Traditional Arts in Upstate New York. Traditional Arts of Upstate New York
53 Main Street
Canton, NY 13617
(315) 386-4289

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EVENTS, PROGRAMS, & WORKSHOPS


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Upcoming Programs

 
Personal Collection Column
 Meaningful Mementoes: Tourist Art from the Collection
of Varick & Judy Chittenden
June 26 - July 24, 2021
 
TAUNY's Personal Collection series features all kinds of objects that people in the North Country collect. The next exhibit in the series will feature folk art from the collection of TAUNY founder Varick Chittenden and his wife Judy. Meaningful Mementoes: Tourist Art from the Collection of Varick & Judy Chittenden will be on display in the upper level gallery of The TAUNY Center June 26 - July 24. The exhibit will feature dozens of pieces that the Chittendens have acquired as reminders of their travels.
Photo Caption: Carving of a shepherd and his flock by Louise Ortega. Photo courtesy of Varick Chittenden.
Grow and Tell Kitchen Demo: Grandma's Dandelion Greens
with Jeanna Neefe Matthews
June 25th, 11:30am-1pm
Suggested donation $5
 
Join us in the TAUNY kitchen as Jeanna Neefe Matthews (Massena, NY) shares family food stories and demonstrates making her grandmother's dandelion greens with sweet and sour gravy over potatoes, a recipe she shared with us recently for the Grow and Tell Project. Take-away tasting samples will be available following the demonstration.

The Grow and Tell Project is made possible by a donation from the Cloudsplitter Foundation.
 Photo courtesy of Jeanna Neefe Matthews.
Connecting the Blue Dots: A Live Event with the Fiberistas
 
We had a lovely night with the Fiberistas on Wednesday May 19th, 2021, talking about the quilts in the Connecting the Blue Dots exhibition. It was a pleasure to host and hear the stories and techniques that the Fiberistas shared. If you didn’t make it for the live event, here is the recording. We hope that you enjoy watching it and take the time to visit the exhibition in person. Cheers to the Fiberistas for their wonderful works and one inspiring conversation!
Connecting the Blue Dots: A Live Event with the Fiberistas

Making Baklava with Ceyda Onaran Kartal 

Traditions of the Season Series 

When the month of Ramadan ends, the Muslim community celebrates one of the biggest festivals of the year, Eid al-Fitr. Ceyda Onaran Kartal shared with us how she normally celebrates the Ramadan Feast in Turkey, while making a tasty dessert (Baklava) that everyone loves! Hope you enjoy watching this newest video from our Traditions of the Season series, and try out this easiest recipe. Eid Mubarak!
 
A Grow and Tell Project Production

Never Tire Farm is the only wholesale greenhouse operator in St. Lawrence County and an important source for many small retailers in the area who supply plant starts directly to customers in the community. As part of the Grow and Tell Project, we visited Megan and Ray Bowdish, the owners of Never Tire Farm, and produced this video that provides some insight into the greenhouse business, and the ways they take care of the seeds and plants that many in the community depend on to grow food as well as flowers in their own home gardens.

The 2021 Grow and Tell Project, part of our collaboration with littleGrasse Foodworks Community Farm for the Folk to Table traditional foodways project, highlights how the food we grow reflects and helps sustain our food traditions.
Never Tire Farm, Hope in a Box
This project is made possible by support from the Cloudsplitter Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.  
It's been a tough year for maple sugar producers, with a lower than average percentage of sugar in the sap and less than ideal weather conditions to make the sap run. At Yancey's Sugarbush in Croghan, NY, the season is over. They boiled 22 days in total and burned 5.75 piles of wood. We were lucky enough to visit them when the season started. From tapping the trees, to gathering sap with both horses and tractor, to boiling and canning, the whole process of sugaring is in this 30 minute-long video. We hope you enjoy watching it--and that you are encouraged to taste a bit of the first crop of the year!
Yancey's Sugarbush: First Crop of the Year
The Haskell Yancey Jr. Family is a 2010 TAUNY North Country Living Traditions Award recipient. Learn more here. Learn more about the Folk to Table Project here.
 

Folk Arts All Around Us

New Exhibit Showcases Folk Art from Glens Falls Collection

 

Bald Eagle woodcarving by Alan Hill (Gansevoort, Saratoga County, NY).


