Art History

Kerry Dean Carso

Recent Accomplishments

In the spring 2022 issue of The Hudson River Valley Review, Professor Carso published a review of Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment, an exhibition created by The Thomas Cole Historical Site, The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She gave lectures on her research at The Studios of Key West, Mohonk Mountain House, Grey Towers National Historic Site, and the Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands. Professor Carso presented a paper entitled "Washington Allston: The Painterly Gothic" at the Gothic Association of New Zealand and Australia’s "Gothic Trajectories" online conference on January 27-28.  She was also interviewed by two podcasts, “New Books Network” and “The 92 Report.” 

Work in Progress

Professor Carso is under contract with the University of Wales Press to edit an annotated edition of Washington Allston’s novel Monaldi. She is also researching the “afterlife” of Victorian architecture and design in the early twentieth century, a project which includes analyses of works by Grant Wood, Walker Evans, and Charles Burchfield. Professor Carso was awarded two Individual Development Awards from the United University Professions (UUP) in 2022, one to conduct research, in April, at the Charles Burchfield Archives at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY, and the other to pursue research, in June, at the Longfellow House and at Harvard’s Houghton Library in Cambridge, MA, on Washington Allston. With support from a 2020 Research and Creative Projects Award, Professor Carso carried out research at the Walker Evans Archive at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in Lincoln Center (Lincoln Kirstein Papers). Professor Carso has been invited to contribute an essay about architectural follies to Follies: The International Magazine, a publication of the Folly Fellowship, an organization based in the United Kingdom to promote and preserve follies, grottoes, and garden buildings.

Keely Heuer

Recent Accomplishments

Professor Heuer was on sabbatical for the 2021-2022 academic year, during which she was a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of Greek and Roman Art of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was awarded this fellowship to work on her book manuscript, currently titled Commonalities in Clay: A Holistic Approach to Italian Red-Figure Vases, which focuses on the shared imagery found on the painted ceramics produced across a wide range of geographic and culturally diverse areas of the Italian peninsula and Sicily between the mid-fifth and the mid-third centuries BCE. She argues that the shared motifs offer key insights into the daily life and religious/eschatological beliefs of the peoples that produced and used these painted vases. In May, she presented some of her recent discoveries in the talk "Commonalities in Clay: Winged Figures in Italian Red-Figure Vase-Painting" at the Met's Fellows Colloquia.

Professor Heuer also spoke at the 123rd Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in San Francisco, where she delivered two presentations—one on the sanctuaries of indigenous peoples of ancient southeastern Italy and the other on the frequent motif of balls of spun thread in funerary scenes on ancient painted vases produced in the Italian region of Puglia. Her recent publications include her essay in the volume Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife in Ancient South Italian Vase Painting, published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, an invited contribution that discusses the archaeological and textual evidence we have for religious practices beyond the funerary sphere in the Italic communities of Puglia and Basilicata. Professor Heuer had book reviews appear in print in 2022 on Sheramy Bundrick's Athens, Etruria, and the Many Lives of Greek Figured Pottery (for Etruscan and Italic Studies) and John H. Oakley's A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases (for The Classical Outlook).

Work in Progress

Professor Heuer was thrilled to be able to return to Italy and Greece this past summer for the first time since 2019 to conduct research for her book, Commonalities in Clay. She also did reconnaissance work for her future study abroad programs. Two highlights of her study occurred in Naples, where she was able to spend several days examining the South Italian vases in the newly opened Magna Graecia galleries of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale and was given special permission to visit, before it opened to the public, the Ipogeo dei Cristallini, a group of fourth century BCE hypogeum tombs containing sculptured and painted decorative motifs that she focuses on in her book.

Professor Heuer has several forthcoming essays. The first, "Face to Face: Isolated Heads in South Italian and Etruscan Vase Painting," will appear in the volume, Adoption, Adaptation, and Innovation in Pre-Roman Italy: Paradigms for Cultural Change, and it spotlights the common motif of human heads in the red-figure wares of pre-Roman Italy. The second, entitled "Bacchic Buckets," discusses the use of terracotta wine buckets and their frequent appearance in the hands of figures painted on Southern Italian vases of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. It will appear in a Festschrift honoring Dr. Ian McPhee, a foremost authority on painted pottery produced in pre-Roman southern Italy and Sicily. She has contributed numerous catalog entries on Greek and South Italian vases to volumes highlighting the Classical art collections of the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, both of which are expected to be published in the coming year.

