Opportunities to enhance your lifestyle and your life abound. Explore new or hidden talents in our Creative Discovery programs, with choices such as photography, watercolor painting, floral design, joyful journaling, drumming, bonfire storytelling and cooking classes.

Artistic Expression

Introduction to Drawing
Awaken your creativity with visual expression and discover your inner artist.   Drawing differs from painting in that it is much more exploratory with emphasis on observation and composition.  Leave inspired and with a picture that shows off your rejuvenated artistic side.    

Watercolor Painting
Explore new, hidden, or forgotten talents.  A two hour class that offers you the opportunity to express your feelings through simple brushstrokes.   Appreciate the true beauty of nature and our surroundings by taking time to stop and really notice the colors and textures and capture it all on paper.  Leave with a finished work of art and a new or renewed creative side.

Art Gallery Exhibit
The Art Gallery at The Lodge at Woodloch encourages and celebrates the artistic endeavors of local and regional artists.  Artists currently on display in the Art Gallery include:

Ruth Wetzel

Ruth Wetzel studied design at SUNY Buffalo and received an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art.  Wetzel has exhibited in galleries in Maine and galleries and museums throughout New York State. Migrating from New York City, since 1993 Wetzel has been living in Ulster County, New York, where access to the woods inspires her work. The monumental painting, “Glow”, shows an illuminated young forest landscape that carries us to a heightened state of awareness through a magical interplay of light, form and color.  Wetzel says: “My goal is to put the viewer in a sensory continuum of the place and moment expressed, a sense of rustling leaves or quiet stillness, frozen in time for careful examination. For many, our contemporary experience with nature is at the speed of a moving car. With these stilled images of the forest, I can clarify one moment of changing light and the forest’s rhythms, edited and amplified to attract the examination of the viewer.”

Renée Emanuel

The native Pennsylvania painter Renée Emanuel portrays both interior and exterior landscapes, searching for “this deep golden nut of delight at the center of things” as expressed by the poet David Whyte. When the artist works outside, she is bombarded with sensory overload and has the challenge of capturing the ever-changing quality of light and color in real time, giving herself up to the lack of control. While indoors, she has the luxury to choose the objects, often precious or mundane, and usually associated with a memory of a time, place or person. The artist gathers her shapes and colors in her still life compositions, which she feels result in more meditative and emotional painting, perhaps because of the connections associated with the objects and her power to control the environment. The artist’s work, both vibrant and contemplative, is perfect to compliment The Lodge at Woodloch's purpose.

Bill Teitsworth

In 2005 Bill Teitsworth received the Silver Medal of Honor from the American Watercolor Society. Among other awards, Bill’s work has been included in six books, magazines and other publications. In October 2008, Bill’s feature article, “Four To Go”, will be featured in The Artist’s Magazine. The painting featured here, “Rain Lilies”, received the Milford Zornes award in 2006 from the National Watercolor Society and was selected for mention as it traveled around the country. 

 

Flowers sit in a vase in “Rain Lilies” while the companion lemons seem to be raining off the picture. There is a crystallization of crisp light contrasting colors that bleed. The complimentary colors of violet and yellow play off this work and delight the eye. Bill’s work here at the Spa includes landscapes, still life and figures. 

 

Here we find two wonderful, award-winning artists from Pennsylvania, who also happen to be married, gracing the Spa’s gallery walls.  

Virginia Donavan

'Painting feeds my love of travel and vice versa.  My sense of place deepens dramatically when I can immerse myself for a few hours, analyze what draws me to a particular spot and paint from the heart.  I can feel the wind, recall the soft sweet smell of the grasses, remember the old man walking his dog as I treasure my paintings done en plein air.

 

In ‘Sunset Cedars’, Virginia captures the light and color of a silhouetted mauve sunset. The tranquility of her landscapes enhances the feeling that that the Lodge at Woodloch is attempting to provide.

 

A lifelong resident of the Hudson Valley, in 2007, the artist was invited to participate in an International Symposium in Chicoutomi, QC, Canada, one of only two Americans, where the artists painted for four days and exhibited and sold their paintings. 

Susan Lanzano

Artist statement: I love to use watercolors to capture the particular energy, movement and spirit of botanical life. I feel a profound connection with my subjects as I work with them, recording each contour on paper. And it is my goal to bring others to that same intimate connection with nature. I work in a range of styles--from spontaneous Oriental brush painting to highly realistic and detailed, classical botanical painting. I also like to “play” in the middle, combining elements of both traditions and finding new ground. People tell me that the life force comes through in my paintings and that they have a calm, healing energy.

 

The creative moment for me often begins with a walk in the garden, when my attention is captured by the beauty of a particular twig, the curve of a leaf or the delicacy of a petal. Most often my paintings are based on these live inspirations from nature. I am happiest when I can spend a week or two on a particular subject, seeing it from all angles, doing multiple studies and paintings, and experiencing what is, for me, a form of extended meditation.

 

For more information about the artist, please inquire with the concierge or contact Kiesendahl+Calhoun: Nancy Kiesendahl 914-741-2573 or Camilla Calhoun 914-332-4842   www.kandcgallery.com