2024

Friday, February 24, 2 pm
Virtual Curator Talk: With The Historic Woodstock Art Colony: The Arthur A. Anderson Collection guest curator, Karen Quinn. 

Saturday, February 25, 2 pm
Curator Gallery Talk: With Hudson Valley Artists 2023: Homespun curator, Karlyn Benson

Friday, March 3, 2 pm
Curator Gallery Talk: With Be Who You Are: Portraits of Woodstock Artists by Harriett Tannin curator, Wayne Lempka.

Sunday, March 26, 2 pm
Public Tour: Tour our Spring Exhibitions with the museum education manager, Zachary Bowman

Saturday, April 1, 2pm
Conversation: With exhibiting artists in Hudson Valley Artists 2023: Homespun

Sunday, April 2, 3 pm
Performance: Performing Art 2023  This culminating performance of our fourth collaboration with The Hudson Valley Performing Arts Laboratory features a theatric interpretation of the Museum’s Spring 2023 exhibitions.

Sunday, April 23, 2 pm
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with The Historic Woodstock Art Colony: The Arthur A. Anderson Collection. Register free on our website.

Tuesday, May 2, 5:30 pm
Panel Discussion: A scholarly panel discuss artists and histories in The Historic Woodstock Art Colony: The Arthur A. Anderson Collection

Saturday, June 17, 11 am
Virtual Presentation: Identity and Culture:  Queer Artists at the Crossroads. The Dorsky’s MFA Artist in Residence, Edgar Hartley, discusses how queer-identified artists play pivotal roles in promoting visibility of the community and its culture. Join via Zoom here.

Saturday, July 22, 2:00 - 4:00 pm
Upstate Art Weekend: The Time Capsule
What is Your message to the future? 
Artist Neville Bean and filmmaker Robert Vandeweghe are co-producing a documentary about the restoration of the Wurts Street Bridge in Kingston and are gathering material for a new community-created time capsule, a message-in-a-bottle to the future.  Leave a short video message for posterity or create a handwritten message or drawing to go into the bottle. All will be buried in the new Time Capsule celebrating the re-opening of this century-old bridge - a bridge that links the past to the present and reaches into the future.  

Sunday, July 23, 12:00 - 3:00 pm
Upstate Art Weekend: Artist Workshop 
Exhibiting artist Mollie McKinley will lead a drop-in art-making workshop for Upstate Art Weekend. Participants will create a collaborative sculpture, engaging with natural materials and clay. In her practice, McKinley works with elements like dripping water, erosions of earth, material formed by fire, and the ephemerality of air. These elements simultaneously function as materials and subjects of the work. 

Saturday, September 9, 5 - 7 pm
Opening Reception: Celebrate our Fall Exhibitions

Thursday, September 14, 1 pm
Gallery Talk: Karlyn Benson discusses organizing Notes for Tomorrow at the Dorsky and her addition of local artists Mollie McKinley and Zachary Skinner. The exhibition was curated by Independent Curators International.

Friday, September 22, 12 pm 
Virtual Curator Talk: With Purple Haze curator, Estrellita Brodsky. 

Friday, September 22, 5 pm
Wellness at The Dorsky: Stepping into Deep Time. What changes do you see coming? What do you want to manifest for the future? Can we envision a healed environment and society?  Stepping into Deep Time guides participants in experientially exploring our future selves and generations to come. We will collaboratively envision possible collective futures through creative activities. This event, hosted in conjunction with the exhibition Notes for Tomorrow, is presented in partnership with Eddy at New Paltz and the Office of Campus Sustainability and will be led by Art Professor Andrea Frank.

Saturday, November 11, 12 pm
Public Tour: Tour our Fall Exhibitions with the museum education manager, Zachary Bowman

Saturday, November 11, 2 pm
Curator Gallery Talk: With A Living Collection curator, Katie Hood Morgan. 

Sunday, November 12, 2 pm
Panel Discussion: Harm Reduction in the Hudson Valley, in conjunction with the exhibition Purple Haze. Local leaders from mental health initiatives and law enforcement discuss the work being done in our community to foster awareness of the opioid epidemic and promote healing. With Julianah Abimbola Ogundimu, Ulster County Sheriff's Office Opioid Response as County Law Enforcement (ORACLE), Chief Robert J. Lucchesi: New Paltz Police Department, Phoenix Kawamoto: Community Education Coordinator, Town of New Paltz, Juanita Hotchkiss, Ulster County Sheriff's Office, Chief Matthew Goodnow: New Paltz Rescue Squad and Lieutenant Antonio Stenta, SUNY New Paltz University Police Department. Moderated by Jennifer Slader, Associate Director of Student Conduct & Community Standards at SUNY New Paltz.

