Venture Into the ‘Night’ at Longyear Gallery

By Robert Brune

MARGARETVILLE — This journey into the night at Longyear Gallery is a great showing of the many extraordinarily talented artist members of this community gallery in Margaretville. As the artists were asked to provide nocturnal-themed artwork, they certainly do guide and entertain the viewers with a variety of mediums including the colored pencil of white and yellow illuminated clouds over a seascape ‘Moonlight’ by Linda Lariar, ‘Night Falls’ by Lesley A. Powell, an oil painting of white horses up on hind legs tossing people about which is so incredibly vivid that one can imagine the sound of the wild upheaval created by the animals, and ‘Nightfall’ of Deb Ruggerio’s fading light of the fiery sky in a winter snow laden mountain landscape.

For this exhibition’s opening reception, snow and slush piling up outside somewhat dampened the turnout, but we who appreciate the many works of these fascinating individuals who create these masterful works of art are invited into the homes and studios of two of the members for a peek into their world of creative magic.

Ron Macklin

Macklin’s studio in Highmount overlooks the breathtaking vast mountain range through Fleischmanns and out across to Roxbury’s Plattekill slopes. His life began in Brooklyn with his father who was an artist teaching him techniques which was the initial seed planted. Macklin studied at The Art Student League of New York, the National Academy of Design, and the Art League of Long Island. After this foundation of education, Macklin, seemingly a very practical individual decided to do some field research by taking a job in a Soho gallery as he explains, “After I got out of (Law) school, I did take a job at a gallery in Soho for a year. It was called the Andre Zarre Gallery for a year. I was thinking if I learned the business side of art, maybe I wouldn’t stay in law and with a law firm and find some gumption to stay in the art world, see how the selling side works, see how people really make livings here. I just seemed so impossible, as a young kid.” After that year working in Soho, Macklin concluded, “That year was very eye-opening to me, how hard it is to sell art.”

With a law degree in his pocket, he decided that art would be secondary to his endeavors as a litigation attorney but he spent much of his spare time continuing to develop his passion for creating art, consuming art knowledge by visiting museums, and reading about artists.

Macklin and his wife purchased their home in Highmount twenty-five years ago, and upon retiring five years ago became a full-time artist. While he spends much of his time in the Catskill, he continues to return to Long Island and does draw many of his subjects from street scenes in the city. While Macklin says he began as an oil portrait and figure painter, he shifted towards watercolors as he admired the work of master watercolorist Fredrick Brosen. Since Macklin has been a full-time artist, he’s dedicated himself to contemporary realism with watercolors with astonishing results of paintings that are often mistaken as photographs. In the ‘Night’ exhibition he is showing a burger/hot dog establishment with remarkable results of dark night and the bright lights in contrast that pops with brilliant colors. One of his signature painting characteristics is of wet roads at night reflecting the neon and other lights of his city subjects. Macklin says he also enjoys plein air painting in the Catskills because he says he enjoys meeting people who stumble upon him working outdoors. Macklin is one of the many gifted AMR Open Studio Tour artists. Each July is a yearly opportunity to chat with him if you can’t wait until he does his solo show this coming October at Longyear Gallery.

Anthony Margiotta

Dropping in at Tony’s house in Halcott Center was immediately mind-blowing. Tony took the lead into his house which began in a living room that looks like a museum of sculptures and paintings elegantly decorating every wall and table surface. As Margiotta guides in the explanation of each piece, it’s just astounding that a single person could be so creative with sketching, sculpting, painting, jewelry making, and more. Between talking about random works of art, Tony took the time to explain all the massive renovations he did, much by himself, to his home with his wife Marta.

Passing into an adjoining room which is set up like a library, Margiotta must have sensed a bit of overwhelming astonishment by this reporter, as he explains how in college while studying finance, he created a comic character, Tangent Man. This superhero is a unique character as nobody is safe from his constantly being distracted, as damsels in distress find no rescue in his stories. This was a signal that Tony has quite a playful and unconventional sense of humor. Surprisingly, Margiotta has absolutely no formal training in the arts. He described his experience in high school art class in Saugerties, where he grew up, as his only semester in art class. He was asked to go home through the weekend and create a picture of bananas. His teacher had been none too pleased by his depiction of black bananas. He failed in his unique interpretation of the assignment and wound up being bounced from art class and taking a drafting class that he says helped him in more significant ways. When Tony’s wife Marta is asked about how long Tony has been creating art, she replies, “We have drawings by him going back as far as when he was 10 years old”. Tony chimes in, “I’ve been creating art since I’ve been able to pick up a crayon.”

Tony was drafted into the Vietnam War and was immediately recognized for his sharp mind. He was elevated immediately to Sgt and led a unit with distinction. He describes how hard it was to assimilate back into the world after that experience, Margiotta showed exemplary perseverance by transitioning from cleaning up the morgue in a hospital to eventually becoming a healthcare chief financial officer (CFO). Very much like Macklin, Margiotta held his passion for art close and had been able to flourish after retiring from his career as a CFO.

Making our way to his studio above his garage, Margiotta has an enormous volume of art he’s created through the years. He doesn’t care to name much of his work. In his studio space Margiotta carries himself with an air of sincerity but exhibits the natural playful nature he enjoys as an artist. Through the inner sanctuary of his studio workspace there are at 4 chess boards in mid-play. In reading the room, you know he’s got a brilliant mind for strategy. He explains he plays chess like he creates some series of art, with a complex mind that can easily multitask.

Tony is by no means an easy person to read, therefore we shall leave it up to Mr. Margiotta to unveil the mystery of the man behind his art, “The tangential nature of my work is the physical manifestation of how my mind switches from medium to medium. Each switch is an attempt to find a way for the ever-present demons of life to exist within some mesh of prescribed “normalcy”. I am interested in how humor and the grotesque can coalesce into imagined worlds of visual drama. At the same time, within these imagined worlds is the tension between rich patterns and empty space – between the recognizably real and the distorted.”

In summary, it would seem, that anything in Margiotta’s yard that doesn’t move for more than five minutes is at risk of becoming a part of his brilliant artistic realm of fantastical creativity. This includes the moss which became the subject of one of his sculpting projects found on his website. Tangent Art - www.anthony-margiotta.com

For more information on, see www.longyeargallery.org and on Facebook and Instagram LongyearGallery Also see the Mountain Eagle Facebook page for more photos from the interviews with both artists.