Summer Art Classes for Kids at Piermont Library start July 11th!

Grades 7 – 12, Tuesdays 5:30 – 6:30

Grades 4 – 6, Wednesdays, 5:30 – 6:15

Grades 1 – 3, Mondays, 5:15 – 6:00

Details and registration on our events calendar at piermontlibrary.org

Summer Art Class are here with our theme for summer, Oceans of Possibilities. Join us for a fun, relaxing, and creative series of art classes taught by Alexis Starke. We will explore a range of materials and techniques and draw inspiration from a variety of sources from contemporary artists, art history, science, and the natural world. Classes are free and all materials are provided. Please email astarke@piermontlibrary.org with any questions. Registration for Piermont Residents begins July 1 at 8am. General registration for everyone else begins July 5th at 8am.

Image by Edward Hopper, one of our inspiration artists

Summer Reading is here with this year’s theme Oceans of Possibilities! We have programs and prizes for all ages to make reading extra fun this summer. Our kick-off event for kids is Tuesday at 7:00 pm at Saint Catharine’s Church in Blauvelt. Details and registration on our website events calendar

Join us on Monday mornings at 11:00 for stories, songs, and finger play!

Image by Mary Blair

For the month of July, the library presents our Art Show of the Month- Kathy Sykes: It’s About Time.  A reception for the artist will be held from 4:00 – 6:00  pm on Saturday, July 9th.  All are welcome to attend.  This collection of oil paintings on canvas includes a rich variety of botanical subject matter as well as portraits.

From the Artist

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t draw. I discovered there was such a thing as art in the second grade when our teacher showed us a painting done by Jean-Francois Millet of peasants working in a field. What a revelation. I took art as an elective in high school and joined the art club. The first art museum I remember going to was the Museum of Modern Art on an art club trip to Manhattan one beautiful spring day. I fell in love with the city that trip and vowed to live there as soon as I got out of college. Since that first encounter, I have been fortunate enough to have visited and taken pleasure in countless museums and galleries around the world. Certainly a major advantage of living in the city is having so many important museums at my fingertips. One of the things I missed most during Covid was not being able to roam around an art museum.

I was an art history minor in college. Through the many years of living in the city, I have taken classes at a number of art schools there. After I retired from thirty years of working on the editorial staff of House Beautiful magazine, I decided to try my hand at pottery, with classes on wheel throwing at Greenwich House Pottery, and I started occasionally painting after years of doing little. I went to Tuscany for a week of “en plein air” classes, painting the beautiful surrounding countryside. It was something I had wanted to do for years. I enjoy painting people and took several portraiture workshops at the New York Academy of Art.  

During the early dark days of Covid when we were all homebound, I found a wonderful escape in painting. It was easy to get lost capturing a tropical plant I had photographed on a past vacation to a warm climate or a blossom from my amazing tree peony bush in my backyard. I love nature and am drawn to trying to capture its likeness, one that is true to the object. I have recently started painting my sweet cats Coco and Shayla.

This show includes several small collections. There are five paintings of tree peonies and five of plants from a group I call Tropica. Two paintings are of baby Josie and two are from Hit the Road, paintings inspired by cracked asphalt along Ludlow Road. All are done in oil on canvas.

While I have been in group exhibitions including Hopper House Museum, Rockland Center for the Arts and Vytlacil, this is my first solo show and, at this time in my life, it will probably be my last. I would like to thank Alexis Starke at the Piermont Library, I am grateful for her encouragement, and my wonderful husband Lynn who is always there cheering me on.

Kathleen Mahoney Sykes

New members are always welcome in our adult book club! For May, we are discussing The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides on Wednesday, May 18th at 3:00 pm. Details on our events calendar