Ellen Konowitz

Recent Accomplishments

In November, Professor Konowitz presented a paper, "Stained Glass for the City: Drawing for a Booming Market in the Netherlands," at the international symposium "Tales of the City: Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel," held at the Cleveland Museum of Art in conjunction with a major loan exhibition of the same name. Professor Konowitz wrote a review of The Stained Glass of Herkenrode Abbey (Corpus Vitrearum Great Britain 7) by Isabelle Lecocq and Yvette Vanden Bemden (Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2021), published in December in the Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews.

Work in Progress

Professor Konowitz’s essay "Domestic Glass" will appear in the Routledge Resources Online: The Renaissance World in 2023.  She has been invited to present a talk in January 2023 on "Drawing on Glass: Netherlandish Stained-Glass Roundels" at a seminar held by the London gallery Sam Fogg in connection with its exhibition Master Drawings from the Middle Ages, part of Master Drawings Week New York 2023.

Beth E. Wilson

Recent Accomplishments

Beth E. Wilson participated as a special guest in a conversation with the painter Thomas Sarrantonio and the Executive Director of Unison Arts, Faheem Haider, for a closing reception of Field Work by Thomas Sarrantonio on December 4.

Reva Wolf

Recent Accomplishments

Two essays on Goya by Professor Wolf were published in 2022. The first, "The Interconnections of Satire and Censorship in Goya’s Prints and Drawings," appeared in the book Changing Satire: Transformations and Continuities in Europe, 1600-1830, edited by Cecilia Rosengren, Per Sivefors, and Rikard Wingård and published by Manchester University Press. The second, "The Compasses Embodied: Hands as Evidence in Goya's Portraits—Problems and Possibilities," part of her ongoing work on eighteenth-century Freemasonry and visual culture, is included in On Portraiture: Theory, Practice and Fiction—From Francisco de Holanda to Susan Sontag, edited by Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, Maria João Gamito, and Fernando António Baptista Pereira and published as an e-book by the University of Lisbon; this publication constitutes the proceedings of an online congress organized by the University of Lisbon, held in January 2022, at which Professor Wolf spoke.

In addition, the international symposium "Translating Warhol," of which Professor Wolf was the principal organizer, took place in June 2022 at the University of Pennsylvania's rare book library; the two-day event was supported by a grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. To accompany the symposium, she organized a small exhibition for the Penn rare book library, Translations of Warhol, featuring translations into Asian and European languages of three specific publications: a 1963 interview, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol of 1975, and POPism of 1980. The symposium and exhibition—the first focused studies of the topic—revealed how details of editing, word choice, and even cover design contribute to the complex interpretive process involved when the work of a highly influential artist such as Warhol is translated. The symposium papers were published in a feature section she guest edited of the Journal of Art Historiography, which also includes her article "Translating Warhol: Turbamento, Transmutation, Transference."

Work in Progress

Completed and now being prepared for publication are two essays: "The Victim as Martyr: The Black Legend and Eighteenth-Century Representations of Inquisition Punishments, from Picart to Coustos to Goya," for The Black Legend in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Catherine Jaffe and Karen Stolley (Oxford Studies in the Enlightenment), and "Marilyn Mystery," on a group of prints related to a 1968 exhibition of Warhol’s work at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, for the exhibition catalog, Out of Sight (University of Pennsylvania Press). Also included in the Out of Sight catalog is Professor Wolf’s interview with the collector Gregory McCoy, "Filling in Gaps."

In progress are an essay on the history of the artist interview, based on a previously published article, for the book, Theorising the Artist Interview, edited by Lucia Farinati and Jennifer Thatcher (Routledge), and the entry "Writing and the Alphabetic Ordering of Culture" for volume 1 of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Visual Culture, edited by Jane Kromm.

In February, Professor Wolf is giving a paper on a recently initiated aspect of her research on eighteenth-century Freemasonry, entitled "Banks, Artists, and Freemasons across Borders: The Banco de San Carlos, Goya, and Cabarrús," at the session "Iberian Art in a Global Context" of the 2023 College Art Association annual conference in New York City. She has been invited to participate in a two-part symposium on Goya, satire, and collecting, tentatively scheduled for October, to be held in Madrid and Zaragoza and organized by Paula Fayos-Pérez.

William B. Rhoads

In 2022 Professor Emeritus William Rhoads published Elverhoj: The Arts And Crafts Colony at Milton-On-Hudson (Black Dome Press, distributed by RIT Press) with co-author Leslie Melvin. Their book could not have been completed without the assistance of Bruce Weiss, a student of Rhoads’ long ago whose family owns much of the Elverhoj property.

