Resurrected Landscapes: Frederic Church and the Public Park Movement
What do Frederic Church’s landscapes, New York’s Central Park, and Niagara Falls Reservation have in common? In this virtual webinar, Rebecca Bedell will argue that, beyond their shared aesthetics and Church’s involvement with all three, they all are, in a sense, memorial landscapes. They were born of a desire to remember and restore something vital that had been lost. Join to hear more about how they are also therapeutic landscapes, offering solace and healing to those abraded by modern life. This webinar is offered in anticipation of Afterglow: Frederic Church and the Landscape of Memory which opens May 16.
Rebecca Bedell is the Professor of American Art at Wellesley College. She is the author of the award-wining books The Anatomy of Nature: Geology and American Landscape Painting and Moved to Tears: Rethinking the Art of the Sentimental in the United States, as well as numerous essays about nineteenth-century landscape art.
Frederic Church Awards
HONORING
CURATOR: Barbara Haskell
INTERIOR DESIGNER: Sheila Bridges
PATRON: Janet S. Dicke
Frederic Church (1826-1900), was an American visionary, the most successful member of America’s first art movement, the Hudson River School. In 2000, the centenary of Church’s death, The Olana Partnership established the Frederic Church Award to honor individuals who, through their vision, commitment and grasp of creative trends, make extraordinary contributions to American art and culture.
Join us for a day of stewardship and service at Olana State Historic Site and help ensure OLANA, Frederic Church’s artist-designed landscape, is prepped, clean, and ready for another great season! This state-wide event brings together OLANA Volunteers, The Olana Partnership’s Staff, and our New York State Parks Team to help get our public lands and Frederic Church’s vision ready for the Spring. Read more about this year’s volunteer opportunities below.
1:30-2:30 PM – FREE Special Tours
Kick off your day of service with an optional free walking tour to learn more about Frederic Church’s work as an artist and landscape designer or choose to learn more about how New York State’s stewardship team is managing invasive plants at Olana and statewide. Each mile-long walking tour will give prospective volunteers a chance to learn more about Olana before diving into the day’s projects.
Registration is required through I Love My Parks Day portal. Volunteers will meet at the Visitor Center. If you have any questions about the tour, feel free to contact education@olana.org.
2:30-4:00 PM – Volunteer Activities Led by Olana Staff
Join fellow volunteers to get Olana State Historic Site ready for the spring season. Volunteers will meet staff outside the Visitor Center and sign up for one of the activities listed below. Slots for activities will be given on a first come, first serve basis.
· Park Cleanup & trash removal
· Removing Invasives
· Indoor Classroom Cleanup at the Wagon House Clean-up
· Planting Flowers at Cosy Cottage
Registration Required through I Love My Parks Day portal. If you have any questions, please reach out to lmiller@olana.org.
Get your binoculars ready for this special spring migration bird walk at Olana State Historic Site! Join the Alan Devoe Bird Club and The Olana Partnership on an exploration of Olana’s artist-designed landscape and learn more about visiting birds and the species that call this region home. FREE, advanced registration required. This program will meet outside the Olana Wagon House Education Center. For more information, contact education@olana.org.
Over the past decade, Thomas Woltz and his firm have led the renewal and restoration of Frederic Church’s 250-acre designed landscape at Olana, a NY State Historic Site and National Historic Landmark. Woltz will focus on the vision within the award-winning Olana Strategic Landscape Design Plan, which includes the siting of the soon-to-be-completed Frederic Church Center for Art & Landscape.
Thomas Woltz and the work of his firm, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW) envisions design as a deeply collaborative, cross-disciplinary, research-based process essential to forging a resilient and vital future for our civic spaces. Embodying our shared histories and the ethos of local and regional narratives and materials, NBW’s designs foster deep connections between people and the land. Thomas and NBW have worked as partners with The Olana Partnership since 2011.
Get outside and show yourself and Mother Earth some love through a special guided walk inspired by After Glow: Frederic Church and the Landscape and Memory. Fru Molnar, trained and certified forest bathing guide, will lead the way through Olana’s landscape, helping you connect with nature through a slow-paced, easeful sensory exploration. Based on the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing”), this program will offer optional invitations to connect with nature and yourself. This program is part of Living through Landscape, a series of workshops that examine how new conceptions of life and death can be gained by spending time in our regional environment.
Fru Molnar (she/her) is the founder of Forest Baths (est. 2021), a lifelong student of the trees, and a Certified Forest Therapy Guide with the ANFT (Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides). Based in Peekskill, NY (Lenapehoking), she guides immersive nature therapy experiences throughout forests and parks of the lower Hudson Valley in partnership with all the “more-than-human” beings on this land, in service to nature and for the wellbeing of all. She is also an avid hiker and guardian of two rescue pets, who are her own personal nature therapy guides.
