The Thomas Cole National Historic Site and The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site present a discussion with artists Paula Hayes, Lisa Sanditz, and beekeeper Chris Layman from Fox Apiary. In this webinar, our guests examine the connections between art, ecology, environmental stewardship, and our role in local habitats.

In this webinar, The Olana Partnership’s Curatorial Assistant, Allegra K. Davis, will examine the life and work of Marianne North through the lenses of Victorian gender roles and practices of imperial science, while drawing parallels between Church and North as travelers, painters, and ultimately, collectors on a global scale.

Join artists Sayler/Morris, Rachel Sussman, and Dr. Scott Manning Stevens as they discuss the connections between art, ecology, and climate change. Sussman’s photographic series The Oldest Living Things in the World and Sayler/Morris’s video installation Eclipse are included in Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment, on view at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Olana State Historic Site. The panel will be co-moderated by Cross Pollination Co-Curators Kate Menconeri and Will Coleman.

Join Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, multidisciplinary artist and teaching professional and professor Myra Armstead for a virtual presentation and conversation about the lives of black Americans during the time of Olana’s creation. During this program, Sovak will introduce his series, a-Historical Landscapes, a current project which involves altering 19th-century landscape engravings to include contemporaneous images borrowed from Anti-Slavery publications.

Join artist Portia Munson and conservationist Kathryn Schneider as they discuss Munson’s artwork onsite at Olana, Memento Mori Mandalas. During this presentation, learn more about Munson’s work, which memorializes and honors creatures that have paid the price of humanity’s harsh impact on the land.

While Frederic Church won acclaim during his lifetime for his skills as a painter, a focus solely on Church’s paintings ignores his technical experimentation in multiple media, including drawing and printmaking. In this virtual webinar, Maura Lyons will focus on two Civil War-era works, Our Banner in the Sky and Our Flag, to examine Church’s working process more closely.