The authors spoke about their book at the Ulster County Historical Society and Elting Memorial Library, as well as to groups in Milton-on-Hudson, Plattekill, and Woodstock.

Jaimee Uhlenbrock

Recent Accomplishments

In 2022 Professor Emerita Jaimee Uhlenbrock published "The Hand of the Coroplast in the Fourth Century and the Hellenistic Period" in Quand on a la terre sous l'ongle. Le modelage dans le monde grec antique, edited by Hélène Aurigny and Laura Rohaut (Presses Universitaires de Provence). She and Arthur Muller co-wrote "Ancient Greek Terracotta Sculpture" for Oxford Bibliographies in Classics, edited by Ruth Scodel. Professor Emerita Uhlenbrock gave a lecture in May, "Writing on Terracottas," for the Institute for Classical Archaeology of the University of Vienna. She also organized and co-hosted, with Maya Muratov, ''Terracottas in Motion: A ZOOM Colloquium,'' which was held in October.

Work in Progress

Professor Emerita Uhlenbrock’s article, ''The Votive Terracottas of Sicilian Naxos: A Preliminary Report,'' is in press with L'Annuario della Scuola Archeologia di Atene. She is editor and co-author of the publication, in progress for Oxford University Press, Greek Terracottas: A Toolkit for Research.

Zo Baker '15

Zo Baker, who received their BFA in Sculpture with a minor in Art History at New Paltz, went on to receive their MFA in spring 2021 from the University of Pennsylvania and this fall they started in a new role as the Coordinator for Arts Engagement and Education at Brown RISD Hillel. This is a new position designed to support students working with Jewish themes as part of their creative practices, a mission Zo is personally deeply invested in as a practicing Jewish artist. Zo’s work includes acting as a student mentor, curating gallery exhibitions on campus, and fostering the Jewish student artist community on College Hill.

Kathleen Brousseau '13

Kathleen Brousseau received her BA in Art History with Honors at New Paltz, and completed her MA in Art History at Syracuse University in 2016. Later that year she was a Research Fellow at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. In 2017 Kathleen joined the Department of Visitor and Curatorial Services at the New York State Capitol. She was promoted to Assistant Curator there in October 2022.

Charlotte Calmer '22

During spring 2022, Charlotte Calmer held an archives internship in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Islamic Art Department, where she furthered her knowledge of calligraphy and pattern making in Islamic art and how later art movements drew inspiration from these pioneering techniques. Upon graduating with a major in Art History and minors in History and International Relations, in fall 2022 Charlotte entered the graduate program in Library and Information Science (MLS) at Queens College, City University of New York. Continuing her interest in working with archives and libraries, Charlotte starts a new position as a library assistant for St. John's University Law School in January 2023. In this role she will aid in a site-specific project concerning the Rittenberg Law Library's current collection and print material.

Gabriel Chalfin-Piney '18

Gabriel Chalfin-Piney, who was an Art History major with a minor in Studio Art, recently concluded a contract working as the Manager of Programs at the Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby Museum of Art, building and instituting a new artist fellowship program for the museum. Since the beginning of the year they have transitioned to working with new artists and organizing as part of their advising and consulting business. Gabriel has a puppet show premiering this month at the Chicago International Puppet Festival. They are also actively developing a two-person exhibition with artist Jess Bass, ''When Souls Stick,'' which collages and interprets Jewish history, mysticism and folklore, and which opens in Chicago in September 2023.

Sherman Clarke '68

Sherman Clarke, who studied Art History at New Paltz, went on to become a highly accomplished art librarian, receiving the 2006 Distinguished Service Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). As an undergraduate, he worked in the Art History Slide Room under the leadership of Selma Pfeiffenberger (sophomore and junior years) and long-time faculty member of Renaissance and Baroque art, Helen Harkonen (senior year). In 1973, Sherman earned both an MA in Art History and MS in Library Science from Case Western Reserve University. He has worked in libraries at the University of Pittsburgh, Cornell University, Rhode Island School of Design, the Amon Carter Museum, and New York University. Since retiring from NYU in 2009, Sherman has continued to stay involved in librarianship through a variety of part-time library work. Currently he works a few hours a week at the Scholes Library of Ceramics at Alfred University and does contract indexing remotely for the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals at Columbia University. Reflecting on his life's work, Sherman states that ''SUNY New Paltz gave me a solid basis for my career in art librarianship.''

