CONTRADANCE RETURNS – 7:30 – 10:30 p.m. Rejoin your friends for a fun social dance with the Otsego Dance Society. Will feature music by Erik House & Friends and Peter Blue will be the caller. Suggested donation, $8/adult. New location at Cornfield Hall, 655 Co. Rd. 26, Fly Creek. Visit otsegodancesociety.weebly.com
The Community Arts Network of Oneonta will have an opening and reception for artists Rhonda Harrow-Engel and Ahmed Ozsever on Saturday, December 4 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Wilber Mansion.
Ms. Harrow-Engel will feature a series of paintings titled “Leaving NYC” that focuses on abstraction in common, every day objects.
Mr. Ozsever presents a multimedia collaboration with Najeera D. titled “An unusable archive.”
The pieces share a feeling of isolation during the early days of the pandemic from 2020 to 2021.
The exhibition is free to the public and viewable through December 18.
Go to canoneonta.org for more information or email Nancy at ngossett@canoneonta.org.
The Community Arts Network of Oneonta (CANO) opens its November exhibition with an opening reception on Saturday, November 6, from 5-7 p.m., at its gallery at 11 Ford Avenue in Oneonta.
WRITERS SALON – 7:30 p.m. Open mic followed by presentation by Poets Vicki Whicker & Lisa Wujnovich. Free, open to public. Presented by Community Arts Network of Oneonta. 607-432-2070 or visit www.canoneonta.org/writers-salon
The Community Arts Network of Oneonta had a fundraiser Saturday, Sept. 18, for the 2022 City of the Hills Festival.
It was billed as a block party and it had that feel with music being played by Jump the Shark and Hanzolo, as well as craft beers being served provided by Roots Brewery. There was also a silent auction and a raffle.
OPENING RECEPTION – 5 – 8 p.m. Celebrate exhibit opening featuring Eileen Crowell’s ‘Plant Portraits,’ Ruben and Damian Salinas’s ‘The Spirit of Gesture,’ and Pooh Kaye. Free, open to public, masks required. Displayed through 9/27, by appointment only. Community Arts Network of Oneonta, Wilber Mansion, 11 Ford Ave., Oneonta. 607-432-2070 or visit www.canoneonta.org/event/art-kaye-crowell-salinas/
WRITERS SALON – 7:30 p.m. Virtual writers salon by CANO hosted on Zoom. Features author Tessa Yang and an open mic session. Presented by Community Arts Network of Oneonta. Visit www.facebook.com/CANOneonta for info.
WRITERS SALON – 7:30 p.m. First virtual writers salon by CANO. Features presentation by local author Jennifer Donohue with opportunity for Q&A. Presented by Community Arts Network of Oneonta. Visit www.facebook.com/CANOneonta for info.
Tastes and talents were on parade during the 16th annual Chili Bowl at CANO this afternoon. Art lovers lined up before the doors opened to be the first to browse this year’s selection of artisanal decorated bowls. Inside and outside of CANO, guests enjoyed plenty of chili for all preferences. Above, chef Rhett Mortland, representing the Autumn Cafe, serves Otsego County Representative Danny Lapin, right, a bowl of Montezuma’s Tail and Feather Chili. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)
Cabinet maker Joe Muehl of Schenevus discusses “Who’s the Fairest?”, a Snow-White inspired mirror on display at CANO through Dec. 22.It took first place at the Northeastern Woodworkers Association “Showcase” last March in Saratoga Springs. (Ian Austin/AllOTSEGO.com)
By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
ONEONTA – One afternoon, Joe Muehl got the urge to build a model airplane.
“I hadn’t done one in 40 years,” he said. “And when I finished, I thought, well now what do I do with it? So I built a table around it.”
Muehl’s sidetable, “The Only Good War,” substitutes cucumbers for bombs.
Titled “The Only Good War,” the glass and wood table depicts the model airplane dropping plastic cucumbers that dangle below the table.
After at Friday, Dec. 6, opening, it’s on display through Sunday, Dec. 22, at CANO, Oneonta’s arts council at 11 Ford Ave., part of Muehl’s show of handcrafted tables, mirrors, cabinets and lamp at CANO.