Olana’s Free Community Day at Olana State Historic Site, the Third Thursday of every month, organized by The Olana Partnership.
Dia Comunitario Gratuito al Sitio Estatal Histórico Olana cada tercer jueves del mes, organizado por La Asociación Olana.
Explore Bollywood dancing during a free class and performance with instructor, Arobi! Learn moves to trendy and iconic Bollywood songs during this fun, beginner-friendly outdoor class at Olana and stick around for a special performance on the East Lawn. For ages 12 and up; space is limited. Email education@olana.org to learn more.
Join artist Wennie Huang to make your own paper books using images from Olana. These 19th century 3D books were popular crafts that use layers of images to create the illusion of depth on a small scale. Make your own during this free, drop-in program at the Wagon House Education Center
Create and Cook: Family Cooking & Art Workshop
Explore your creativity in the kitchen and art studio during this program led by The Sylvia Center Chefs and The Olana Partnership educators! In this program, families will cook a delicious, farm-fresh lunch inspired by Olana State Historic Site’s landscape and history. An art workshop will follow where families can create their own work of art and learn more about Frederic Church, the artist that designed Olana. Try new foods, and test new art materials, together in this FREE family program!
In this class, we will make a delicious pasta salad inspired by scrumptious seasonal vegetables, explore Olana’s historic kitchen garden, and draw new life and shapes in the meadow.
For families with children 18 and under (children must be accompanied by an adult). This is the first in a series of three classes – register for one or all three! This program is FREE (suggested donation $12). Registration includes all art-making supplies and a free lunch for each participant.
Advance registration required. For more information, please contact education@olana.org or call (518) 751-6938.
Artmaking in the Afternoon
Make a day of it! Immediately following the Create + Cook program, join The Olana Partnership educators for hands-on artmaking using professional materials and a series of prompts to get your creativity flowing.
Drop in program; FREE. All materials provided. Located in the Wagon House Education Center.
Take in the panoramic views from Ridge Road during this hour of yoga with registered yoga teacher Lea Bender.
Tickets are $5 for members of The Olana Partnership. All members must bring their own yoga mat. If you have questions, please email Lauren Miller, Membership Coordinator at lmiller@olana.org or call 518-751-6857.
Lea Bender is an E-RYT 500-Hr certified yoga teacher located in Rhinebeck, NY. She brings over twenty years of personal practice, a love of yoga philosophy and a background in movement arts and Pilates to her teaching. At the root of every class is the intention to help students tap into the sacred nature of shared human experience through connection to body and breath.
Over the course of forty years, the artist Frederic Church worked to create, build, and design Olana’s 250-acre landscape. With over 5 miles of carriage roads, scenic views, a man-made lake, and native plantings, the site is both a living landscape painting and a vibrant and diverse ecosystem for native pollinators. Join The Olana Partnership, master gardener and environmental educator Nordica Holochuck, and beekeeper Chris Layman from Fox Farm Apiary for a special walk and workshop to learn more about how to create pathways for pollinators in your own garden inspired by the legacy of Church’s garden design at Olana.
Nordica Holochuck is an interpretive guide who has led landscape and historic house tours at Olana since 2022. She is a master gardener volunteer with the Cornell Cooperative Extension, Ulster County community horticulture education program.
Chris Layman is a Cornell Master Beekeeper/ Local ecology educator from Hannacroix NY. Chris and his wife Lisa own Fox Farm Apiary and manage 35 apiaries in NYS.
Advanced registration required. $30 for members, $40 for non-members. For more information, please contact education@olana.org or call (518) 751-6938.
Create and Cook: Family Cooking & Art Workshop
Explore your creativity in the kitchen and art studio during this program led by The Sylvia Center Chefs and The Olana Partnership educators! In this program, families will cook a delicious, farm-fresh lunch inspired by Olana State Historic Site’s landscape and history. An art workshop will follow where families can create their own work of art and learn more about Frederic Church, the artist that designed Olana. Try new foods, and test new art materials, together in this FREE family program!
In this class, we will make a Vietnamese rice noodle salad and explore new plants and textures in OLANA’s lake ecosystem with tempera paint.
For families with children 18 and under (children must be accompanied by an adult). This is the first in a series of three classes – register for one or all three! This program is FREE (suggested donation $12). Registration includes all art-making supplies and a free lunch for each participant.
Advance registration required. For more information, please contact education@olana.org or call (518) 751-6938.
The Olana Partnership programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
