Leather & Plastic Exhibit Combines Art, the Past, & Future at Pratt Museum

By Matthew Avitabile

PRATTSVILLE — The Zadock Pratt Museum in Prattsville is featuring Leather and Plastics, combining aspects of local art with Prattsville's history through Aug. 28.

The exhibit at the museum on Main Street in Prattsville "explores the trajectory of industrialization in the Catskills—from its 19th-century origins in leather production to today’s global economy dominated by synthetic materials—and reflects on how shifts in materials and labor practices have reshaped commerce and daily life."

The exhibition features work by six contemporary artists: Em Rooney, Hugo Montoya, Amanda Pohan, Linnea Gad, Tony Bluestone and Catherine Telford-Keogh. The exhibit promises to show the artists engaging in "the themes of materiality, labor, and production through a range of practices, offering viewers a meditation on what it means to make—and consume—in a post-industrial world."

We spoke to artist and curator Tony Bluestone about the project. Bluestone said that she moved up during the pandemic and “wanted to get more involved with the community.”

Bluestone is a practicing artist and a professor at Cooper Union and Hunter College. Working with the Pratt Museum has been her first time curating shows, which is “exciting.”

Bluestone has been working with art for a long time. This includes a long list of exhibitions as a painter. This includes

“Every show I have feels really important” and is a “culmination of ideas I’m working on,” said Bluestone. Working individually is “part of working through the history of your making,” she said.

The Museum asked Bluestone to curate the show as an “entrypoint” for local history at the museum. “Art becomes a vehicle to tie history to the current moment,” she said.

Last year the Museum curated a show with artist Cal Siegel.

The Museum and Bluestone sought to determine more about the history of Zadock Pratt and why he came to the area. This was due to the local hemlock trees. The tanning business existed for about 30 years and “came and went,” said Pratt.

The materials for the exhibit came from across the world, including petroleum products and cattle from Argentina. It was more about the way in which “we relate to our material world,” Bluestone said.

The project has been “wonderful” so far, said Bluestone, including six local artists. The show has been especially popular and allowed to “create new connections” and about how the “past informs the present.”
“I think that part of the show is not so much informing our opinion,” but a chance to foster a relationship with the current world.

The response from visitors has been especially rewarding, said Bluestone. It also offers a connection between artists and the public. The public has “embraced” the show and allowed for a significant amount of information to be appreciated by visitors.

The Museum and Bluestone hopes to do a similar project in the future.

“It’s a lot of work” to put on these exhibitions.