Bringing lessons of art to Crawford Park
October 17, 2024 at 12:35 a.m.
Michael Angelis believes art is an integral part of a person’s educational experience.
“Creativity is a great way for children to establish their identity and establish who they are as people,” he said. “And it builds tangible skills like problem solving and thinking outside of the box.”
It’s a sentiment that’s shared by fellow art teacher Stephanie Fiorino and retired kindergarten teacher Laurie Glockenberg.
They also share the experience of being three of the new local artists to be featured at the Port Chester Council for the Arts’ 13th annual ART10573 art show on Sunday, Oct. 20. They will join 20 other artists from the Town of Rye and beyond who will gather at the Crawford Mansion Community Center from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to share and sell their work.
According to the Port Chester Council for the Arts, it’s the largest number of participants the event has seen since its inception.
Other featured artists include Port Chester residents Emily Cook, April Dessereau, Kathy Dreves, Nora Freeman, Donna Greto, Gregory Maggi, Brenda Mattavous, Mary Tallerico and Anne Versace. They’re joined by Rye Brook resident Olivia Perrone.
Artists outside the 10573 area are: Greenwich, Conn. resident Carole Nelson, Harrison resident Eric Zoback, Mamaroneck resident Libby Denenberg, New Rochelle resident Salvador Sanchez, Ossining resident Joseph de Matteo, Peekskill resident Bella Gray, Rye resident Sophia Thilo, White Plains resident Melissa C. Lawson and Yonkers resident Steven L. Rossi.
Donna Cribari will provide musical entertainment throughout the day and pieces by the artists will be raffled off every hour to raise money for the Port Chester Council for the Arts’ Summer ArtsCamp scholarship fund.
Michael Angelis: The beauty in the ephemeral
“I think most artists end up teaching in some capacity or another,” Angelis said. “It’s something that makes sense because it’s a job that’s really secure.”
He’s been an educator for 19 years.
“I actually fell into it by accident,” he said during a conversation at his home on Westchester Avenue in Port Chester on Monday, Oct. 14.
He was hired to be a behavior technician at a school in Greenwich, Conn., where he helped a teacher implement art into a special education class after he graduated from SUNY Purchase with a degree in fine arts.
“When I started, I kind of realized that I didn’t have a clue how to actually teach art,” he said.
Angelis enrolled in the Columbia University Teachers College and became a full-time art teacher in the Fairfield Public Schools in 2005.
Though he’s entering his 20th year of teaching, Angelis never stopped working as an independent artist. He was ingrained in the art community of New Haven, Conn., where he lived for 17 years, participating in art shows and workshops as often as he could.
“It could be a little hard sometimes, because there were times when I’d come home and the creative energy just wasn’t there anymore,” he said. “But I would still put the effort into it in other ways. I’d make labels or catalogue things. I’d have to find other ways to be a productive artist.”
While he enjoyed his time in the city setting, he found himself in need of a change of scenery.
“New Haven is a great city with a lot of interesting stuff going on culturally. But after a while, as an artist, I just felt like I needed a bigger pond,” Angelis said.
He moved into his Port Chester apartment, which also serves as his art studio, in June, and has been looking for a way to instill himself in the local art scene.
The opportunity to do so arose during one of his frequent visits to Crawford Park.
Michael Angelis works on a sketch in his home studio on Westchester Avenue. HeBy David Tapia
“I have an electric car, so I spend a lot of time there,” Angelis said. “I enjoy walking around the park while I charge my car and one day, I saw the sign for (ART10573) and that was it. I applied right after that.”
Though the 47-year-old works in various mediums, including watercolors, oil painting and printmaking, he has a particular interest in depicting one specific subject: things that aren’t meant to last.
“The work always has to do with something that’s fleeting. It’s a long take on an object or a moment that is really temporal,” he explained.
Some of those subjects include sauce packets, takeout boxes and the iconic blue disposable coffee cups, with a Greek-inspired design known as the Anthora, synonymous with the hustle-and-bustle New York City lifestyle.
“I find these kinds of things so interesting because they’re packages that are made to be wanted and then very quickly discarded,” Angelis said. “It became a commentary on capitalism and aesthetics.”
His home is scattered with items that fall into that category, ranging from a glass vase full of chopsticks to a crushed Airpod he found on the street.
“I’m always saving things like these now,” he said. “I’m always on the lookout for them now.”
Angelis’ work can be found on Instagram under the username @angelis.studio. He hopes his participation in ART10573 will be his way of introducing himself to the local art community.
Stephanie Fiorino: Keeping the family close
Fiorino also became an educator for the sense of stability.
“My parents had always been supportive, but they also wanted me to be practical,” she said during a conversation in her home on Valley Terrace. “They always told me they didn’t want me to be a starving artist.”