Saturday, November 18, 2 pm
Family Day: Artwork discussions and hands-on-making activities for children and their families. With the Dorsky’s Education and Outreach Coordinator, artist Maria Elena Ferrer-Harrington.

Friday, December 1, 5 - 7 pm
Opening Reception: BFA I Thesis Exhibition

Saturday, December 2, 6 pm: Film Screening, "Everyone I Know Is Sick"
Lecture Center Room 104
The Dorsky is proud to partner with @visual_aids for Day With(out) Art 2023 by presenting "Everyone I Know Is Sick," a program of five new videos generating connections between HIV and other forms of illness and disability.
The program features new work by Dolissa Medina & Ananias P. Soria, Dorothy Cheung, Beau Gomez, Kurt Weston, and Hiura Fernandes & Lili Nascimento.
A day of mourning and action that uses art to respond to the ongoing HIV and AIDS crisis, Day With(out) Art encourages museums, universities, museums, and art institutions to present related programming on or around December 1, World AIDS Day. Because AIDS is not over!

Friday, December 8, 5 - 7 pm
Opening Reception: BFA II Thesis Exhibition

2022

Sunday, December 4 • 2 pm
In conjunction with the exhibition Benjamin Wigfall & Communications Village, join us for a conversation about the exhibition followed by a hands-on printmaking workshop with artist Jean-Marc Superville Sovak.

Sunday, October 30 • 2 pm
Join us for a conversation about Hudson Valley Artists 2022: The Material, The Thing, followed by a Halloween-themed marzipan dyeing and sculpting workshop with exhibiting artist Daniel Giordano.

Sunday, April 24, 2 pm
Family Day: In conjunction with Mary Frank: The Observing Heart, join us for a tour for children and their families followed by a hands-on clay workshop with our MFA Artist-in-Residence, Koyoltzintli.Koyoltzintli, is an interdisciplinary artist, healer, and educator living in the Northeast. She grew up on the Pacific coast and in the Andean mountains in Ecuador, geographies that permeate in her work. She focuses on geopoetics, ancestral technologies, ritual, and storytelling through collaborative processes and personal narratives. She has received multiple awards and fellowships including the Photographic Fellowship at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, NYFA Fellowship, and the IA grant by the Queens Council of the Arts.

Saturday, March 5
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere: Freedom Dreams in Contemporary Art

2021

Sunday, November 7
In conjunction with Who Really Cares?: Hudson Valley Artists 2021, Join exhibiting artists Maeve McCool and Liz Nielsen for a talk on their work in the exhibition, followed by hands-on making stations. Nielsen will lead participants in creating cyanotype prints on fabric, which can then be turned into personally emblematic flags using the bunting technique, which McCool will be demonstrating.  

Sunday, November 14
In conjunction with Life After the Revolution: Kate Millett’s Art Colony for Women. After touring the exhibition, multiple making-stations will be staffed by SUNY New Paltz Art Education students so there will be many ways for your family to engage each other.

Sunday, December 5 
In conjunction with The Dorsky at 20: Reflections at a Milestone. After touring the exhibition, multiple making-stations will be staffed by SUNY New Paltz Art Education students so there will be many ways for your family to engage each other.  

Sunday, December 12
Family Day: In conjunction with Life After the Revolution: Kate Millett’s Art Colony for Women. After touring the exhibition, multiple making-stations will be staffed by SUNY New Paltz Art Education students so there will be many ways for your family to engage each other. 

