Sunday, June 15 | Art on the Green | 9AM-3PM
Co-Sponsored by Community 2000 and The Warwick Art League, Visitors from a Mayan Women’s Craft Collective visiting Warwick. Two women from a rural artisan collective in Quintana Roo, Mexico will be at the first Art on the Green event at Railroad Green in Warwick , NY.

The Mayan women, Mirley Vianely Gonzalez Valdez and Ady Pech Poot, live in Nuevo Durango, a small village about an hour from Cancun.  Warwick artist Daniel Mack volunteered last September to work in this village and two others to teach people how to work with the branches and trees blown down in recent hurricanes.   Mack taught the women and men to build small chairs, benches and larger chairs.  They developed a version of a small 12” chair which they now call “The Alux (a-loosh) Chair” referring to the Mayan belief in small forest guardians.  They will have several Alux chairs at the Art on the Green event.

The women wanted more training and Mack arranged for them to come to his week-long course at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY to learn more.  That course runs from June 9 to June 13.  Omega has given the women and their translators a full tuition  scholarship and room and board for the week.  Many other groups helped sponsor the trip: Aid to Artisans in Hartford, CT,  ICNet/JICA. And a Japanese cultural support program in Mexico. A local women’s book group in Warwick also donated money for the project.

Eco-Village
Nuevo Durango, in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula, is a  rural, beautiful place which has developed into an inviting eco-village for visitors looking for a more authentic experience of Mayan Mexico.  There is a small museum and bodega, several charming comfortable huts with bathrooms and showers.  Visitors can go into the forest or explore underground caves.  Each day, late in the afternoon, people gather to sit on benches, visit and watch a flock of swallows dive from the air into a small opening in the ground which leads to a large cavernous underground pool, a cenote. Nuevo Durango was a large plot of farmland originally given to one peasant farming family 80 years ago.  Most of the people in the village are descendants of that family.  There is an ease and tone in the village that is welcoming and relaxing.  Recent hurricanes have littered much of the land and the people are eager to find ways to use the downed wood to help support themselves and make up for income lost after the hurricanes.

Art on the Green  is a new community arts event in Warwick held on the third Sunday on the month during the summer. It is a combination of art, craft and community-building activities.  It is held at the same time as the Warwick Farmer’s Market. More information: Daniel Mack   845 986 7293 or Click here for more info!

Jun 21| Experience Art in the Garden at Warwick Gardens | 5-8PM
Warwick Gardens is pleased to announce that eighteen area artists will be displaying their work at its inaugural Art in the Garden event, at Warwick Gardens, 29 Foley Road in Warwick. Featuring paintings, sculpture, pottery, jewelry, photography and other artwork set among the perennial beds and arching trees on Warwick Gardens’ 18-acre property, Art in the Garden will combine the beauty of art with the beauty of nature.

Arrive to the sounds of music by Steve Yates, sample a glass of wine from the Warwick Valley Winery, and stroll through the gardens while you view the best that Warwick-area artisans have to offer.  All artwork on display will be available for sale and all artists will be on hand to discuss their work. 

Participating artists include: Lily Alberti-Sicherman, Barrie Andrews, Amity Arts Pottery, Emily Baerga, Susan Baresel, Heidi Bilezikian, Barbara Bressi, Karen Decher, Jeannine Dreyhaupt, Richard Dykstra, Louis Fatta, Janet Howard-Fatta, Peter Fink, Jeanne Foley, Cathe Linton, Dan Lupino, Sarah McHugh and Terrie Wynne.

Art in the Garden is free and open to the public.  For more information, call 845-986-7008 or visit www.warwickgardens.com.

Saturday 6-28-2008: Carnival opens at 5 p.m | Fireworks 10 p. m.