Sophie Cooke '20

Sophie Cooke, who graduated New Paltz with an Art History major, was recently promoted to Exhibitions and Programs Assistant at the Center for Architecture, New York City. At Hunter College, where she is pursuing an MA in Art History, Sophie serves as president of MASO (Masters of Art Student Organization).

Christopher Daly '12

Since graduating from New Paltz with a major in Art History and minor in Italian Studies, Chris Daly completed an MA in Art History at Ohio University and entered the PhD program in Art History at Johns Hopkins University. Over the past year, he has been researching and writing his dissertation in Florence, Italy, thanks to a David E. Finley Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), Washington, DC. Chris writes, "It has been an invaluable experience working on my project in Florence, as my dissertation focuses on the painters active in the late fifteenth century in Lucca, a city about 60 miles to the west." Chris will defend his dissertation next year while in residence at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for the third year of the fellowship. In 2022, three articles by Chris related to late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Italian art were published: "Two Reconstructions for Ghirlandaio's Workshop and a New Altarpiece by Bastiano Mainardi," in Arte Cristiana, "A New Florentine Painter for the Late Quattrocento: The Master of the Samaritan Woman (and a Note on a Forgotten Tondo by Raffaellino del Garbo)," in Colnaghi Studies Journal, and "Une prédelle lucquoise reconstituée: Michelangelo di Pietro Membrini à Libourne," in Revue du Louvre: Revue des musées de France.

Carrie Decker '81

After graduating SUNY New Paltz with a major in Art History, Carrie had several careers in the corporate world in finance, manufacturing, and medical devices, eventually working as an IT Business Systems Analyst. With the varied knowledge gained in these positions, she spread her wings and continued her education with a Certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University. She has spent much time working in galleries and museums in New England. After retiring, Carrie wanted to give back to the community, and so began a non-profit mobile art van. She returned to the Hudson Valley, traveling to local cities and towns giving art lessons to individuals of all ages with limited resources in the arts. The Covid shut down caused Carrie to change her business model. To keep moving forward, she sought out and donated art supplies, created video art projects and participated in outside events. At present, Crazy Over Art on Tour is supported by corporate, local, and private donations, has received several grants, and partners with many other arts businesses to constantly create and spread her passion for art. Find out more at www.crazyoverartontour.com!

Liz Dragan '19

Liz Dragan, who graduated with a BA in Art History, currently is the Registrar at Bark Frameworks, a custom frame making studio in Long Island City. They work with museums, galleries, foundations, advisors, and collectors on preserving their artwork. Liz manages Bark's art storage database and coordinates with their production team and clients on safely transporting artwork.

Tess Ferguson '20

Tess Ferguson, who graduated with Honors in Art History, went on to earn an MS in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute in spring 2022. Tess is now Reference Librarian at the Moffat Library in Washingtonville, NY. During her time in graduate school, Tess was active as the Finance and Communications Chair for the Emerging Museum Professionals Chapter at Pratt and worked for three semesters (Spring 2021-Spring 2022) as a Research Assistant for Pratt’s Semantic Lab, where she contributed to the E.A.T. + LOD Project, a Linked Open Data project done in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, about which Tess co-presented a paper with classmate Ellis Mikelić at Pratt School of Information’s annual showcase. In addition, from fall 2021 through spring 2022, Tess was a cataloging intern for the Oskar Diethelm Library at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Ameya Grant '18

Ameya Grant was a Chemistry major with a minor in Art History. Currently, she is in her fourth year of the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts-NYU master's program in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (MSc) and History of Art and Archaeology (MA). Ameya will receive her dual master's degree this spring. She currently is a year-long graduate intern in the Department of Objects Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, specializing in the treatment of inorganic objects.

Emily Harr '18

Emily Harr majored in Art History and Public Relations. After graduation, Emily worked at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City. In March 2022, she joined the Education Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a Program Associate for Accessibility. Emily facilitates programming for people with disabilities, specifically for the deaf community and for people with dementia and their care partners. She also works with her team to provide trainings, consult, and advocate for disability representation and awareness throughout the Museum.

Cynthia Farrell Johnson '76

Cynthia Farrell Johnson majored in Art History while at New Paltz. Her varied interests in urban studies and studio art were furthered by a student job at the Sojourner Truth Library's World Study Center, which fueled a passion for travel and learning about other cultures. Cynthia earned a master's degree in Library Science from Pratt Institute, later working for a short period in the Brooklyn Public Library system. "But," Cynthia writes, "the wider world was calling." She enjoyed a rewarding career in the Foreign Service, with assignments in Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Panama, Uruguay, and El Salvador. She served as a Public Diplomacy Officer, managing cultural and academic programs, as well as media relations for the US Information Agency and later the Department of State in embassies overseas.

