click to enlarge Side Board. Wenge and ash. “Design is not just the way something looks. It’s how you experience it,” says renowned furniture maker Michael Puryear. “Most of us have seen furniture that looks very attractive, but when you use it, it doesn’t do what it needs to do.” Owning a piece of furniture that feels customized to your home and personal needs is something that many people rarely experience, but it’s a feeling that Puryear wants his work to elicit for every client who commissions his work. click to enlarge Bench. Bubinga and leather. Puryear’s style is striking in its elegant simplicity, yet defies categorization. He draws on Scandinavian and Shaker design and African culture, and often uses contrasting wood
Big Joe Fitz
As these April showers continue to prep us for those May flowers, a transitional spring mix of virtual and in-real-life events continues to bloom all around us.
Unison Arts Reopens for New Season | April 16
Let’s hear it for first and safe steps. New Paltz’s integral Unison Arts center recently announced its return to in-person events programming this month. The 2021 season kicks off with a limited-attendance (30 guests), Unison members-only indoor concert by local blues kings Big Joe Fitz and the Lo-Fi’s on April 16 at 7pm; a members-only Chilean wines tasting takes place on April 17. From there, Unison’s outdoor stage begins welcoming public audiences (60 persons maximum; advance ticket purchase required), commencing with a swing dance featuring the Bernstein Bard Trio on April 24 at 5pm. Tickets are $15.
click to enlarge If you really want to blow all your money while being blown away by craftsmanship, the biannual Field + Supply event in Kingston is your golden ticket. The craft fair was founded in 2014 by high-end interior designer Brad Ford, whose weekend place in Accord led him to explore the area and find a long and varied list of beloved places and makers. In the past six years, the event’s vendor roster has grown to include textile makers, woodworkers, ceramicists, botanists, vintage curators, craft beverage makers, and just about any other artisanal good you can think of, from both near and far.
(June 21–July 22)
Last Quarter Moon in Capricorn on April 4 summons thoughts of the road not taken and regrets around missed opportunities. New Moon in Aries energizes your professional life; First Quarter Moon in Leo reconsiders financial agreements from the end of December, as values and priorities have shifted since then. The Full Supermoon in Scorpio on April 26 resurrects the Ghost of True Love Past. If you allow that door to open, you ll be watching reruns of your own previously cancelled episodes of the Love Boat during Pluto s retrograde from April 27 through early October. Might the ending change this time around?
Noa Jones is the founder of Middle Way School, an independent progressive school in Saugerties.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. At one point in June of 2020, not long after George Floyd s murder, a parent suggested that we change the language of a Buddhist prayer that has been recited around the globe for millennia. It means
may all beings be happy and free. Every morning at the Middle Way School, our students are invited to open their hearts, summon up their best wishes, and send good vibes out to the world while reciting it in Sanskrit. It s a universal sentiment. You may have chanted it in yoga class.