ART MATTERS: Call him Roman. School of Visual Arts, Bard College Art Department, Union Square, Red Hook, Budapest International Art Expo: Wait! Art matters to where? To Whom? Who is impacting which? My second article for the Ellenville Journal, and here I am searching for a relevance. Who is Roman Hrab, and which is his community? (I did not expect to hear Ellenville, but his Ukranian background has led him to discover the wonders of his favored Polish cuisine on Main Street 209 Ellenville.) So, I walk into his Kingston studio, separated from his family home by a football field sized lawn, and this is what I see, without pause, as my eyes float around the studio’s perimeter: Painted canvases with their Rorschachian field of squiggles, cracks and color, organized as if they were all marching in place. Then I look upwards. Centered on his ceiling, hangs a plaster cast, mandala-like work in progress, which, at first, declares itself, distinctively, in a crowd of color and calligraphic shapes. But tugging at this writer’s personal aesthetic, which favors a Japanese feature of natural beauty called ‘wabi-sabi.’ is a sort of creative buttress: “To experience wabi-sabi you have to slow way down, be patient and look very closely” (Leonard Koren’s Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers.) It is not exactly like meeting your maker in Hrab’s studio, but more like meeting your self, where the true pleasure is in sorting out. sifting through and repackaging all those squiggles, cracks and colors “alive with possibilities.” “Who are you Roman Hrab?” Well, I didn’t exactly ask it that way, but I wanted to pull out some template material, such as, what’s special about the Ashokan Reservoir where you live and work, or the community of Bard and it’s distinctive connection to the arts. the Accord indoor skate park, a new concept in our Hudson Valley. We began with a discussion about his employment at Bard, as both co-worker with faculty member, Judy Pfaff, and Director of Operations of the Art Department meaning he manages just about all of the equipment, the summer MFA program, as well as student exhibition spaces. But guess what? Roman Hrab gets super animated when he tells me about the 18,000’ foot USB (a scaffolding design company for large corporations) space, leased by Bard for studio, workshop and exhibition space for students. Located in Red Hook, apart from the incubatory, Bard campus, he describes the student/ business relationship as not only mutually supportive, but the workers he claims are “blown away” by the whole arrangement between business and students and their work. Excess wood, metal and fabrics, normally discarded, are donated for their use. Across the road is another “jewel” - radio station, WKZE. Rewinding his employment history, Hrab briefed me on his experience working at SVA, his alma mater, where he was asked to construct a huge “mountain” of clay with a styrofoam armature in Manhattan’s, Union Square, as a marketing strategy for their Continuing Education Program. The project was called “Make It” and he assisted people, the entire day, pulling and shaping lumps of clay from the 3 ton 18’ high form in the midst of Manhattan street life! I can barely imagine how Mr. Hrab managed his time for an exhibition this past month. Recent work can be seen at The Pearl Gallery, in the heart of Stone Ridge on Route 209. (parking available at the Stone Ridge Center for the Arts) through October 18th. The exhibit includes both Grace Knowlton (hand painted digital photography) and Jamie Hamilton (Sculpture) For gallery information call: 845-687-0888.
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