Hastings Artist Explores the Region's Industrial Vestiges

"Someone shaved off the front of this factory and the entire empty place was totally intact. So I sat on the curb and I drew it," Eleanor Goldstein said, smiling as she recounted the story.  She has a mischievous grin that one wouldn't automatically expect from a grandmother of four.

The resulting print, a meticulous recreation of industrial glory on the wane, captures the viewer the same way the artist was herself suddenly compelled to draw the building. That a homeless man happened to venture out from the featured structure to admire her work seems only natural--

And peering intently at the image, one can see the door from behind which he emerged, and the print begs the viewer unconsciously to crane his neck to get a glimpse inside.

Eleanor Goldstein's paintings are currently on display in the Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry.  Despite her contemporary appeal, Goldstein has been painting for a very long time.

"I had to have special permission from my mother to paint the nude models," Goldstein said. 

Born in the Bronx, she has lived in Hastings-on-Hudson for 40 years. "When I first moved here, people still worked at the factory," she said. Her current exhibition, "Paintings, Prints and Pastels," is a celebration of an industrial America that was such a part of the Rivertowns for so long.

"This exhibit is fundamentally my print exhibit," Goldstein explained. "It deals with the loss of the industrial urban scene. Where once there was huge vitality and work, there is now just sort of silent icons of an industrial past."

Upstream Gallery is a cooperative exhibition space in which Goldstein is one of 23 current members. One of the oldest galleries in the area, it has been at its location on Main Street in Dobbs Ferry for 15 years, moving there four years after opening in Hastings.

Upstream Gallery features artists from nearly every medium of the fine arts, and many members have had their work shown around the world. Goldstein, a member for over 15 years, had her work displayed in the U.S. Embassy in Yemen for a time, and she was commissioned to create a mural for The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York in 1996. Sadly, her creation was destroyed five years later in the fire that swept through that historic cathedral.

Much of Goldstein's current art captures her beloved Hastings and the surrounding area. Two paintings currently on display have a particularly haunting effect on the viewer. In one, a concrete skyline of connected rooftops displays multiple levels of inaction--it looks too well defined to be real, more likely to be a theater backdrop or a child's play set than an urban landscape. Closer examination, however, reveals that the image is actually two images back to back, mirrors of each other. If the viewer blocks one image from sight, he or she may be surprised suddenly to notice the view from the parking lot behind the stationary store in downtown Hastings.

The second print is a set of the same mirror images cast in a different shading and hue that give it a more ominous feel. Goldstein delights in her viewer's discovery--

"This is the glory of prints," she said. "This drawing and this drawing are exactly the same--the same plate. And then you work the atmosphere or whatever you want, you milk it, make it talk. And sometimes the paper says, 'If you touch me again I'll kill you.'"

Patch asked Goldstein what made her choose a particular subject. Her answer: "Things have to tell stories to me." Sometimes, like with the homeless man, the creation itself becomes a story. She pointed out an image of a building on the East Side Drive. 

"I parked illegally, and I was drawing," she said. "A policeman came over to me and said 'it's illegal, how long do you plan on staying here?' And I said, 'as long as you let me.' And he let me!"

Much of the work currently on display was originally done in black and white, which Goldstein describes as "an old language being renewed," but a few choice oil paintings dot the walls as well. One particular painting of a slice of the New Jersey skyline from across the Hudson is particularly compelling.

In it, a lone building is reflected in the river, with the whole scene bathed in a golden haze. It is stark, singular, and distinct- but it didn't used to be. "This was a very large painting at one time." Goldstein admitted. "But this [smaller section] said everything I wanted it to say. In August, you have this wonderful mist--it's pollution obviously--and when you look at certain times, everything has this yellow glow. It's not the industrial grit; it's something else."

Patch also asked Goldstein what she hoped people would see in her work.

She thought a moment before answering: "I want you to care about the place you're in," she said. "Really, it has a story. There were people there before you; there will be people there after you leave. But no one is there now, except you."

"Painting, Prints and Pastels" is showing at Upstream Gallery through June 20 in the main room. At the same time, the smaller room is showing Upstream Gallery member Osamu Kato's Collage and Relief (revisited), a collection of provocative work melding the two distinct cultures at play within the artist. For information, contact Upstream Gallery at 914-674-9548 or visit http://www.upstreamgallery.com.