All are welcome.

The gallery will open at 11AM for visitors’ last chance to look at the display—that includes rustic woodenware by Steve Shauger, a Vietnam veteran pilot who eventually retired as a Lieutenant Colonel with  the NY Air National Guard and now works with wood from his trees; William R Ralston–whose furniture-making shop is south of Cooperstown–features small elegant 18^th c style furniture: veneered jewelry boxes and a mirrored dresser; Molly Welch Whyte displays remarkable contemporary art; and Harriet Brown, a long-time part-time resident, offers a beguiling, quilted, landscape wall-hanging.

The gallery is also open  daily by appointment: email leArtGarage@gmail.com or call 607-547-5327. The show closes at 2PM Saturday April 12.

About the Artists

Cleo Mook grew up and attended high school in Cooperstown and returned after college to start several businesses, including the Marketplace and Homescapes. After a pause in her formal education, she received an MFA from Cornell University where she taught Electronic Imaging in Art, 19th Century Processes, and Photography after graduating. At the time, her interests centered on the expanded options for materials and scale presented by innovations in computers and other technologies. However, her passion for creating objects that unite beauty and utility persisted through numerous moves—East Coast to West Coast and back again, resulting in a bevy of works in a range of mediums. She salvaged wood from home renovations and repurposed vintage silk men’s ties to create the lamps and scarves on display in Made in Middlefield III. She is currently learning basic woodworking as well as electrical wiring, sewing, and upholstery, drawing on the skills of friends, family, and neighbors.

Linda Tracz grew up in Oneonta and learned photography from her father. From the time she was young, they developed pictures taken on trips in his darkroom, and her love of the medium has only grown in the intervening years. After a fulfilling career in business administration, she has returned to this early passion. Using color, texture, and perspective, she seeks to create interesting views of life and our land and give recognition to the function and beauty of things usually taken for granted. “Photography allows me to tell a story without any spoken words,” she explained. She maintains an active exhibition schedule, presenting works in the Fenimore Art Museum’s community gallery, CANO, and the Cooperstown Arts Association. She has received awards locally and further afield in Hagaman, Forest Hills, and Saratoga Springs, NY, and her work has appeared on WKTY and Fox News.

Nanci Wentworth grew up in Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, where her father was a furniture craftsman and later a VP of operations. She loves to manipulate materials with her hands ever since working with wood and clay during her school days. Influenced by her early exposure to craftsmen, she has studied numerous artisan techniques, including chair seating and caning, theorem painting, spinning, fireplace cooking, herb gardening, and sewing. Her textile works featured in Made in Middlefield III: embellished upcycled denim wear: a  jacket and a pair of jeans, both one-of-a-kind. .  “I’m eclectic . . . I like to take garments apart and put them back together,” she explained. Her self-taught practice satisfies a deep creative impulse and allows her to explore a multitude of mediums and experiences. As she says, “My world is not a coin with just two sides, it is a cube with many facets, and it has lots of gray shades, not just black and white.” Wentworth recently purchased a 1832 house in Middlefield, which she and her husband plan to restore. 

About the Show and Gallery

 “[Made in Middlefield III] includes a wonderful diversity of makers, with varied experiences and artistic voices. It is part of an ongoing celebration of our shared community, which is made richer by its variety,” explained curator and gallery director Sydney Waller. The Art Garage has been serving the area and all manner of artists for the past 15 years. Open year round, its lively exhibitions showcase the works of local, regional, national and  international artists. It has hosted a two-week artist community-residency with Kenyan artist, Adam Masava, who brought his work and life-experience to different local institutions. The Art Garage offers regular, free programming, including artist talks and technical demonstrations and is proud to be a community hub for creative discussion and expression.

ABOUT THE OTHER FOUR ARTISTS:

Harriet Brown is a writer and professor of Magazine, News, & Digital Journalism at Syracuse University. 

