HUDSON  ART  WALK, Columbia County, NEW YORK 

Two hours north of Manhattan is a wonderful landscape: The Hudson Valley. The train runs north hugging the Hudson River all the way to the small town of Hudson. It's one of the most beautiful trips in America. 

Hudson was an important port in the 18th & 19th C with wealthy folk, sea merchants & great architecture. Then came economic decline. From 1980 antique dealers gradually took over the long main street and revitalised the whole place. Now art galleries also flourish: 27 according to the Hudson guide. Many are poor. Only a few are serious.
For the last 18 years the Annual Arts Walk has enlivened things, with all, (or most) of the shop windows - plumbers, electricians, food shops, bookshops, men's outfitters - displaying art. Pictures everywhere. The gallerist Carrie Haddad, organised things well.
But things aint what they they used to be! This year is very disappointing. Windows full of chairs, lamps, antiques, cheese, ..... mid-century modern. Little art. Bad art.

But there is always light if one looks. Award winning sculptor GILLIAN JAGGER is showing memorable new work at the Davis Gallery, art@johndavisgallery.com    At 83, she has a long successful career behind her, and is Prof Emeritus of Pratt. A year ago she visited the Eyzies Caves of southern France. These prehistoric cave carvings from 17,000 years ago have inspired the current work: wonderful huge expressive drawings of animals struggling, rolling, fighting for breath, fighting for life, and one massive 3D hanging animal sculpture created from wire. "I am trying to find the life in what is decay & death.. Life & death are meshed," she says. "I want the beauty of what I saw. I have to be true to my feeling."

Jagger, who was born in the UK, (daughter of renowned war sculptor Charles Jagger ) lives a rural life among her beloved horses and cattle. Few artists get animal anatomy right. Jagger does. She knows her creatures inside out and captures their spirit with a surprising ease and economy of line. Something that only a lifetime's experience makes possible.

For more Gillian see https://vimeo.com/71546097 by Whirlwind Creative.