Cynthia is also an accomplished visual artist. In 2022, she was commissioned by the City of Gaithersburg, Maryland, to create a large painting for a new municipal office building that will open sometime in 2023. The final product is a mixed-media canvas, entitled Gaithersburg Gathering, that celebrates the city's inclusiveness. Her artist's statement gives a sense of what inspired the artwork: "The City of Gaithersburg has always struck me as a welcoming and nurturing community. It is also a place that celebrates the number of trees that grace the area. The number of parks, green spaces, and tree-lined streets make it a delightfully livable city. Finally, Montgomery County boasts three cities in the top-five most ethnically diverse communities in the nation. Gaithersburg leads the way at number two, Germantown ranks third, and Silver Spring is in fifth place. Having grown up in Brooklyn, New York, Montgomery County reminds me of my hometown because of the many ethnicities that enrich its cultural life. The various immigrant groups welcome newcomers, and those who have been here longer also welcome the strangers. Gaithersburg and surrounding communities have a vibrancy that is reminiscent of what I experienced as the child of immigrants in Brooklyn. Gaithersburg’s residents are an inspiration because of their warmth and openness to those who choose to make it their home…or just stop by for a visit."

Hannah Karkari '19

Hannah Karkari, a double major in Art History and Asian Studies, is pursuing an MA in Art History at American University. Last spring, Hannah received a Robyn Rafferty Mathias Student Research Conference Award for her first-year paper, "A Charming Fabrication: Gender Ambivalence and Shojo Aesthetics in the Portraits of Ashihara Kuniko." In fall 2022, she presented the first half of her master's thesis at the joint American University/George Washington University Graduate Art History Symposium. The presentation explored woodblock prints depicting the cross-dressing Geisha in Japan’s feudal capital Edo and reconstructed a record of women’s cross-dressing practices through analysis of the prints. Hannah writes, "It was an honor to be chosen to present my work along [with] such talented students. It was a joy to learn about the projects of my American colleagues as well as my peers from George Washington University. I look forward to continuing my work on this project in spring semester. My research this final semester will include a trip to San Francisco to view photographs of cross-dressing geisha in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as well as converting my written thesis into a website that I hope will make the information more engaging and accessible for wider audiences."

Emily Koller-Apelskog '15

Emily Koller-Apelskog, who graduated with a major in Art History, says exciting opportunities came her way through New Paltz, including volunteering at the 2012 Olympic Games and teaching in France through the TAPIF program. Emily earned a master’s degree in Teaching in Museum Education from George Washington University in Washington, DC. After graduating, in February 2022 Emily began her current position at the National Gallery of Art, where she serves as the Support Specialist for the Fellows Program at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Emily writes, ''It’s exciting to be working with researchers from all over the world (including some New Paltz alumni)!''

Mary Prevo '77

Mary Prevo, who graduated with a major in Art History, retired from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia in May after 24 years as Senior Lecturer in Art History. An architectural historian who helped found H-SC’s Public History Program, Mary was involved in the Universities Studying Slavery consortium. Mary reports that she is “happily ensconced among my friends, files, and family south of the James River in central Virginia.”

Remarking on her time at SUNY New Paltz, Mary writes, ''it is all New Paltz’s fault that I ended up as an art historian. I hold several people responsible for providing me with encouragement and being mentors and role models. All through my teaching career I have heard their voices in my head: Jaimee Uhlenbrock when I taught the female figure form Willendorf, Peter Bohan when I talked of a Gothic trumeau, Bill Rhoads whenever I pointed out a Colonial Revival gas station or a board-and-batten Gothic revival cottage, and finally, Hugo Munsterberg, at whose table at freshman registration in 1973 I saw the words ''art'' and ''history'' together in the same place for the first time. These professors and my New Paltz peers with whom I am still very much in touch, pushed me along so that suddenly in the midst of a recession in 1977 I found myself in graduate school at Columbia….There is no way I could have predicted the journey, which may give those approaching graduation hope. You can't really plan—things happen and you jump.''

Gabby Ricciardi '22

After graduating last summer with a major in History and an Art History minor, Gabby Ricciardi was hired at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY, originally as a Museum Educator. As of September 2022, they have taken on the role of Education Coordinator, overseeing the site's touring operations and public programming.

