Byrdcliffe-A Forest Utopia

By Patricia Wadsley

     Each year, after a highly selective application process, the Woodstock
Byrdcliffe Guild, chooses 47 artists from different disciplines: visual art,
ceramics, performing arts, and the written word –to take up residency. The
artists—young and older– live and work in one of the low rambling arts
and crafts cottages nestled in the hillsides, or enjoy a more communal way
of life in one of the stately buildings on this 250 acre plot. The Byrdcliffe
Artists Colony was founded in 1902 as a utopia for artists who wanted to
concentrate on their creative pursuits. For the artists who received a
residency this year at Byrdcliffe, this colony is still a kind of utopia. That
feeling was obvious at the Open Studio tour last weekend as artists
showed off their works and hardy souls braved the rain and the smoke to
see the artists’ work and what Byrdcliffe was all about.
      Leland Nelson, a sculptor from Stamford, New York made the cut in the
selection process and is one of this year’s resident artists. For the summer,
he’s in the inn at Byrdcliffe , formally known as The Villetta. There are
apartments upstairs, communal living spaces on the first floor and a
communal kitchen. “I like to talk to other artists about their work,” says
Nelson with a smile. When he’s not communing with other artists, he works
on his own work in a studio reached by walking across a wood plank
walkway. His incredibly detailed and colorful works are inspired by
mythology, manga, animé , Where’s Waldo and classical artists like

  Arcimboldo. Nelson’s constructions are made with foam clay—a relatively
new material made of tiny microbeads held together by a flexible binder. It’s
soft and stretchy and comes in a wide variety of colors. Nelson can paint
additional color onto the foam clay too.
One large construction, which he calls, “My Creature”. Is finished down to
the teeth. It took Nelson months to complete “My Creature,” leaving it and
returning to it with new ideas. Taller than Nelson, his sculpture may seem
cartoonish at first, but look deeper and you see the history and elegance of
Samurai warlords.
       Brielle Sarkisian is a papermaker, printmaker, and illustrator based in
Binghamton, New York, She displayed various papers works made with a
process of joomchi, a traditional Korean method of paper felting that
meshes together layers of intricately-cut Hanji or mulberry paper.
Her latest joomchi piece, “Proximity” is made with three layers of differently
colored paper. She lays down and presses the first layer, then cuts the
next into her desired shapes somewhat like a stencil, meshing them and
the next set of images together. The result is a paper tapestry. “Proximity”.
depicts The Villetta. It depicts a center window , and on either side are
standing rabbits. Below the window is a nest with 3 eggs. Trees fill the
frame and a peaked house is just below the sky. “I wanted to do a piece
about The Villetta,” she says. “It’s for the bonds we make. I love living and
creating next door to each other.”
One can see the symbolism of the eggs ready to birth new life, but what
about these rabbits? For Sarkisian, rabbits are kind creatures, drawn from
her childhood bunny toy, and perhaps still protecting and nurturing her in
new surroundings.