This inaugural artist's residency is a Hudson Valley partnership, hosted by Goshen Green Farm --a working permaculture farm dedicated to arts programming, to intersections between eco/social justice, to things done & made, & harvested by hand in Orange County NY.

Funds raised at the door during the Cocktails & Candlelight soirée on August 8th, held in an historic copper roofed barn--provide necessary support for Artist- in- Residence, Jena Argenta, to create new works & affordable community programming & to help found the residency program itself-- generously hosted & inspired by Susan Hillary, GGF owner.

Todd Hulet, Executive Director of the Arts Council, has generously agreed to perform piano in the early hour of the event- 7:15-7:45pm --appearing not in his formal role, but (generously) as a multi-disciplinary, practiced, & beautiful artist himself.

Cash bar.

Light mediterranean eats made by Argenta.

Sunset bonfire 8pm

Suggested donation $5-$50 Please pay what you can. While this event is a soft fundraiser, we aim to keep it accessible.

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Jena Argenta is a graduate from Leadership Orange & is from a family of artists & entrepreneurs. She is an advocate for local artists & small businesses & is dedicated to creating thriving, mutually supportive communities where more than one voice lives. For her, relationships are key. For this reason-- this launch, fund, & soirée owe a lovey debt of gratitude to: Susan Hillary, Merry McLoryd, Todd Hulet, Brotherhood Winery, High Withers Liquor Store in Goshen, Wallkill River Center for the Arts for frames, & Smart Mobile Notary-- the international notary & signing business founded by Melissa Mendez-- who has been an amazing support for this project across the board.

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The silent auction-- Legacy/Works-- runs Thursday--Sunday-- offering time for intentional, considered participation. It is available to those who can't attend the event & to those out of state/ country. It encompasses nearly 50 works of Argenta & of her parents-- offered at a discount, one-time only. Her goal is to create an unrestricted fund for artists brave enough to excavate & transform their own legacies while solidifying ways to pass this on. Application process & community committee review are expected to open in 2027.

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Between the lines of this show & event, there is another, art-historical, legacy in conversation. Argenta's father, Ron, was a high-fire ceramicist who built a kiln from scratch in the back yard. Her mother, Vicky, was a sculptor who poured the molten bronze for sculptures herself. Her sketches are what'a presented here-- with the hope of eventually funding bronze for some of her numerous molds. Argenta's parents made beauty from dust, mud, fire. Jena adds to this language, poem, water (ink), light, empty space & wood (paper, reed spline, carved tools).

Legacy/ Works is also an invitation to see art categories anew--- looking forward, looking back. Legacy/Works seeks to quietly rethink demarcations of craft & fine art, of the elitism in figurative work that, while true, can leave out a practiced eye that has no other goal than to see better, deeper, into a shared humanity. Calligraphic, seemingly abstract, spontaneous, or intuitive works provide a counterpoint & take on another lens when seen in this context of discipline & play. They call into question easy tropes in Abstract American Expressionism, which, at one point, were CIA sponsored projects during the Cold War. These projects stressed individualism as freedom, leaving out the communal, the intergenerational. They emphasized mark making as an innocent line; leaving out how many of the most prominent artists in this school were inspired by global calligraphic traditions--- traditions that each have nuanced varieties of play & discipline inside of them alongside generations of devotion, passed hand to hand. Love is round.

If one part of of legacy is reckoning; her other name is love. There is maybe no better place to honor her than on a farm built to do just that. This event is a uniquely Orange County/ HV experience that has wonderfully wide implications for art in general.

May you enjoy the experience-- here digitally on the Auction Tab, or in person on Friday the 8th.

Legacy isn't just what's passed to us---It's the work done to pass something on.

Thank you so much for your support.

Legacy/Works

Artist's Residency Launch at Goshen Green Farm & Legacy/Works Project