But that’s not to say teaching wasn’t a passion of hers. She instructed at various summer camps during her time as an art student at Manhattanville University.
“I think those experiences are really what turned me towards becoming a teacher,” Fiorino said. “I found that I really liked working with kids.”
Her 19-year-long career has brought her to several school districts in the state, though she’s currently teaching in the Bronx.
She found her path to be a rewarding one and her personal interest in visual art took a backseat to her professional life.
But in 2020, tragedy brought those two worlds together.
“During the pandemic, our school lost our assistant principal to COVID,” she said. “I made a team of five or six teachers and staff and made a big mural to celebrate her life. It was a really nice healing process and it reignited my passion for painting.”
It spurred her to create a series of paintings, giving her the opportunity to practice art while getting closer to her family.
“I started painting everyone’s favorite animal,” she said. “I started with my husband’s and my son’s and then it just spread to the rest of my family.”
She found the series to be a way to challenge herself.
“There’s a lot of different textures in animals,” Fiorino explained. “And because I make them big, they have to be more detailed.”
She pointed to a painting of a bearded dragon, one of her uncle’s favorite animals, as an example.
“This one was probably the hardest one I’ve done so far,” she said. “Getting in there and painting all the tiny little scales wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but it turned out to be one of the best I’ve done because it looks like he’s popping out of the frame.”
In the nine months that she’s been working on animal portraits, she’s completed 22 paintings, but there’s one that she feels she missed out on.
“I lost my mother and I had never asked her,” Fiorino lamented. “And that really stinks. I think everyone should know silly things they can remember about their family. I think this has been a nice way of keeping the family informed about things like that.”
Retired kindergarten teacher Laurie Glockenberg of Barrett Lane shows off two of the many Hamsa depictions she’s made since taking up mosaic art classes.By David Tapia
Though she’s brought the portraits to art shows before, ART10573 will be the first time showing them off in her hometown of Rye Brook.
“I don’t have super high expectations about selling my art, but I think it will be nice to network and meet other artists,” she said. “I recently had cochlear implant surgery. Before that, I was very antisocial and kept to myself, but I think this will be nice.”
Her table will feature the animal portraits as well as smaller versions of them that are magnets. Her work can be found under the username @sfcreatureofhabit.
Laurie Glockenberg: Art’s power of healing
Though lifelong Port Chester resident Glockenberg only started taking art classes this year, she said it’s always been a part of her life.
“When I was very young, I had a good friend who had a grandfather who made art,” she recalled. “And it stuck with me, but I went into teaching.”
The Barrett Lane resident had a storied career as a kindergarten teacher, which ended in 2017 after a 34-year-long stint at King Street School.
“I always loved to bring art into the classroom,” she said. “All of my best memories of teaching involve art in some way.”
Glockenberg vividly remembers creating a life-size papier-mâché giraffe with her students.
“We used all kinds of things to make it,” she said. “I found an old table in the garbage and made the head out of a tissue box.”
Resourcefulness in the classroom is something she directly associates with mosaics.
“I’ve always thought it was the great thing about this art,” Glockenberg said. “Being able to take something and repurpose it into something beautiful.”
Though the medium had always piqued her interest, it wasn’t until a brush with cancer that she chose to act on it.
“Last year, I was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer,” she said. “I had a surgery for it in November. But the treatments were what was really difficult. That was a hard time for me.”
It was during that period she was pointed towards a spot in Mamaroneck, Wishflower Studios, that offered mosaic classes.
“My friend saw an advertisement and sent it to me, but I couldn’t go because my doctors wouldn’t let me,” Glockenberg said. “They were afraid I would get particles in my neck.”
She was given the clearance to attend in April and hit the ground running.
“I really had to learn a lot,” she said. “I had to learn about colors, cutting glass and balance. It’s not something you can do haphazardly.”
Glockenberg visits the studio at least twice a week, relishing the opportunity to learn a new skill and the peace that comes with it.
“It’s a lot to take in. But I think even after retiring, I never got over learning,” she said. “And the environment was very good for me during my recovery. It’s very calm.”
While Glockenberg has created mosaics out of a mirror, flowerpots and a table, she’s been drawn to creating them in the shapes of the Hamsa—a five-fingered hand symbolizing a sign of protection.
“I really like the message of peace and love, so that’s why I was drawn to the Hamsa,” she said. “They make really good gifts.”
It’s easy to tell they’re her favorite thing to make—she has a dozen on her mantle, each dedicated to someone in her family.
They’re what she’ll be offering at her table during ART10573.
“I’m very excited for it,” the retired educator said. “I’ve always been involved with the Port Chester Council for the Arts, but never like this.”
She’s previously served as the emcee for the raffle, calling out tickets and winners.
“But I can’t really do that anymore because of my illness,” Glockenberg said. “But I know this will be just as fun.”
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