Her writings often explore food, eating, and body image as well as familial relationships and childhood education and have been published in the New York Times, O Magazine, Vogue, Psychology Today, and Chicago Tribune. She has published several books including Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement (2018) and Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia (2010) and has edited two anthologies. Since completing her first sewing project in 7th grade home economics—”an “ill-fated golden corduroy jumpsuit”— she has become an avid textile artist. “As someone whose medium is usually words, I love making things that are tactile, physical, colorful… I think of myself as a gonzo quilter,” she explained. “I often work without a pattern or plan, just arranging and rearranging colors and fabrics and shapes until they please me. For me, sewing is a release and a relief, especially in

these troubling times.”

William Ralston of Ralston Reproduction Furniture grew up in Irondequoit, near Rochester, NY and earned a teaching degree from Colgate University in Hamilton, NY. After a brief stint as a high school science teacher, he began a career as a furniture maker, working for eight yearsunder the tutelage of a German Master Craftsman in Atlanta, GA. There, he worked in a small shop specializing in the reproduction of 18th century American antiques with a dozen other craftsmen from around the world. When he returned to this area, he opened his own shop in Cherry Valley before moving to Cooperstown and continues to reproduce 18th century American antiques, with an emphasis on neoclassical Federal furniture. Along the way, he also began to specialize in Gothic and Gothic Revival styles, satisfying commissions for a monastery and Lyndhurst Mansion,

a historic estate and National Trust for Historic Preservation site in Tarrytown, NY.

Steve Shauger, a native of Pompton Plains, NJ, studied at the College of Forestry at Syracuse University and did forestry work in Germany, Alaska, and Oregon. Having earned a private piloting license through the Air Force ROTC and completed flight-training in Texas, he served in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, achieving Captain rank. Upon his return to the United States, he completed an MS degree at Cornell University in Environmental Education and moved to Vermont with his family, where he became an accomplished timber frame builder. Moving to Cooperstown, he worked to repurpose old barns into homes while serving in the NY State National Guard, eventually retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. In retirement, he has backpacked the world and studied wood turning and lathe techniques with David Ellsworth, creating one-of-a-kind hardwood bowls and candlesticks. “I turn to the wood that grows around me, it is creative and challenging…I can make something out of nothing, then use the objects I create rather than use the wood for heat,” he explained.
Molly Welch Whyte grew up in Cooperstown and her family has lived in the area for generations. She studied at the Cooper Union in New York City and worked in Brooklyn for several years, supporting her own studio practice through day jobs. She has worked at Box Studios, a photo retouching house founded by the industry pioneer Pascal Dangin, who frequently collaborated with Vogue and Vanity Fair. For a decade, she also served as the studio manager and oversaw design work for publications and exhibitions for Brigitte Lacombe, an internationally acclaimed photographer celebrated for her portraits of artists, filmmakers, and politicians such as Meryl Streep and Martin Scorsese. Though this career was rewarding, it wasn’t the same as making her own art and often siphoned time from her own studio practice. Her work in Made in Middlefield III —a collage pie-graph of 30 pieces (a lunar month) made from a rejected edition print— explores this time period and the conflict between necessary employment and independent practice faced by many artists. She explained, “[Water Measure and its companion piece] are part of a body of work made from the material detritus generated from jobs I was paid to produce outside of my own studio. At the time, I was working in the service of other artists and while I admired their work, it robbed me of the priceless commodity of time in my own studio. I was obsessed with reclaiming my time and compelled to collect and re-assign meaning to the trash and ephemera the job generated.” 

The Art Garage has been serving the area and artists for the past 15 years. Open year round, its lively exhibitions have varied from bringing to the area the international

artist Adam Masava, from Kenya, as a community-artist-in-residence,  to featuring contemporary and self-taught art. It hosts many free  programs such as artists’

talks and panel discussions. The Art Garage organized  the community shows, Made in Middlefield Parts I and II, in 2024 to celebrate  community. Artists and artisans

in Middlefield who work with any material, whether traditional or off-beat, trained or self-taught, are encouraged to contact the Art Garage if they have an art or craft they’d like to discuss for a  future iteration of the annual display.