January 17 - February 28, 2026

The Olive Free Library Association is very pleased to present the exhibition S-AGE showcasing 11 artists whose works are focused on the elderly or the journey of aging. The show, curated by Carla Shapiro will run from January 17 through February 28, 2026 with an opening reception on Saturday, January 17 from 3 – 5 pm.

Carla Shapiro says about this exhibition, "What is aging? Not simply the act of growing old, but the art of becoming—layer by layer—someone truer, steadier, and more whole. And what is spirituality but the deepening of that becoming, the inner practice that gives meaning to each layer time adds? And what is sage? More than a plant, more than a person—sage is what emerges when age and spirit mature together. Wisdom is not produced by years alone, nor by spirituality alone, but by their union.

“Spirituality and aging converge to create S-AGE: the understanding that time is not our enemy, but our sculptor. When the years pass through us and the spirit wakes within us, we become like sage—fuller in spirit, richer in insight, and able to offer something cleansing, grounding, and sacred to the world.

“Included in S-AGE are the works by Lori Beitler, Nancy Drew, Janette Kahil, Tatana Kellner, Kay Kenny, Donald O'Finn, Andreas Rentsch, Elise Gold Sewall, Carla Shapiro, Janet Siskind, and Frank Tagariello.”

Artist Bios:

  • Lori Beitler is a contemporary fiber artist whose quilts unite traditional craftsmanship with modern improvisation. With a background in architectural design from Syracuse University, she highlights the tactile beauty of seam lines, using bold solid colors to balance structure and spontaneity. Inspired by design, horticulture, and nature, her work transforms fabric into narratives of place and memory. A member of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) and Surface Design Association (SDA), Lori Beitler has exhibited with the Modern Quilt Guild (MQG) since 2019. Based in Vermont, she continues to explore color, form, and texture. Her work, "Threads of Memory", is an exploration of intimacy, inheritance, and the quiet poetry of everyday objects. Using her father's shirts as the textile, each garment is deconstructed and reimagined into an artwork that holds traces of presence and absence.

  • Nancy Drew was born in NYC. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Chelsea Museum of Art, Artists Space, Exit Art, Roebling Hall, White Box, NYC; as well as Real Art Ways, Hartford CT; Albright College, Reading, PA; Musee D'Art Contemporain, Nimes, France; and the Kyrgyzstan National Fine Arts Museum, Kyrgyzstan Republic. Drew has been written about in Art Forum, New York Times, TimeOut NY, Village Voice, Partisan Review, Brooklyn Rail, M Magazine, and Bust. When she's not living and painting in Rosendale, NY, she travels to animal sanctuaries worldwide to help take care of endangered monkey populations.

  • A West Shokan native, Janette Kahil creates artwork inspired by the region's rich history, natural beauty, and the people who shape it. Primarily working in oil and pastel, she brings a versatile approach to her subjects, resulting in pieces that are both expressive and grounded in a strong sense of place. Janette is a member of the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, Olive Free Library Exhibition Committee, and the Olive Adult Art Group. Through her involvement in these organizations, she continues to support and strengthen the local arts community. janettekahil.com

  • Tatana Kellner's work is rooted in social issues. She has been exhibited in numerous venues across USA, Canada, and Europe, and she has had over 50 solo exhibitions. Kellner is a co-founder and past artistic director of Women's Studio Workshop. Currently she's active in D.R.A.W., an artist community that helps to solve problems, and builds relationships across barriers to cultivate community through shared artistic expression, communication, and appreciation. In 2021 she was inducted into the Hall of Champions, North American Hand Papermakers. Kellner is a recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Pollock Krasner Foundation, The Creative Climate Award, Puffin Foundation, Photographer's Fund Award (CPW), New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and many others. Kellner has also been awarded many fellowship residencies. She was born in the Czech Republic, and immigrated to USA in 1969. tatanakellner.com

  • Kay Kenny received her BFA from Syracuse University, MA from Rutgers University, and MFA from Syracuse University (all in Visual Arts). She is a painter and a photographer, and writes art critiques and articles for arts magazines. Kenny was a photography teacher for over thirty years at New York University, and the International Center of Photography in New York City. She has received several awards, and her work has been show in numerous one-person shows. Her work is included in several notable corporate, museum, and private collections, and has been published in many books and magazines. Kenny says about her work in S-AGE, “Old Age Comes to Sheep:” “In our rural landscape, farm animals, creatures domesticated for our consumption or use for thousands of years, thus our responsibility for their care and well-being, are too often abandoned, neglected, or live out lives intolerable to imagine. The animals photographed here are rescue animals living out their lives in places like the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary. Unlike their fellow sheep they are enjoying the process of growing old in a safe and nurturing environment.” kaykenny.com

