The O-town Scene

ART PEOPLE: Stephen Poleskie Stephen Poleskie’s artwork is in the collections of numer- ous museums including the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; The National Collection, Washington, D. C., and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Tate Gallery in London. His writing, fiction and art criticism has appeared in U.S. and international journals. According to the artist’s website, in 1961, Poleskie moved to New York City, where he rented a studio on East 10th Street near Tompkins Square, which was then the art center of New York, Poleskie became friends with many of the artists and critics of the day such as Elaine and Willem deKooning, Frank O’Hara, Larry Rivers and Louise Nevelson. In 1963, Poleskie opened a screen-printing studio in a storefront on East 11th Street. This became Chiron Press, the first fine-art screen-printing shop in New York. The business was soon moved to larger quarters at 76 Jefferson Street. During the five years he ran the operation the names of the artists who had prints made at Chiron Press include Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, James Rosen- quist, Alex Katz, Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler. In 1968, Poleskie began teaching at Cornell University. In addition to the 33 years he spent there, where he is professor emeritus, Poleskie taught or was a visiting artist or professor at 26 colleges and art schools throughout the world, including the School of Visual Art in New York and the University of California, Berkeley. A skilled pilot, Poleskie attained an Air Transport Pilot’s rat- ing, and also was active in air show and stunt flying, and was a champion aerobatic pilot. Since 2004, he has worked with digital photography, which is on display at the Bright Hill Word & Image Gallery, along with the work of his wife, novelist Jeanne Mackin. The couple live in Ithaca. Blue Horse Blue Matchbook II The Bright Hill Word & Image Gallery’s exhibit “Light & Shadow: Photo- graphs & Lyrical Essays” features Poleskie’s photographs and the writings of his wife, Jeanne Mackin. The gallery is at 94 Church St. in Treadwell. Jeanne Mackin is the author of several novels, as well as “The Cornell Book of Herbs and Edible Flowers,” and is co-editor of “The Norton Book of Love anthol- ogy.” She has written art columns for newspapers as well as feature articles for several arts magazines. She was the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society, and her journalism has won awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education in Washington, D.C. She teaches creative writing at Goddard College in Ver- mont. 8 O-Town Scene June 9, 2011 Blue Matchbook

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