The current exhibition at The TAUNY Center is featuring over 120 items from the folk art collection of the Folklife Center at the Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls, NY. Folk Arts All Around Us is open at The TAUNY Center. Curated by Folklife Center Director Todd DeGarmo, who has had primary vision and responsibility for building the collection during his long tenure at the Center, the exhibition is a colorful and varied display that demonstrates DeGarmo's eclectic approach to collecting. Ranging from exquisitely fine wood carvings to bright Papier-mâché festival masks, the selections include items that reflect the rural context in which DeGarmo works, such as a turkey call and hand-knit mittens. Baskets have been a focus of the collection; visitors to the exhibition will see stunning examples. Dolls have also been a focus, and examples representing different cultural backgrounds are included in the exhibition. Folk Arts All Around Us will be on display through October 23. Due to the pandemic, there will not be an opening reception on February 13, but there are plans to schedule a reception with DeGarmo later in the year.  

 

 
If you are not able to visit us in person just yet, watch the videos below to enjoy the exhibition and the stories behind some of the pieces.
 
Walk through Folk Arts All Around Us Exhibition with Curator Todd DeGarmo
A Walk through the Folk Arts All Around Us Exhibition
Folk Arts All Around Us Exhibition Virtual Event: A Discussion with Curator Todd DeGarmo
Folk Arts All Around Us Exhibition Virtual Event: A Discussion with Curator Todd DeGarmo
 

A “Grow and Tell Project” Call: Share Your Story! 


Will you be growing anything this year that is connected to your personal, family, community, or cultural food traditions? 
As part of our collaboration with littleGrasse Foodworks Community Farm on the 2021 “Grow and Tell Project”, we’re looking to learn about how the food we grow reflects and helps sustain our food traditions. From a single potted plant to small kitchen gardens to homestead plots and everything in between—we’d love to hear your stories of the food you grow, the meaningful meals you make with it, and more! Drop us a line at camilla@tauny.org or 315-386-4289.
Photo Captions: Starting top left, moving clockwise: First fresh greens of the season in the littleGrasse Foodworks Community Farm greenhouse, March 2021. Growing and preserving food are important North Country traditions. Over the years, Dawn Atkinson of Pierrepont, NY (TAUNY North Country Heritage Award recipient) has regularly preserved hundreds of jars of vegetables, meat, jams, pickles, and more in a season, all from her farm and garden. Rosemary growing in the TAUNY Center classroom window.
 
 

“Folk to Table” Project

 

You know we at TAUNY have always loved food--we love learning about people’s food traditions and practices, from recipes treasured over generations to new family favorites that shine a light on stories and experiences important to North Country life. And we love sharing food with you--at events, gathered round our own TAUNY Kitchen counter, and through stories, photos, and videos online.


So in some ways, it’s nothing new for us to be focused on food--from the abundance of foodlore that’s come up in our varied research projects, to the award-winning Good Food, Served Right cookbook and smaller recipe gathering projects, to the opening of The TAUNY Center Kitchen, to the work of Kitchen Specialist Teresa Stone over 2020 and the regular contributions of many volunteers, interns, and project participants--and of course the years of sharing delicious and meaningful tastes of food traditions at countless programs.


Going forward, we’re thrilled to have the chance to build on all this and more by diving into our new “Folk to Table'' Project. Over the coming months, Director of Research and Programs Camilla Ammirati will be shifting focus to this project in order to develop TAUNY’s work with the food traditions of the region and all who live here. 


The initiative will include things such as: ongoing research into regional food culture and the food traditions individuals and communities carry on throughout the North Country; projects and presentations featuring these food traditions; live (in-person and/or virtual) cooking demonstrations and workshops; videos and other social media features; and more. As we get this initiative going, we’re especially excited to start with a 2021 partnership with littleGrasse Community Farm to highlight the connections between food-growing practices and the food traditions they reflect and sustain. This project will feature food-growing both at littleGrasse and in personal gardens around the area and beyond. Stay tuned for more about this project, and let us know (at camilla@tauny.org) if you grow food (whether a single herb or crops that help sustain you) to help support your own food traditions and would like to share your story--and maybe a glimpse of your garden and the dishes you make with ingredients from it--for this project!


As with all our work, this is a community project--learning about, documenting, sharing, and celebrating the food traditions of our region begins with you! Keep an eye out in the coming weeks and months for calls to share stories, recipes, traditions, and more. And meanwhile drop us a line any time at camilla@tauny.org if you want to let us know about your own food traditions--or anything food culture-related you see around you that you think we should know about--or if you’d like to get involved in the program as a volunteer or intern. 

Pictured: Camilla happily dives into the wonderful Adirondack Cookbook by Hallie Bond and Stephen Topper, to brush up on some research--and maybe decide on a dinner plan--as she starts shifting her focus to North Country foodways.

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