On this month's edition of "Specific Objects: Talks on Art in the Catskills," host Miriam Atkin speaks with Bryan Zanisnik, an artist working in sculpture, performance, video and photography who lives in the Catskill Mountains. We discuss his fascination with discarded objects and overlooked spaces, and the way artworks can assemble fragments of our material and cultural histories in order to tell new stories, or retell old ones.

Bryan's Website

Bryan on Art 21

Bryan Zanisnik received an MFA from Hunter College and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work has been widely featured in the New York Times, National Public Radio, Art in America, Artforum, ARTnews, and New York Magazine. Zanisnik has been the subject of four documentaries produced by Art21, the most recent of which is titled, “Bryan Zanisnik’s Big Pivot."

"Specific Objects" is a monthly freeform discussion hosted by Miriam Atkin that invites artists from a variety of disciplines to describe, ponder, interrogate, interpret, and celebrate their current projects. The focus is on guests who live and work in the Hudson Valley/Catskills region, though people will occasionally visit from farther afield. Tune in to learn what artists in your neighborhood are thinking and making right now.

Miriam Atkin is a Catskills-based writer whose work concerns the possibilities of poetry as a medium in conversation with avant-garde film, music, and dance. She is cofounder of Pinsapo, an international publishing collective, and teaches writing around the Hudson Valley region, at Bard College and the Otisville Correctional Facility.

Intro music: "Sing Out" by Joanna Mattrey

On this month's edition of "Specific Objects: Talks on Art in the Catskills," host Miriam Atkin speaks with painter Jan Razauskas and printmaker Gary Kachadourian, both based in Lanesville. We talk about chance and control in abstract painting, and get deep into the nuts and bolts of analog processes for the reproduction of photographic images.

Jan Razauskas is a visual artist who creates paintings, drawings and mixed media work. She moved to the Catskills in 2018, from Baltimore, by way of a few years in Tulsa, Ok. Her interests in abstract painting include the invention of the image, and the possibilities in combining methods of chance and control. Razauskas has shown extensively in the Mid-Atlantic area and beyond, recent exhibition venues include Monopractice Gallery, Current Gallery and the Maryland Institute College of Art, all in Baltimore, and Twoforty Space in Brooklyn. In addition, she worked for several decades as a non-profit gallery administrator, as well as teaching in various colleges. You can view her work at https://www.janrazauskas.com/.

For the last six years Gary Kachadourian has been operating Lanesville Press where he publishes small open edition books on an engraving press in his garage. Most of the books comprise four mezzotint copies of photographs or video stills made in collaboration with artists. Before moving to Lanesville he lived in Baltimore where he worked as an art administrator for the city’s arts council for over twenty years while also working on his own art. You can view Lanesville Press projects at www.instagram.com/lanesvillepress/.

On this month's edition of "Specific Objects: Talks on Art in the Catskills," host Miriam Atkin speaks with Catskill-based composer and instrumentalist, Larry Chernicoff. We discuss his new compositions, which are informed by a long-standing interest in cloudy skies, architectural forms, the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, and numerous other elemental, spiritual, and aesthetic influences. Larry’s most recent work has been in collaboration with the Higher Octave Ensemble—an 8-piece group comprising seasoned improvisers, composers, bandleaders, and educators—and our conversation comes just ahead of two performances with the ensemble, on 10/25 and 10/26 in Catskill and Pine Plains. For more information, visit www.larrychernicoff.com.

Larry Chernicoff is a self-taught composer and instrumentalist, an award-winning recording artist, a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Fellowship, and a record producer. His compositions combine jazz and classical elements, composition and improvisation, and unusual instrumental colors (often with “orchestral” instruments (clarinet, bass clarinet, cello, violin, oboe, English horn, bassoon, etc.)) in addition to traditionally “jazz” instruments (saxophones, trumpet). He has written for dance, theater, and film. Whenever possible, his ensembles perform with no amplifiers or microphones. He has a strong sense that the world needs acoustic music now more than ever, so his sound is organic, acoustic and unplugged – brass, metal, wood, reed.

Miriam Atkin is a Catskills-based writer whose work concerns the possibilities of poetry as a medium in conversation with avant-garde film, music, and dance. She is cofounder of Pinsapo, an international publishing collective, and teaches writing around the Hudson Valley region, at Bard College and the Otisville Correctional Facility.

Specific Objects is a monthly freeform discussion, hosted by Miriam Atkin, that invites artists from a variety of disciplines to describe, ponder, interrogate, interpret, and celebrate their current projects. The focus is on guests who live and work in the Hudson Valley/Catskills region, though people will occasionally visit from farther afield. Tune in to learn what artists in your neighborhood are thinking and making right now.

Intro music: "Sing Out" by Joanna Mattrey