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I have family that lives in Northampton MA. The town has been touted as one of the top ten artsy towns in the country. It is about 45 minutes east of Albany, NY. It's also the center of the five sister schools including the prestigious Smith College. Smith is the last of the dying breed of one sex private schools. Smith happens to be in the center of Northampton and a lot of people stay in the area once they are done with school. Downtown has unique shops and restaurants. Great parks, hiking trails, and great mountainous scenery to boot. It's 20 minutes from the southern border of Vermont and an hour and a half from Boston and NYC. This is my recommendation if you are looking to cater to the arts.
Northampton is not 45 minutes from Albany. It could be, but you'd have to drive 150 miles an hour in order to do it! It is more like an hour-and-a-half to two hours away, assuming no traffic out of Albany at 65 to 70 mph on I-90........
Mer151, how fast do you drive? NYC is at least THREE HOURS away , assuming "normal" traffic snarls in NYC and doing 65/70 on the interstates. You could be right about Boston only being an hour-and-a-half as I have never driven directly from Boston to Northampton.
My son lives in Rochester, for about 6 years now, and graduated from RIT, good school, and is an artist. I have visited him many times, (in the Spring and Fall mostly...they have really cold and snowy winters.) I love Rochester, it has lots of shopping, WEGMANS originated there (wonderful supermarket),a very artsy downtown area, lots of colleges and artists, and very affordable housing. Even though it is spread out, the towns around the city like Scottsdale, Brighten, and Greece are nice and homey. Lots of farms too. The area of Park Avenue has great big old homes and a nice outside crowd where everyone walks their dogs.
I'd love to live there, but my husband has had enough of the cold weather, and I don't blame him/me too.
If you want to go visit there, try the LiLac Festival in May. Its lovely, and there are thousands of lilac trees all in bloom,and an art show for the weekend. I'm sure they have a web site.
and Good Luck.
Obviously because I live in Sch'dy it's the area I know most about. I wouldn't say that there is an "artist community" in any of these areas, I really just don't know. I know that there is a great appreciation for the Arts in the capital region.
With Skidmore College in Saratoga (has an Arts Dept) I'm sure there's a good group there. Skidmore was a school that I'd considered when looking for an art school. My teacher who was also a painter thought highly of the school and always took his classes there for field trips. Troy has the Arts Center of the Capital Region, see link: http://www.artscenteronline.org/
Schenectady has a working gallery for artists downtown called Working 440 State. I couldn't find the website. In the fall Sch'dy is hosting the meeting of the Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations and the State Council on the Arts. The Oakroom artist have rotating shows: http://www.oakroomartists.com/ One of Sch'dy's elementary schools is an arts magnet school, and the high school has the John Sayles School of Fine Arts w/in it's building. There is also the Hamilton Hill Arts Center, http://www.hamiltonhillartscenter.org/ (broken link).
Hi there! There is a huge art contingent in Buffalo, with the primary neighborhood being in Allentown within the city. I lived there for years and LOVED it. Such an amazing community. Many of my friends got their starts there, and are now highly successful, sought out artists out west. In Buffalo, you have the Albright Knox Art Gallery, as well as countless galleries and studios. I would definitely check it out.
Charleston SC...huge community.
Sarasota, FL..Ringling is there..big scene.
Buffalo..lots of NYC people are getting out and moving there...if you love post modern industrial blight and cheap living. Very interesting city actually.
Asbury Park NJ...growing although its still has some pretty nasty areas.
Portland ME..incredible scene.
Portsmouth NH...see portland
Providence...huge artists haven.
Charleston SC...huge community.
Sarasota, FL..Ringling is there..big scene.
Buffalo..lots of NYC people are getting out and moving there...if you love post modern industrial blight and cheap living. Very interesting city actually.
Asbury Park NJ...growing although its still has some pretty nasty areas.
Portland ME..incredible scene.
Portsmouth NH...see portland
Providence...huge artists haven.
The OP was asking about upstate NYS....and believe or not, we do have resident artists outside of the City (:
Anyways, one especially fabulous place is East Aurora (a quaint extremely artsy town between Buffalo and Rochester). Take a look at this website ----> Roycroft Campus Corporation East Aurora NY
Last edited by Fallingwater79; 07-06-2007 at 05:04 PM..
I've seen **** Jagger jogging around Skaneatles a few times. I've also heard that he and kids visit around that area often.
I did hear Hillary and Bill have a summer place there....
Last edited by Fallingwater79; 07-06-2007 at 06:27 PM..
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Art
