… a continuing series of courses at OLANA designed to teach artmaking skills to members of the creative aging community and foster a welcoming learning environment for adults ages 55+

During each course, Olana and professional teaching artists welcome older adults to explore creative expression through in-depth, multi-session visual and performing arts workshops.

$200 person, $150 members. Limited capacity; Advanced registration required at OLANA.org. Scholarships are available upon request. For more information, please contact education@olana.org or call (518) 751-6938.

Sketching Your Vision through Fashion Illustration

Saturdays | April: 16, 23, 30 | May: 14 & 21 | June: 4, 11, 18

10AM-1PM

During this fashion design and illustration program, students will use Olana as a source of inspiration for their own designs while learning the fashion illustration skills needed to bring their visions to life. During this ten-session course designed by professional designer Sergio Guadarrama, founder of Made x Hudson and Celestino Couture, students will explore Olana’s 250 acres of artist-designed landscape, collections, and elaborately decorated main house to inform their own work. Each session will focus on a different element of fashion illustration and guide students in learning to capture basic fashion proportion, shading, and realistic texture and drawing different fabrics. As a three-dimensional work of art, Olana will serve as an inspiration for participants in creating and designing their own wearable artworks. Participants will develop six skill takeaways over the ten-week course, first learning how to draw their own “croquis,” or blank figure sketches, eventually finalizing their own designs using the skills they’ve developed. During the program, visits with The Olana Partnership curatorial and education staff will connect content from the site’s history and permanent collection to the course’s curriculum.

Sergio Guadarrama is proud to be one of the founders and “Sustainability & Fashion” advisor of Made X Hudson, a small batch cut and sew manufacturing facility in Catskill, NY. Sergio graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles and studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Along with Kade Johnson, Sergio established CELESTINO in 2005, an eco-conscious and fashion-forward company uniting classical couture techniques with innovative concepts, up-cycled luxury fabrics, and unconventional details.

Outdoor Artmaking Tour of Olana

Tuesday-Friday, August 23-26, August 30-September 2

9AM-12PM

During this eight-session course, participants will be invited to explore Olana’s famous views, making art at the sites and viewpoints once experienced and designed by Frederic Church himself. Each class will begin with a demonstration (all demonstrations are done by Teaching Artist Shawn Dell Joyce in pastel and oil paint). Pastel painting materials and basic sketching supplies will be provided as the central tools to guide participants in learning key principles about outdoor artmaking or painting “plein air”. The course will focus on the key principles of depicting a landscape, such as harnessing perspective, composition, and detail, while also covering important information on how best to prepare for artmaking outdoors. The course is open to all skill levels and participants without a background working outdoors are encouraged to participate. Each class will meet at a designated outdoor location onsite in Church’s designed landscape, offering students a unique opportunity to learn from a living practicing artist while walking in Church’s footsteps. The course will culminate with a final display of students’ artworks.

Shawn Dell Joyce began teaching plein air classes in 2000 and continues weekly to this day. She founded a plein air school with an arts and agricultural mission based on the historic Hudson River School, called the Wallkill River School of Art. It still exists today as a nonprofit arts organization with a mission of bringing cultural tourism to the Hudson Valley region through plein air painting workshops and events on local farms, historic sites, and open spaces. Her work is included in museum collections in the Georges Pompidou Museum in France and the Museum of Modern Art in NY.

Songs of Olana

Saturdays | September: 17 | October: 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 | November: 5 & 19

1PM-4PM

During this eight-session course, participants will be invited to learn more about the basics of songwriting with award-winning performing songwriters, Cosby Gibson and Tom Staudle. This course will introduce participants of all skill levels to the basics of songwriting, use Olana’s immersive environment as a framework to explore diverse musical genres, connect students’ developing skills to the music of Olana and Frederic Church’s historical context, and finally encourage participants to compose a final song inspired by Olana or a Frederic Church painting.

Each three-hour session will cover the basics of songwriting, genre study, historic songs, songwriting inspired by visual art, songwriting inspired by place, personal lyrics, and performance concepts. Each session includes a performance and demonstration by the artists, hands-on teaching and one-on-one guidance, time for the individual development of final songs, opportunities for class inquiries and discussion, and an opportunity for participants’ songs to be performed at the end of the course, or to be performed by teaching musicians on guitar.

Cosby Gibson and Tom Staudle are award-winning songwriters and singers and live near the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Cosby Gibson is an award-winning performing songwriter who lives near the Adirondack Mountains. She writes unique, original acoustic and folk-style songs on guitar and dulcimer. Grammy balloted, and winner Capital District Music Awards for Best Folk Album, 2017 and 2018, and Dorn Space Arts Award for Music Outreach, 2019, and Best Folk Album, 2021. As a duo, they have been performing for twelve years, and tour both regionally and nationally. Together they play originals and favorites with a variety of instruments such as guitar, fiddle, banjo, and harmonica, and in many settings such as festivals, concert series, house concerts, and community events. Their special music programs include; Historic Songs of the Erie Canal, Adirondack Lumber Camp Songs, Poetry Songs, and History Songs, Songwriters in the Round, and the new Labor Union Songs.

During the COVID-19 crisis, The Olana Partnership will refund registration before this program upon cancellation for any reason. Please note that The Olana Partnership reserves the right to cancel this program due to extreme weather or other dangerous conditions.

This course is funded by E.A. Michelson Philanthropy.