Lost Arts

For immediate release: (West Nyack, NY April 2026)

Lost Arts
On view April 25 – May 30, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 25, 1:00-4:00pm
Gallery Hours: Mon. – Sat. 10:00am-4:00pm (closed Sundays & Memorial Day Weekend)

Lost Arts explores contemporary artists who take the time to breathe new life into venerable art making techniques that have enriched lives for generations but are now at risk of fading away in our fast-paced digital age. Processes explored include blacksmithing, embroidery, silverpoint drawing, photogravures, quilting, wood carving, rug hooking, book arts, and cut paper.

Participating artists include Elizabeth Castaldo, Béatrice Coron, Zac Foster, Becca Josephson, James Garvey, Ruth Geneslaw, Lothar Osterburg, Mary Tooley Parker, Hyo Jeong Nam, Marsha Trattner and Richard Saja.

Ruth Geneslaw is a woodcarving artist who shapes wood into art using knives or chisels, often starting with soft woods like basswood

“My longtime interest in the sculpture of naive and outsider artists led to my own experimentation with woodcarving. Using knives and basswood, I began to construct narrative vignettes that explored social and political themes, often incorporating autobiographical elements. As my work developed over time it became edgier and resonated on different levels. I have sought to address the hypocrisy, ambivalence, contradiction and hubris of events that touch our lives.”

Mary Tooley Parker makes textile art using a time-intensive, historic rug making technique. There are no electric tools. Her basic process includes hand dyeing wool yardage, cutting it into strips, and pulling strips up through a linen foundation using a primitive, wood handled hook. Her use of additional non-traditional materials creates a densely textured but still 2-dimensional work that draws the viewer in. Though using a traditional, folk art medium, Parker’s tableaus, vivid colors, humor, detail, and wide use of new and exotic fibers give rug hooking a contemporary aesthetic and lifts her rugs off the floor to be viewed as art. Parker’s work has been exhibited internationally including New York, London, and Denmark and is held in public and private collections.

Lothar Osterburg follows in the photogravure tradition of the photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and like them he is able, through his mastery of the technique of platemaking and printing, to control with precision each step of this highly demanding process.

“The process of arriving at a final image is in itself a journey through time and space. First, Osterburg constructs and stages scale models from memory. Ranging from miniatures of no more than an inch across to dominating, the models are fashioned of readily available materials—vegetables, toothpicks, books—often rescued from dumpsters and piles of refuse on city streets…The soft focus, infinite range of velvet blacks and rich grays, the scratches and traces from the printmaking process, and the use of rough, unfinished models all work together to suspend the final image somewhere between the real and the imaginary.”

Zac Foster

I make quilts that poke around the edges of history, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves. I’ve been quilting since 2010 and it’s been life-changing. I love working with repurposed materials like discarded clothes and worn-out linens. What interests me most is how quilts can be natural containers for potentially uncomfortable truths. . . .

Quilting

Quilting is the textile craft of sewing two or more layers of fabric—typically a top layer, batting (padding), and backing—together with needles and thread to create a thicker, padded, and often decorative material. Used for both functionality (warmth) and art, it involves functional or artistic stitching to create items like bedspreads, clothing, and wall hangings.

​​Gallery Hours: Monday- Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm (closed Sundays & Memorial Day Weekend)

About Rockland Center for the Arts:

The mission of Rockland Center for the Arts is to inspire, educate and enrich the community through creating, teaching and presenting the arts, and to provide opportunities for all people to experience and participate in the cultural life of our region. RoCA is committed to the process of experiencing, responding to, creating, and presenting art. By providing a range of relevant, thought-provoking programs, RoCA engages the individual and the community through quality art experiences, while cultivating new audiences in personally meaningful ways.

For more information call 845-358-0877, or visit www.rocklandartcenter.org.

RoCA gratefully acknowledges support for its programs from the Leonard Merrill Kurz Foundation, The Rea Charitable Trust, Sarah and Stephen Thomas, The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation, M&T Bank, The M&T Charitable Foundation, The Dorothy Gillespie Foundation, Walter Cain & Paulo Ribeiro, Kantrowitz, Goldhamer & Graifman P.C., QuietEvents, the Estate of Joan Konner, Lighting Services Inc., the Mark and Jessie Milano Foundation, Zaklin Family Charitable Fund, The County of Rockland, Art Services Group, RoCA members, donors and business members.

RoCA’s programs are made possible, in part, with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Funding is also made possible by the County of Rockland.