  • In 1989 Donald O'Finn graduated with an MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. He has shown his work from coast to coast, particularly in San Francisco and Manhattan, as well as various locations overseas, including London and China. Trained as a painter, he operates with all the instincts of a Bay Area expressionist figure painter, and considers his videos much more akin to painting and poetry than to film and TV. O'Finn thinks of himself as an “outsider artist.” Since 1983 he has been making art with multiple VCR players (and later very basic video editing software) collecting and cross-editing everything of interest he can get his hands on. The generally obscure source material is common to VHS tapes, old TV shows, reality shows, monster movies, silent films, 70s and 80s TV commercials, old trailers, etc. donaldofinn.com

  • Andreas Rentsch received a BFA from Les Ecoles d'Arts Appliqués in Vevey, Switzerland, and an MFA in Studio Art from Stony Brook University. He spent the first 18 years of his lifeon a prison compound where his father was the warden and where daily interactions with convicts were common. These visual and real-life experiences nurtured a sense of empathy in him for the human condition that has been a guiding force in his life as well as his work. Andreas Rentsch's work has been exhibited worldwide, including a solo exhibition at the Musée de l’Elysée in Switzerland. His images are in many museum collections, and he is a recipient of two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships and two grants from the Polaroid Corporation. The photography magazine Aperture published one of his portfolios. Additionally, numerous books and magazines have published his work, such as "The Polaroid Project", a book published as part of a world-wide nine-museum exhibition of artists who have used Polaroid film in their work. He taught at the International Center of Photography, Stony Brook University, and St. John's University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Photography at Lycoming College and the Chair of the Art Department. andreasrentsch.com

  • Born and raised in the northeast, Sewall spent years as a fine jewelry designer in NYC, Asia, and Europe. She won multiple awards for her work including a Mikimoto pearl design award. Contemporary realistic painting was always her primary interest and by the 2000s it became her total focus. Light, color, and reflection are the key areas Sewall explores in her paintings. Simply composed, unassuming moments become fascinating and beautiful. Her colors are often saturated and bright reflecting the light in Southwest Florida where she now lives. Educated at Rhode Island School of Design, Michigan State University, and Arts Students League in NYC she has been featured in solo shows and group shows both nationally and internationally, and has won multiple awards for her work. elisegoldsewall.com

  • Carla Shapiro was born in Manhattan and received a BFA in design from Syracuse University. She is now a photographer and educator based in the Catskill Mountains, NY. Her photographic projects explore loss and longing, memory and nostalgia, womanhood and aging. She employs the use of alternative equipment, processes, and materials, such as platinum printing, the wet-plate collodion process, and pinhole and Holga cameras. Shapiro was an Associate Professor in the graduate department at Pratt Institute. She has received many notable awards, including two Arts Mid- Hudson Arts and Culture grants, The New York Council for the Arts, and three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. Her work is included in permanent collections in the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The New York Public Library, and Center for Photography at Woodstock. carlashapiro.com

  • Janet Siskind is a native New Yorker, and the urban landscape frequently appears in her paintings and prints. Siskind wanted to be an artist since childhood. However Siskind met an anthropologist, and after much study this fascinating profession became hers as well. She did fieldwork in the Amazon, worked with Navajos to document the underreported Church Rock nuclear disaster, visited Tanzania and Russia, and studied the transition from trade to industrialism in New England. Siskind wrote papers and two books, and enjoyed teaching for 35 years at Rutgers University. She still wanted to be an artist so she found time to take figure drawing at the Spring Street Studio and painting classes at the Art Students League. Siskind retired in 2003 with the intention of fully engaging in painting, and quickly had the luck of finding the Woodstock School of Art. She has been there ever since working in landscape, portraits, and printmaking. Siskind had a solo show of her prints at the Storefront Gallery in Kingston, and her work has been shown in many group exhibitions.

  • Brooklyn-born photographer Frank Tagariello began his career in 1978. After graduating from Pratt Institute, he worked as an art director and travel photographer at Travel & Leisure magazine. Tagariello is an award-winning creative director living in NYC. His photographs have appeared in the American Photography annuals. In January 2025 he was part of the Olive Free Library's Multiplicity: Together and Apart exhibition where his "Chelsea Market Handmaids" photo appeared on the January 2025 cover of Chronogram magazine. instagram.com/frankmtag

The Olive Free Library has created a platform to show and sell the art of regional artists, both established and emerging. This provides art enthusiasts a way to view, appreciate, and purchase local and regional artworks. The rural town of Olive does not have a cultural center, so the library converted its spacious, light community room into a gallery space. The response from both artists and the community has been overwhelmingly positive.

S-AGE
Exhibition Dates: January 17 – February 28, 2026
Opening: Saturday, January 17, 2026, 3 – 5 pm