Hillsdale Workshop Alliance Announces Workshop Weekend in June

Hillsdale Workshop Alliance
PO Box 360, Hillsdale, NY 12529
www.TheWorkshopExperience.org

For Immediate Release
Contact: Matthew White / mwhite@whitewebb.com

Hillsdale Workshop Alliance announces dates for the 4th Annual THE WORKSHOP EXPERIENCE WEEKEND

June 8-9, 2024

Hillsdale, NY (January 18, 2024) – The Hillsdale Workshop Alliance, a group of local businesses, creators and non-profits who produce and present experiential workshops, has announced the fourth annual Workshop Experience Weekend to take place June 8^th and 9^th. The event will feature a weekend packed with 30+ workshops & classes on a wide variety of topics, plus two open gardens, plant sales and more.

This year’s festival will see the return of fan favorites such as two open gardens of Margaret Roach and garden designer Peter Bevacqua, cooking classes at HGS Home Chef, floristry workshops at Tiny Hearts Flower Shop, and fiber workshops at Nobletown Fiber Works. Taconic Ridge Farm will be offering a variety of classes including a choral workshop, a country swing dance, writing workshop, illustration and more.

This year also welcomes new member Paul Ricciardi, co-director of the Ancram Center for the Arts. He, along with husband and co-director Jeff Mousseau, has created and/or produced 8 years of ground-breaking performances. Paul is the creator and Director of ACA’s Real People Real Stories (RPRS), a program that utilizes a unique approach to support community members in sharing compelling, personal narratives, which is now being utilized by the Taconic Hills Central School District as part of the Elementary School writing curriculum.

The Hillsdale Workshop Alliance curates and presents experiential learning in a wide variety of creative fields in and around Hillsdale at their annual Workshop Experience Weekend, and through their website TheWorkshopExperience.org. Whether the instructors are local experts, or visiting makers/instructors, the result is high quality workshops presented in beautiful settings that can be enjoyed by local audiences and visitors alike. Most of the events of the weekend festival are held along the Taconic Ridge in Hillsdale, Copake and Ancram NY.

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Hillsdale Workshop Alliance Members:

Margaret Roach, a leading garden writer for 30 years at Martha Stewart Living, Newsday and in three books since April 2020. She’s a garden columnist for The New York Times where she began her journalism career decades ago. Margaret hosts a public-radio podcast, lectures and holds tours at her 2.3 acre Hudson Valley garden. She says no to chemicals and yes to great plants

Matthew White is an interior designer, author, preservationist and antiquarian. He is also the owner, creator, and proprietor of two businesses in the hamlet of Hillsdale NY – Hillsdale General Store – a country lifestyle shop, and HGS Home Chef, a kitchen store with two teaching kitchens where he produces cooking classes lead by acclaimed chefs and cookbook authors. Both shops are housed within restored buildings within Hillsdale’s National Historic District.

Jenny Elliott and Luke Franco of Tiny Hearts Farm—are farmers, not florists, first. They are committed to being growers of an ever-wider palette of high-quality, healthy-for-the-land, healthy-for-people flowers at their farm in the Hudson Valley. They also have a flower shop in Hillsdale NY with a workroom where they create flowers for weddings and events, provide the public with CSA bouquets and teach workshops on all aspects of practical and creative floristry.

Jim and Pam Carden own and operate Taconic Ridge Farm and Forgather, event and hospitality properties in Hillsdale.  Jim also owns The Bell House, Union Hall and Floyd in Brooklyn and Pam manages the business affairs department for NYC advertising agency Merkley + Partners.  Natives of Kentucky and Iowa, they feel so at home in Hillsdale and are inspired by all the beauty and creativity in the area. 

Mark Holthusen, a visual artist and a Reno native, is best known for creating images that push boundaries, in a career spanning photography, motion, theater and digital innovation. His work has been lauded by “Communication Arts,” “Graphis,” “American Photography,” and “PDN,” and he has won IPA Photographer of the Year for both advertising and music. In 2017, he began revitalizing Springhill Farm, deep within a valley in Hillsdale, transforming it into an event space and vacation rental. The site has a long local history, including an extant 1760s Dutch barn.

Aubrey Lynch, recently named Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs at American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, looks forward to his regular weekend getaways in the Hillsdale area. A former principal with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and original cast member and former associate producer of “The Lion King,” Aubrey has been Chief Education and Creative Programs Officer at the prestigious Harlem School of the Arts. His philosophy: “The arts aren’t extracurricular; they’re extra-essential.”

Paul Ricciardi who is co-director of the Ancram Opera House. At AOH, he, along with husband and co-director Jeff Mousseau, has created and/or produced 8 years of ground-breaking performances.  Paul is the creator and Director of AOH’s Real People Real Stories (RPRS), a program that utilizes a unique approach to support community members in sharing compelling, personal narratives, which is now being utilized by the Taconic Hills Central School District as part of the Elementary School writing curriculum.