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Spring Art Exhibit
The Bethlehem Art Association was formed in 1966 to serve as a focal point for all kinds of visual art activities; and to provide contacts among artists, and between artists and the public.
Spring Art Exhibit
The Bethlehem Art Association was formed in 1966 to serve as a focal point for all kinds of visual art activities; and to provide contacts among artists, and between artists and the public.
The BAA Annual Spring Show in May 2025
at the Bethlehem Public Library
This show included work by 52 member artists. The juror for the show, Peg Foley, selected the prize winners shown on the right.
For a list of all of the entries in this show, which includes contact information on the artists and prices:
Most of the works in this show are for sale and provide an excellent opportunity to collect original artwork. Purchases would be made by directly contacting the individual artist.
Here are two photo-galleries of the Show. The first contains images of each of the works in the show in the same order as the price list:
The second gallery has images of prize wining works shown in order from Honorable Mention to Best in Show:
The reception for the Show was held at the Bethlehem Public Library on May 21. for photos of the reception.
The juror for the show, Peg Foley discussed her selection for the ribbons that were awarded. Peg is a printmaker, fiber artist and art educator. She holds a Master of Science degree in Art Education from the College of St. Rose and a Bachelor of Science degree in Fine Arts from Nazareth College in Rochester. She is the recipient of a Surdna Foundation Fellowship and has studied art at Penland School of Art in North Carolina. She is the recipient of several New York State Council on the Arts grants and a Schenectady Foundation grant. She is an Oakroom artist and has shown her work in and around the Northeast.
April, Annual Member Meeting
And Pastel Demo with Takeyce Walter
Takeyce Walter gave a lovely demonstration on pastel. She loves to paint plein aire and landscapes and this evening she started with a photograph on her iPad of a sunset on the Hudson River. She uses sanded pastel paper, in varying grits, to really hold the pastels, so she can produce many layers of color. Takeyce often begins with thumbnail sketches to get her shapes and contrast areas. She described how she then moves on to an underpainting using a light staining of gouache along with some tips for keeping the gouach from drying out.
Her gouache palette consists of three primary colors split into warm and cool. She loves color and an impressionist style of painting. Using complimentary colors on the underpainting makes the final colors pop, and her many layers of color make for beautiful pastel paintings.
Her pastel palette is lined up with light to dark and warm to cool. She does not use any fixative, but will give her final piece a tap on the back outside to remove loose pastel.
Takeyce works in pastel, goauche and oil and gives many classes. You can find those classes and more on her website takeycewalter.com
Spring Workshop
Conceptual Drawing with Natalie Boburka
Saturday April 12
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This workshop, hosted by mixed media artist Natalie Boburka, was designed to help participants delve into abstract art focusing on personal concepts unearthed from the self-conscious. The inspiration for the workshop was Natalie's Shapes and Relationships series of drawings. To scroll through Natalie's drawings as a gallery in full size, click on any one of the images below:
For the workshop, Natalie supplied powdered graphite and a variety of black, gray, and white materials to draw with. The group explored textures, mark-making, values, shapes, and spatial relationships through a series of exercises. These included pencil shading of forms, hatching and cross hatching, stippling, cross contour lines, and mark-making, both migrative and inventive.
Participants then did a series of large and small drawings of personaly defined concepts and shapes. The drawings were freely and spontaneously done. Interesting shapes were refined and developed. Things go a little messy at times but people had fun stretching their concepts of art.
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March 2025 Monthly Meeting
Conceptual Art with Natalie Boburka
Natalie Boburka is a mixed media artist known for working with natural and discarded materials. Her work is primarily conceptual and consists of several evolving series. Natalie works in a variety of media, expressing reactions to social, environmental, feminist, and political topics. She often uses natural dyes as an underlayer for her paintings, and natural or discarded objects to apply pigment. She has a long history as an art instructor working in school districts as well as with adults in a variety of settings. She has a Bachelor of Science from Buffalo State College studying Art Education and Art Therapy, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Empire State College in Albany. To learn more about Natalie's work visit her website at www.boburkastudios.com
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Natalie's presentation focused on Conceptual Art, the evolution of what many people consider the inspiration of Ready-Mades, the differences between them, and some of the artists in the field. Natalie showed what she is working on presently, as well as pieces housed on her website, www.boburkastudios.com. A highlight of the meeting was a session in which the participants got to create their own piece of conceptual art.
Here is an excellent photo gallery of the meeting:
Alla Prima Landscape Painting by Al Gury
at the January 7 Meeting
A ZOOM meeting co-sponsored with CAL
Al Gury is an artist, educator, and writer who lives in Philadelphia. As a painter, Al explores the tension between representation and the formal possibilities of color, composition and content. Harmony and visual poetry are a focus of his interpretations of nature. Deeply committed to art education, he teaches many courses on painting, drawing and art history, including national and international workshops.
As a writer, Al Gury has written three books for Penguin-Random House on art methods and art history, Alla Prima, Color for Painters, and Foundations of Drawing. Al’s specialties include the traditions and use of color in painting, old master and contemporary painting methods, the history of drawing methods, and the traditions and practices in portrait and landscape painting. Al Gury is a practicing painter, with regular one person exhibitions at a gallery in Philadelphia, as well as galleries and museums in other states.
To learn more about Al, click here: www.algury.com
The Annual Critique with Scott Nelson Foster
at the February 18 Meeting
Scott Nelson Foster, the Department Chair and Professor of Creative Arts at Siena College, conducted this year's Critique. Scott guided an instructive and interactive session based on a great seal of audience and artist participation.