2020

Sunday, September 27
Family Day: The Mailiad: A Mythic American Adventure, Part 1 (Virtual Event). Join artist Ben Pinder for an interactive, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style Zoom adventure across a mythic American landscape. Participants will engage and help make decisions that affect the narrative while learning about performance, collaboration, myth making, and the importance of the US Postal system. Ben will help prepare for your adventure by providing templates and instructions for making masks, and drawing animals that will be used in the video meetup and performance.
Visit The Mailiad web site to prepare for the adventure: http://benpinder.com/The_Mailiad/

Sunday, October 11
Family Day: The Mailiad: A Mythic American Adventure, Part 2 (Virtual Event). Join artist Ben Pinder for an interactive, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style Zoom adventure across a mythic American landscape. Participants will engage and help make decisions that affect the narrative while learning about performance, collaboration, myth making, and the importance of the US Postal system. Ben will help prepare for your adventure by providing templates and instructions for making masks, and drawing animals that will be used in the video meetup and performance.
Visit The Mailiad web site: http://benpinder.com/The_Mailiad/

Sunday, March 1, 2020
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Totally Dedicated: Leonard Contino, 1940–2016

2019

Sunday, November 17, 2019
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Paper Media: Boetti, Calzolari, Kounellis

Sunday, October 20, 2019
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Madness in Vegetables: Hudson Valley Artists 2019. We will be joined by exhibiting artist Roberta Ziemba who will discuss the history of corn husk dolls, talk about her related work in the exhibition and lead a hands-on corn husk doll making workshop.

Sunday, September 29, 2019
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Tonalism: Pathway from the Hudson River School to Modern Art. Explore how Tonalist painters evoked mood with color as we use glazing techniques with acrylic paint on old black and white photographs.

Sunday, July 14, 2019
In conjunction with Madness in Vegetables: Hudson Valley Artists 2019, join us this Sunday for a family friendly tour and hands-on workshop with Madness in Vegetables exhibiting artist Jackie Shatz. The artist creates mythic, anthropomorphic sculptures which transform between plant and human. We will discuss her work in the exhibition and follow that up with a collage workshop. Combining traced vegetable shapes with human forms, children will be asked to imagine and create their own hybrid creatures.

Sunday, May 12, 2019
In conjunction with In Celebration: A Recent Gift from the Photography Collection of Marcuse Pfeifer, we will discuss how different photographers approach making portraits and imagine identities based on clues the photographer has provided. After, we will take portraits using an iPhone, print the images and make transfers onto polymer clay tiles which parents can bake in their ovens at home.

Sunday, April 28, 2019
In conjunction with the exhibition Just My Type: Angela Dufresne. We will talk about how Dufresne captures members of her creative community and make drawings from live models considering negative and positive space, areas of shadow and light and blind contour drawing. 

Sunday, February 24, 2019
Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Linda Mary Montano: The Art/Life Hospital. We will be joined by artist and educator, Kerry Downey, who will assist us in performing artworks created for the event by Linda Mary Montano.

2018

Sunday, November 18, 2018
Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with the exhibition The Trans List and Alive & Yelling: Trans Zines and Radical Subcultures. Join us as we discuss the fluidity of identity and the difference between sex and gender. After, we will create zines which depict ourselves in various settings, exploring how our own identities are shaped by circumstance.
*Please note that the discussion will include open dialogue about Trans identities which some families may find too sensitive for children.

Sunday, October 28, 2018
Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with Time Travelers: Hudson Valley Artists 2018. Join acclaimed storyteller Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi as she regales tales from the Hudson Valley, followed by a mask-making activity.

Sunday, September 30, 2018
Family Day: Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families in conjunction with the exhibition Community and Continuity: Native American Art of New York. Join us as we learn about the Haudenosaunee creation story and the history of residential schools, whose primary objective was assimilating Native American children and youth into Euro-American culture. After, we will create personal talismans from air dry clay and beads. 

Sunday, August 12, 2018
Exhibition-inspired activities for children and their families with Alison McNulty, exhibiting artist in Time Travelers: Hudson Valley Artists 2018. Exhibiting artist Alison McNulty will discuss her work in the exhibition as it relates to the theme of finding traces of the past in the materials left behind. Following this, we will gather materials from outside the museum to make our own cyanotype prints on fabric, creating a ghost image of the materials we are drawn to. 

Sunday, May 13, 2018
Celebrate Mother’s Day at The Dorsky with a tour of Marking Time: Andy Warhol’s Vision of Celebrations, Commemorations, and Anniversaries, followed by a hands-on printmaking activity with the Poughkeepsie Printwagon, an outreach project of PUF Studios and Barrett Art Center. 

