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julietlofarophoto · 5 years

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Kate McGloughlin

Juliet: What brought you to Woodstock?

Kate: “Well Julie, I bloomed where I was planted! I grew up about 12 miles from Woodstock in Olivebridge, New York. My family has been in Ulster County for twelve generations. Yeah, my ancestor Kit Davis was the first white settler in Ulster County . So that family line has been here. My dad was donkey Irish—he only got here in the 20th century. I grew up in Olivebridge and Woodstock is where I came to parties with people like Chris Lofaro and Greg Baldinger! I had good friends from Woodstock and once I got to Onteora, that whole world opened up to me.

Juliet: What is your first memory of Woodstock?

Kate: I think one of the Memorial Day Parades. We used to come over here as kids. We’d do our parade, and sometimes we came to Woodstock.

My mom worked at Carey’s Deli in the 40’s during the war so she had friends over here … and we were always at Lasher’s. Sorry, I know that’s a crazy thing to talk about but that’s where all our people have been waked, and cared for...

So my earliest memories would have to be a Memorial Day Parade or Mr. Boyd at a funeral at Lasher’s

Juliet: Yes, one of my first realizations was when I was around thirty coming up to a funeral there. To look around and see all the people that he knew that I knew from all these different parts of life here in Woodstock and to notice that wow, it’s a real community.

Kate: It is a great community and people don’t talk about it enough, but it’s a huge center of our culture here. I mean, I’ve been to every kind of funeral there is, but, like, some of the old country funerals – and Kenny Peterson is great at it, he knows who’s related to whom— the people and their communities come together for a service for somebody. My brother’s funeral for instance: there were about five hundred people there that night. I must have hugged about four hundred people. They just kept coming in and coming in. There were townspeople, there were school people, all kinds of different community members.

Juliet: What has changed since you’ve been here?

Kate: Oh, everything. Woodstock used to be a great place to drink. You could start at Deanie’s and end up at the “Depresso” (Juliet cracks up) or the Watering Troff. I mean, really you could just park your car and (with hand gestures and sound effects of a pinball) Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! Deanie’s and then Christy’s and up to the Lake, over to the Pub, then probably to the Café Espresso, and I would always end up at the Pinecrest Lodge. That was the ’70’s. There was great music all the time. Although that’s happening here again now, I don’t think music really went away, but music in the streets was really happening then.

I knew more people from Woodstock and from here in the old days. I don’t know hardly anybody unless they’ve been here for generations or they’re here at the art school or like yourself, someone who I went to school with. I just don’t know where to meet these people. They know my name because of the school or my work. I miss the small town aspect of it. It doesn’t feel like that so much to me anymore. I also miss being able to take a half hour lunch break and being able to get a sandwich and get out in the half hour. You can rarely do that anymore. Taking a left in Woodstock on a Saturday, it’s like, nuts. It’s like that! I’m used to knowing everybody in town and I just don’t any more. Do you see that? Juliet: For me, moving back, there are faces that I’ve always seen and I’m just now getting to know. And families that I met when I was here briefly ten years ago were new arrivals who I am just getting to know through our kids. Last summer I did a project with over twenty locals that I’d never come across before.

Kate: Oh there are great new people who’ve assimilated. Especially when artists or musicians come to town we get to know them right away, and it’s great. In my town, the Town of Olive, there’s Krumville people, West Shokan people, and Olivebridge people. Oh he’s a Bearsville guy, he’s a Zena guy, he’s a Wittenberg guy. She’s a Glasco Girl. That kind of stuff. People identify me with Woodstock probably because of the school, but I’ve never lived here.

Juliet: When was the first time you took a class here?

Kate: 1991. January 18th. I came in for a four-week class and I never left.

Juliet: Really?

Kate: I was working at the Woodstock Youth Center. I was Assistant Director and loved it. I was having a great time. I was working for the town, but I was really missing making art. The mother of one of my charges became a friend. Joyce Washor. She said “you should really take a class over at the school.” The next day the Woodstock Times came out and their little ad appeared. I’d never gotten to take an etching class in college. Robert Angeloch was teaching it and it was just the two of us for a couple of weeks. Other people joined but it wasn’t a popular class. We did things the old-fashioned way here. It wasn’t any kind of contemporary printmaking medium. It was really old school. That’s what I wanted. I love to draw. That was the beginning of everything shifting for me. Within two years, I was here full time.