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Elva Rivera '16

Internationally known award-winning tattooer Elva Rivera, who graduated with a major in Art History and a minor in Ancient World Studies, uses her art history education to help further her art and career. Her work has been featured in over a dozen publications, including Refinery29, Playboy, and the tattoo magazine Inked. Elva is a sought-after guest judge at tattoo conventions and speaker at conferences, where she helps to educate the next generation of tattooers. The most important part for Elva is the opportunity to give back to her community and to work with clients from all walks of life, ranging from performers to nurses and doctors to fast food workers. Through a decade of practice, Elva has found that art has the power to transcend social barriers.

Nirvana Santos-Kuilan '15 | Miquael Williams '16 | Jacquelyn Woods '18

The department invited three alumnx to speak at its Careers in Art History panel in May as we resumed in-person events. Nirvana Santos-Kuilan '15, at the time Education and Programs Manager at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in NYC, Miquael Williams '16, the then Art Residency Manager at Art Omi in Ghent, NY, and Jacquelyn Woods '18, who teaches English at Niskayuna High School, joined our students for an engaging, forthright discussion of the ins and outs of graduate school, work experience in a variety of art institutions across many roles, and unexpected developments in their career paths. What shone through was these alumnx' passion for their work, and their remarks on the stellar education they received at New Paltz. Art History Association treasurer, Mya Bailey '22, ably moderated. Earlier in the evening, students, faculty, and alums enjoyed dinner al fresco on the College Theatre patio with remarks and advice from then-chair, Kerry Carso, and Dawn McCaw, School of Fine & Performing Arts Liaison in the Career Resource Center.

Beth Wynne '19

Beth Wynne, who was an English major with a concentration in Creative Writing and minors in Art History and Studio Art, is the recipient of a 2022-2023 Cole Fellowship at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY. Beth had been a Museum Educator at the site, where she "researched the lives of Cole's sister-in-law Frances Bartow and an unnamed woman of color who is represented on an 1840 census as living in the home." Beth writes, "In my fellowship, I am researching nineteenth-century labor practices, trade, and mercantile as they relate to the Thomson family who owned the property that would become beloved by and home to Thomas Cole."

Mya Bailey '22

Mya Bailey graduated in December with a major in Art History and a History minor. In 2022 Mya held two internships, one in the spring as Programming and Editorial Intern at Historic Huguenot Street, and the other in the fall as a Publishing Intern at Peachtree Publishing/Holiday House/Pixel+Ink. Mya also served as editor for issue 3 of Assembly Art Journal, a publication of SUNY New Paltz’s School of Fine & Performing Arts.

Steve Baltsas '23

Steve Baltsas is a double major in Art History and English, with a Medieval & Early Modern Studies minor. Over the summer, Steve participated in events for the 150th Anniversary of the Howland Library in Beacon, NY. Most of the celebration regarded their original building, now the Howland Cultural Center, designed by Richard Morris Hunt. In August, Steve lectured with two architects on Hunt and mid-nineteenth-century design for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Westchester + Hudson Valley Chapter and led tours of Frederick Clarke Withers’s Tioronda (1859–1860), the Howlands’ country house, and Withers’s Dutch Reformed Church (1860)—the first High Victorian Gothic church in North America. At the Howland Cultural Center in September, Steve gave a lecture on Joseph and Eliza Howland’s architectural patronage and Hunt’s projects for them of 1871–1872. Steve hopes to adapt his lectures into an article and pursue publication.

Brooke Cammann '23

Brooke Cammann is a double major in Art History and Chemistry with a minor in Italian Studies. Last summer Brooke was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) grant to study the evolving conservation approaches to ancient bronze objects. These funds supported two months of travel throughout Italy, where she visited archaeological sites and museums and was able to observe ancient bronzeworking firsthand. She presented her findings at the SUNY New Paltz SURE Student Showcase in October. This summer opportunity was paired with her first hands-on conservation experience working with Etruscan material culture at the Poggio Civitate Archaeological Field School near Siena, Italy. Brooke was awarded the Etruscan Foundation Fieldwork Fellowship to defray the costs of the field school. Brooke will give a presentation on her experience in a virtual study abroad program in the summer of 2021 as part of the workshop “Etruscology in America” at the January 2023 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in New Orleans, LA.

Jorell Herrera '23

Jorell Herrera, a History major with a minor in Art History, began a new job at Mills Mansion Historic Site in Staatsburgh, NY, on December 31. The position involves providing assistance with administrative tasks, accessioning/cataloging collection objects, and leading guided tours of the historic house.