Click here for a slide show of the evening:
He has worked in a variety of two-dimensional media, including wax, glue and egg temperas, watercolor, oil, and serigraphy. His paintings have been featured in solo and juried exhibitions on the east and west coasts. Mr. Foster received a B.A. in Fine Art from Northwest Nazarene University, and an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Utah State University. After teaching in Utah for a period, Scott relocated to upstate New York, where he paints and teaches at Siena College. He describes his paintings as reflections of changing ideas about the societal relationships to the land, the American experience, and the American dream. The landscape is an arena in which many different dramas of the American dream are played out. Trailers, houses, and strip-malls evoke shared experiences. This common denominator gives my work a broad resonance that allows even fragmentary visions to evoke complex narratives.
Click here to learn more about Scott: www.scottnelsonfoster.com
December Meeting
Photography Presentation by Members
Peggy Becker and John Tobison
Peggy and John gave a very informative presentation on photography. Peggy has become a fulltime photographer in the last four years, after a life time interest in the subject. You can see more of her work on her website PBeckerPhoto. com. Since 2015 John has become a serious fine art photographer, specializing in landscapes, after a lengthy career in technology. His work can be found at NordicLightGallery.com.
Peggy and John gave a very informative presentation on photography. Peggy has become a fulltime photographer in the last four years, after a life time interest in the subject. You can see more of her work on her website PBeckerPhoto. com. Since 2015 John has become a serious fine art photographer, specializing in landscapes, after a lengthy career in technology. His work can be found at NordicLightGallery.com.
Photography is art and snapping the picture is only part of the story. Envisioning the work through subject, composition, lighting (key to photographic images), mood and presentation are common aspects of the creative process. Photographers can’t create solely from imagination. They need the real world. They have to think about subject, style/technique, location, what story they are telling, foreground, background, perspective, and like all art, they have to have good composition. Fine art photographers do the same sort of artistic thinking that other artists do, and photography is a useful tool for all artists.
“Lighting is everything in photography”. John gave a very enlightening demonstration on how he can manipulate an image in Luminar Neo, a new software program. Photoshop and Lightroom are other software programs. There are lots of different kinds of cameras and equipment, but in the end, “It’s not the gear, it’s the artist”!
BAA Annual Fall Member Show and Reception
The judge for the 2024 Fall Member Exhibit was Ed Ticson. Ed joined us on November 19 for the show reception and to discuss his choices for ribbons. Ed is a well-known area artist and instructor. He has appeared with the BAA several times, as a presenter and a juror. He has Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from SUNY Albany and has taught at Siena College, Sage College of Albany, Empire State College, and the Arts Center of the Capital Region. Ed’s drawings, paintings and prints have appeared in numerous shows in the area. The show included work by 58 member artists.
Here's more information about the show:
The list of all of the entries incudes contact information on the artists and prices.
Most of the works in this show are for sale and provide an excellent opportunity to collect original artwork. Purchases would be made by directly contacting the individual artist.
BAA Member One-Day Art Show and Sale
Saturday November 9, 2024
We had another one-day art show and sale on November 9, 2024. The event was held at the Delmar Reformed Church on Delaware Avenue. Attendees got to see the work of 23 artists.
October Meeting
Tom Myott ~ Acrylic and Oil Painter
Tuesday, October 22, 6:45 p.m.
Take a look at our slide show of photos from Tom's Nov 16 demo!
See more at his website at www.tmyottart.com.
Tom Myott gave a very lively and engaging presentation! As a high school art teacher he had to give up oil painting because of the chemical hazards. He has embraced acrylic paints and has figured a way to capture the luminosity of oils when using acrylics by adding acrylic gloss medium to his paints. “Acrylics are chameleons” he said as acrylics can also be watered down to act somewhat like watercolors.
He commented that composition is the most important factor in a good painting and he follows the rule of thirds. He usually
does a color study before he starts a painting and then uses charcoal to lay out the painting and often uses a grid, which is something he learned from his idol Chuck Close. He likes to work from dark to light and he uses lots of circles, dots and dashes in his paintings. He builds the painting knowing he will change and correct things as he goes along. He says “You move through the painting as a journey.”
Annual Bethlehem Town Hall Art Show
October and November
The annual Scenes of Bethlehem Show is at the Bethlehem Town Hall in October and November. This show has now been taking place for more than ten years. Members are invited to submit a piece that represents something in or near the Town of Bethlehem.
September Meeting
Professor Matthew McElligott ~ A Refresher on Perspective
Friday, Sept. 27, 6:45 p.m.
Our presenter was Matthew McElligott, a professor at Russell Sage College and author and illustrator of 18 books for children. The presentation was all about the use of perspective to tell a story. Perspective can create magic. Perspective establishes the vantage point for the viewer. He described and showed technical illustrations of various types of linear perspective. He told us of exercises that can be done to enhance an artist’s skills at using linear perspective. The importance of the horizon line and the kinds of effects that can be created by moving it to various levels were explained. Matthew talked about cropping and how important parts of a story can be told not only by what is included, but by what is left out. The final type of perspective that was discussed was atmospheric perspective and how it creates distance as well as making the foreground bolder. Works by artists ranging from DaVinci to Escher to Rockwell as well as slides from two illustrated children’s books were presented to show how important parts of a story were driven home through perspective.
Click here to learn more: www.matthewmcelligott.com
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