Sunday, April 29, 2018
Join us for a tour of Steven Holl: Making Architecture, followed by a workshop led by art educator, designer and AGRISCULPTURE Founder Amy Lewis Sweetman. Using sponges, watercolors, farm equipment and paper, we will create imagined buildings and work together on displaying these on a pedestal made to mimic those designed for the exhibition. The tour and activity will discuss process and presentation; exploring how Holl’s process leads from an initial watercolor sketch into an actual building and how the museum represented this process in the exhibition layout.

Sunday, February 25, 2018
Join us for a tour of Abstract Minded: Works by Six Contemporary African Artists, followed by an interactive performance by Amadou Diallo, a master drummer, performer and educator from West Africa who integrates musical performance with storytelling and cultural history.

2017

Sunday, October 29, 2017
Artists as Innovators: Celebrating Three Decades of New York State Council on the Arts / New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships
Join us for a family friendly tour and workshop using the exhibition to discuss the theme of transformation. As fall progresses and the trees change colors, it is a good time to reflect on how artists address the theme of transformation; be it by transforming one image into another, transforming an everyday object into a work of art or transforming the way we look at something. After the tour, we will create our own lenticular images, which create the illusion of transformation by weaving and folding two images on a single surface.

Sunday, September 24, 2017
Artists as Innovators: Celebrating Three Decades of New York State Council on the Arts / New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. 
Join us for a family friendly tour and workshop using the exhibition to discuss the use of text in art. After touring the exhibition and considering the ways that participating artists have incorporated text and image, we will create photo-transfers over written text while thinking of how the image and words interact to create, clarify or distort meaning.

Sunday, July 30, 2017
Undercurrents: The River as Metaphor – Hudson Valley Artists 2017 With Undercurrents artist Matthew Friday.
Join us for a family friendly tour, followed by an artist-designed workshop! We will begin with a tour of the exhibition which will focus on conservation efforts in the Hudson River and after, we will be making biodegradable paper boats which will be painted using vegetable based dyes and sprinkled with seeds of plants which help to stabilize banks of rivers. After producing our boats, we will head to the New Paltz Boat Landing (a short distance from the museum) where we will release our boats into the Wallkill River to sail away on their duty of re-growing and stabilizing the riverbank.

Sunday, July 2, 2017
Undercurrents: The River as Metaphor – Hudson Valley Artists 2017. 
With Undercurrents artist Jenny Lee Fowler. How is the life of the river in your hands? We will ask children to consider this question as we tour the exhibition and in the follow-up activity, led by Jenny Lee Fowler. Fowler will briefly discuss the history of paper-cutting, share some of her favorite examples and then lead us in an exercise using a tracing of our hands as a background for other elements.

Sunday, May 14, 2017
Sara Greenberger Rafferty: Gloves Off 
Join us for a special Mother's Day edition of Family Day for a family-friendly tour of the exhibition Sara Greenberger Rafferty: Gloves Off, focusing on her transparent, layered surfaces. After the tour, we will make drawings on wooden squares and then do a gel medium photo-transfer on top to discuss layering. 

Sunday, April 30, 2017
Tex/tures of Iraq: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Oded Halahmy
Join us for a family-friendly tour of the exhibition Tex/tures of Iraq: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Oded Halahmy. The tour will focus on the use of text and calligraphy in art. After the tour, we will be joined by Arabic Calligrapher and SUNY New Paltz Professor, Amera Abdalhafez, who will teach us how to write and paint our names in Arabic Calligraphy.

Sunday, March 12, 2017
Carl Walters and Woodstock Ceramic Arts
Join us for a family-friendly tour and scavenger hunt of the exhibition Carl Walters and Woodstock Ceramic Arts. The tour will focus on his use of animal imagery and shadow boxes (cabinets). After the tour, we will use oven-bake clay to make our own animals, inspired by Carl Walters. We will make these into pendants to be worn as necklaces, bake them in the museum oven and, before stringing them, arrange them all in a shadow box of our own to make a unique story and photographs.

Sunday, February 26, 2017
Carl Walters and Woodstock Ceramic Arts
Join us for a family-friendly tour and scavenger hunt of the exhibition Carl Walters and Woodstock Ceramic Arts. The tour will focus on his use of animal imagery and shadow boxes (cabinets). After the tour, we will use oven-bake clay to make our own animals, inspired by Carl Walters. We will make these into pendants to be worn as necklaces, bake them in the museum oven and, before stringing them, arrange them all in a shadow box of our own to make a unique story and photographs.