“I grew up in a farm family, so I’ve always been about the practical, rather than the sculptural,” he said. “I wanted to make stuff you could use.”
With a SUNY Oneonta degree in art and art history, Muehl built his first desk in 1971. “It worked,” he said. “It was very basic and simple, I used it at home.”
He honed his craft, working for 20 years as a cabinet maker, including making cabinets for his and wife Christine’s Schenevus home. “I like cabinetry because of the way things fit together,” he said. “I like doors and drawers.”
He went back to school for a master’s in social work, working for 19 years at an outpatient substance abuse program in Delaware County, retiring in 2015.
And in retirement, he’s found time to return to his passion for woodworking, including building his own woodworking bench.
“I always do original designs, never reproductions,” he said. “In a lot of ways, I’m self-taught, and now I have the luxury of time to play with different designs.”
He is especially influenced by Art Deco and Art Nouveau. “I like the geometry of Art Deco, but the fluidity of Art Nouveau,” he said. “I like to work with them together. And I use a lot of asymmetry to prevent them from being too boring! It causes the eye to move around more, creates something different.”
And in addition to the plane and cucumber “bombs” of “The Only Good War,” he has incorporated miniatures into other projects, including a commissioned mirror. “I made it look like someone was putting up a billboard,” he said. “I made little pulleys and scaffolding, and I used an old advertisement in the top upper left corner, above the frame.”
He called the piece “Quitting Time,” complete with tiny abandoned tools in the lift baskets.
An average piece takes three and four weeks to make, primarily with domestic hardwoods. “I’ve always been concerned about the environment,” he said. “I’ll use hardwood veneers sometimes, but I try to stay away from rainforest wood.”
In addition to CANO’s current show, he has shown in nearly a dozen exhibitions, including taking first place at this year’s Northeastern Woodworkers Association “Showcase” last March in Saratoga Springs, for his Snow-White inspired mirror, “Who’s The Fairest?” and second place for “Turkey Feathers” lamp, both on display at CANO.
“Building is a wonderful discipline,” he said. “There’s a satisfaction of working towards a goal. I feel sorry for people who don’t work with their hands – they’re missing out on something.”
PUPPET SHOW – 7:30 p.m. Catskill Puppet Theater presents, “The Willow Girl,” about adventures of 3 young immigrant children and a magical willow tree on the American Frontier. Free, suggested donation $20/person. Franklin Stage Company, 25 Institute St., Franklin. 607-829-3700 or visit www.franklinstagecompany.org
PLANETARIUM – 7 – 8 p.m. Presentation on topics in Astronomy followed by night sky viewing at College camp observatory. AJ Read Science Discovery Center, SUNY Oneonta Planetarium, W. Dormitory Rd., Oneonta. 607-436-2011 or visit www.facebook.com/AJReadSDC/
Sam Judd, Oneonta, shows some personal photographs before singing the poem he wrote for LEAF’s 2019 Art & Poetry Contest on the theme, “Home Is Where The Heart Is,” at CANO’s headquarters in the Wilber Mansion Friday evening. The poem, which took third place in the Adult category, celebrates an adventure he went on with his wife and new dog, Jasper. Attendees packed the venue, examining art that filled and walls of four rooms, and packing the main room to hear poet read their original works. (Jennifer Hill/ AllOTSEGO.com)
WRITERS SALON – 7:30 p.m. Begin with Open Mic session followed by presentation by fiction author Daniel Payne. Community Arts Network of Oneonta, Wilber Mansion, 11 Ford Ave., Oneonta. 607-432-2070 or visit www.canoneonta.org/event/writers-salon-daniel-payne/?instance_id=1068
CANO President Jim Maloney presents Lynn Bailey with second place award in the Fireman’s Choice category for her homemade Texas chili at the annual Chili Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3 at the Wilber Mansion
ONEONTA – Environmental advocates criticized the Generic Environmental Statement (GEIS) for the D&H yards detailed by Delaware Engineering at Oneonta Common Council on Tuesday, Feb. 5.
Complaints were the GEIS failed to sufficiently consider renewable-energy options and failed to show how a gas decompressor proposed for the Town of Oneonta might fit into the city project.
Full story appears on www.AllOTSEGO.com.