Juliet: What’s your title here?

Kate: I’m the President now. (Kate has since become President Emeritus)

Juliet: (Giggling at the fact that I should have known this coming in) You’re the President.

Kate: Yeah. BUT, I mean, I was a student, and then I ran out of money and I got on scholarship and then they ran out of money. I became a work exchange student, where you could take a class for three hours and then work for three hours. They saw they couldn’t get rid of me so they gave me a job and I worked as a registrar for $5 an hour. This was 1993 or four. Before that, I started teaching here because one of the teachers didn’t show up one time. It was actually this class, The Monotype Workshop. I had taken it a couple of times and so they said, “Could please you fill in?”. And I said “Sure!” That was 1993 so I must have started working in the office in ’94 because I taught before I worked in the office. I’ve done everything here. I was the maintenance girl. They let me do everything, let’s put it that way. I patched this roof, I mowed the lawn, cleaned the studio like crazy. They gave me every opportunity there was here.

Juliet: That’s amazing.

Kate: Oh yeah. The only position I haven’t held is bookkeeper and treasurer. Mara always took care of the books and now we have a professional because we need one. But I was the Registrar and sort of Assistant Director, Instructor and Student. I’ve done most everything you can think of to do here.

Juliet: I think it’s also particularly great if you’re the president to know…what it’s like…

Kate: Every aspect, what everybody is up against. That’s exactly right. I have total empathy when they are trying to park cars, or trying to deal with frozen pipes or sidewalks or gutters and leaves.

Juliet: What’s your favorite thing about Woodstock?

Kate: I love that it feels like a cosmopolitan town in a beautiful rural setting. I mean these mountains, the trees, the streams that hold us. The landscape is the thing for me, all the cultural events— and yet, we had to stop getting the paper because it gives us anxiety. There’s so many phenomenal things to do.

Juliet: (laughing) I saw Sarah in town on Saturday and she said that!

Kate: Was she freaking out!?

Juliet: I had friends with me visiting for their first time and she was handing out cards for the show with Dion. She told them she can’t get the paper because even without looking at it, your calendar is full.

Kate: She told you that? Yeah, that’s our story! We have tickets to so many things. Any particular weekend you can do theater, live music, performance, visual arts..you can also do the drumming circle (the only thing in a woodstock that starts on time!) But after a work week, all I want to do is stay the hell home and sit in my hammock and play ukulele. That everything is at our fingertips is amazing to me. There’s still expansive fields where you can get space. The reservoir itself is a great muse for me. I love the culinary thing that’s happening since we were kids. Remember there used to be three restaurants? Now you can get practically anything you want whenever you want. I guess, to contradict myself, you can get that old town feeling—especially at funerals—or if I go up to the town offices or if I’m in a store and run into somebody from one of the old families. That feels great to me.

And again, the ongoing music that’s been happening since we were kids. I love what Amy Helm is doing, and Simi, Mike and Ruthy, Connor Kennedy, I mean, come on! It’s just really happening here.

Juliet: It’s why I came back. All those elements.

Kate: Is that right?! The Artist Association, and the school. I would never live in a place that wasn’t an artist colony in some respect, or a place with pockets of artists left and right. I need to be with my people for sure. Woodstock is a place where you literally can run around like this (points to paint spattered clothing) and they understand. You just came from the print shop and you look like this! It’s important to me because I’m always working and I don’t always have time to change into some other get up to get somewhere. I feel like that’s another thing. I’ve always loved how the – what is the word? Open mindedness? Accepting? There is a liberalism, in the old sense of the word. Where people are open to different ideas. I appreciate that about Woodstock.

Check out Kate’s website for a glance into her dynamic work and beautiful writing: https://www.katemcgloughlin.com

#woodstocktownspeople woodstockny katemcgloughlin artist painter townsperson ulstercounty hudsonvalley catskills julietlofraro

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