Art Exhibit: "Toile Interrupted" by Richard Saja

This exhibition continues an ongoing collaboration between Wassaic Project and Troutbeck, rooted in a shared commitment to supporting artists, fostering public engagement, and advancing cultural exchange in the Hudson Valley. Together, both institutions have cultivated a space where contemporary art, history, education, and community are brought into active conversation, extending the legacy of creative and civic exchange that has defined both places. "My enduring love and fascination for textiles derives from the absolutely unlimited interplay of pattern, color, and texture. There is no other medium where this trinity is so fully realized. I came up with the embellished toile concept while waking from sleep many years ago. The original idea was to embroider Maori facial tattoos onto figures in a toile de Jouy print, but I soon discovered there were none available where that concept could be realized successfully because of the relatively small scale of nearly all toile de Jouy prints. I thus amended the concept slightly to include any and all surface embellishment. Historically, Toile de Jouy is a print that through its dense repetition becomes anonymous. It's a tabula rasa begging for context not unlike a child's coloring book. The act of selectively embellishing small areas of it automatically inverts its historical usage: suddenly the anonymity of the print is broken and it evolves through its subversion, which appeals greatly to me. With an economy of means, a whole new context is created. There is another story there, it just needs to be drawn out." — Richard Saja Richard Saja is an artist making work in Catskill, New York. After first attending the University of the Arts in Philadelphia to study surface design, he devoted his studies to the great books of Western Civilization at St. Johns College in Santa Fe, NM and received a BA as a math and philosophy major. After a brief stint working as an art director on Madison Avenue, all his interests coalesced and a small design firm, Historically Inaccurate Decorative Arts, was born in the early aughts. Though he occasionally feels the need to explore avenues of expression beyond that of the needle, the majority of Saja's work focuses on creating "interferences" of the formal patterns of french toile and tapestry through embroidery. He has exhibited internationally with shows in New York, Paris, London, as well as the MFA Boston, the National Museum of Embroidery in South Korea and the Musee de la Toile de Jouy in Paris. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Shelburne Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art. GLOWMAN, 2022 Embroidery on toile, 20 in x 20 in HIM AGAIN, 2015 Cotton and rayon floss on linen, 33 in x 39 in NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN, 2023 Rayon embroidery on linen toile, 18 in x 22 in The Wassaic Project is a contemporary arts institution that has been a cornerstone of upstate New York’s cultural landscape since 2008, fostering positive social change through art and education. It brings together emerging artists and local communities through world-class contemporary art exhibitions, vital education and public programs, and a highly regarded year-round artist residency program. Based in the historic Maxon Mills—an 8,000-square-foot, seven-story former grain elevator transformed into a vibrant arts space—the Wassaic Project serves as a dynamic incubator for new voices in contemporary art. Since its founding, it has welcomed more than 45,000 visitors, 1,200 artists, 145 musicians, 52 dance companies, and 38 filmmakers. Annual programming includes the residency, monthly open studios, ten major community events, and three exhibitions. Its arts education programs reach more than 1,000 students each year through after-school art clubs, summer camps, mentorship opportunities, and the free family drop-in space, the Art Nest, open every Saturday from 12–5 PM. The residency program and exhibitions give emerging artists time and space to experiment and grow their practices. In recent years, Wassaic Project artists have gone on to exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA, the New Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Bronx Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, the International Center of Photography, MASS MoCA, and many others. The Wassaic Project’s programs are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, A G Foundation, Arison Arts Foundation, Arts Mid-Hudson, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Dutchess County's Department of Community and Family Services, Dyson Foundation, Foundation for Community Health, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation's Frankenthaler Climate Initiative, Low Road Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, P