.
.
Open! Wednesday – Sunday 10:00-5:00
Located in historic Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, NY, and amidst the rolling hills of Washington County in upstate New York, Valley Artisans Market is one of the oldest arts cooperatives in the country. Local fine artists and craftsmen work in a variety of hand-crafted media including glass, paper, cloth, photography, oil paintings, pastels, wood, mosaic, sculpture, metal, jewelry, ceramics and more. The Small Gallery features rotating shows by members and guest artists, and the market is always staffed by one of its artisan members.
Small Gallery
January 17, 2025 - February 10, 2025
Artist reception will be held 1/25/2025, 1:00-3:00. The public is welcome!
Elise Zvirzdin, Mixed Media Works |
Elise Zvirzdin specializes in mixed media paintings, most frequently acrylic and fiber. She uses embroidery or other materials to contribute to the emotion and texture of each painting.
Her artistic voice seeks to incorporate both chaos and control, wild and tame into each painting. Natural patterns and random elements provide tension for the more controlled and recognizable aspects of each piece.
Elise delights in the discovery that complex, layered artwork brings. Her goal is the give each viewer their own experience.
Else’s work was featured in the Richfield Springs Library Local Artist Show (2024), and the Annual Artist Marketplace at 518 Craft show (2023) where she was awarded one of the top three artists. Prior exhibits include the Portrait Show at the Queen City 15 Gallery (2021) and the Small Works Show at WomensWork.Art (2020).
Note from the artist,”I find painting to be incredibly liberating because it’s the one space in
life that doesn’t have rules or parameters. I can do whatever I feel like doing.
Perfection is boring, but too much chaos is scary. Somewhere in the middle is where is where you can find me.”
Featured Artist
A peek inside – part one
Valley Artisans Market houses a rich variety of artists whose mediums and techniques vary as much as their work. The expansive range of art is made by hand using everything from foraged materials to utilizing technology to expand their creations.
Mark Madden, who makes woodcarvings and photographs of owls, finds something “mystical and magical” about the raptors. “They are quite common,” he says, “and they’re often heard at night but rarely seen.” To photograph owls, he faces the technical challenges of snapping night shots. “Some of my best photos are taken in almost complete darkness, with an exposure of a few seconds,” he says. Mark finds that photographing owls is a good way to study them in the field which helps him improve his woodcarvings. He travels all over New England and parts of New York State in search of his subjects. Last year, he traveled to northern Maine to capture pictures of a Northern Hawk Owl; last winter he visited Canada, where he saw several Short-Eared Owls and Barred Owls.
Stephanie Morton, who dyes linen and cotton gauze fabrics in stunning shades of indigo, buys her fabrics online from a California company that imports from Ukraine and Lithuania. She sources powdered indigo and dye supplies from a farm in Tennessee. She hopes to grow her own dye plants next year on her Coila, NY property.
For decades, Susannah White was a shepherd and cared for the sheep who supplied the wool she used to make her felted creations. Now she lives in the village of Cambridge and acquires her wool from friends who are shepherds. “I always try to use local wool and to make sure that the sheep have long lives and live on pasture,” Susannah says. She uses mostly local plants for dyeing, growing most, including sulfurous cosmos. “You can play with the pH and get a really brilliant orange,” she says. She also harvests some from the wild, such as the “beautiful yellow goldenrod.” She also purchases powdered indigo, madder and brazilwood.
Chris Levy only has to make a short drive to Greenwich, NY to Better Bee to find beeswax for her batik processes, such as in her Ukrainian eggs (pysanky) and her art pottery. “I’ve yet to find a human-made material that has the unique characteristics of beeswax,” she says. “It protects my ceramic glaze undercoats up to 1850 degrees Fahrenheit and allows me to multilayer glazes resulting in brightly colored and intricate designs.”
Tomi Bentley, a weaver, buys her threads and lining fabric online. “It took me a long time to figure out which threads were suitable for what I wanted to make,” she says. She mainly uses Swedish cotton thread, linen thread, Dutch cotton thread, Canadian cotton thread, and a Japanese silk thread. Because the color is not always certain online, she relies on color samples to make her choices. She has learned to be patient – sometimes it takes several weeks to get the thread.
Debra Salat, a needlepoint embroiderer, used to buy her fabrics brand new, but now she frequents thrift stores for men’s shirts and other more luxurious finds, including a beautiful piece of doeskin and red velvet curtains. She still buys embroidery thread occasionally but enjoys the largesse of friends who gift it to her. “It’s wonderful; I probably have 20 years of embroidery floss,” she says.
Diana Schleicher sources most of the glass for her stained-glass pieces from a local shop, Deluge Design in Cambridge, NY. She likes to use seashells, wood, and beads in her projects from a collection of shells and other objects she’s gathered over the years. Popular items are her bright orange glass feathers, adorned with small, colorful beads.
Nancy Roberts is always game to score a free roadside table or other small discarded wooden item in a thrift shop that can be repurposed as a mosaic work of art. She buys glass online and also boxes of glass scraps from Adirondack Stained Glass Work in Gloversville, NY.
Some VAM artists have formal art training while others are completely self taught. And some makers joined VAM decades ago as novices and have grown into their art. Would you like to join our family of makers? Please see our website for an application. Or come in any time to shop or browse. We love to talk about our art!
Upcoming Shows
- Third Annual Small Works Show, 2025
February 14, 2025 - March 10, 2025
- Clarence King – Landscape and Still Life Paintings
March 17, 2025 - April 7, 2025
- Mark Madden – Photography and Wood Carving
April 11, 2025 - May 5, 2025
- Diane Swanson – Watercolor
May 9, 2025 - June 2, 2025
- Michael Lopez – Watercolor
June 6, 2025 - June 30, 2025
- Jill Evans – Painting
July 4, 2025 - July 28, 2025
- Lynn Shanks – 2-D Painting
August 1, 2025 - August 25, 2025
- Annual Overstock and Seconds Sale
August 2, 2025 - August 2, 2025
- ARRTA
August 29, 2025 - September 22, 2025
- Edward Hayes – Lauren Kenneally: Fairy Houses and Needle Felting
September 26, 2025 - October 20, 2025
- Donna Maria deCreeft – Paper and Found Objects
October 24, 2025 - November 17, 2025
- Members, Holiday Show
November 24, 2025 - December 24, 2025
See past shows →
News
Remembering Joyce Decker
We just found out that one of our founding members of VAM passed away in 2021. We are sad for the news. Joyce Center Decker (B) 8/22/1924 (D) 9/8/2021 She didn't beat Grandma Moses (whom she met) in longevity but at 97 she survived most. Joyce was a fierce individual,...
Small Works Show Winners!
The Valley Artisans Market SMALL WORKS SHOW WINNERS ANNOUNCED Thanks for casting your vote during our Small Works show! Here are the winners! Best in Show: Maude White won first place for “Bluebird” (cut paper) Honorable Mention: Isaac Semko for “Woman in the Woods”...