Set on a wooded parcel in Glenford, just outside Woodstock, “Sense of Place” uses a newly built house as both stage and subject. The exhibition, a collaboration between Available Items and Amin Tadj Studio, unfolds inside and around Ohayo Mountain House, a three-bedroom residence designed to blur the line between domestic space and the surrounding Catskills landscape. Open April 11 through May 31, the show brings together 21 artists and designers working across furniture, sculpture, ceramics, and painting, many of whom are based in or shaped by the Hudson Valley.
At its core, “Sense of Place” is less a conventional exhibition than a lived-in environment. Rather than isolating objects on pedestals, the curators have arranged works in vignettes throughout the home—on tables, along walls, in outdoor clearings—encouraging visitors to encounter them as they might in a private residence. The approach aligns with the show’s central premise: that the spaces we inhabit, and the objects we choose to live with, are inseparable from one another.
That idea is reinforced by the architecture itself. Designed by Amin Tadj Studio, Ohayo Mountain House wraps around an interior courtyard, with generous openings that draw the outdoors in from multiple directions. Its most striking feature—a sinuous, undulating roofline—echoes the surrounding mountain contours, while high-performance elements like triple-glazed windows and a thermally modified wood façade point to a broader interest in sustainable, forward-looking design. The house functions not simply as a container for the exhibition, but as an active participant in it.
The roster of participating artists and designers reflects the region’s expanding design ecosystem. Sculptor and woodworker Joshua Vogel contributes pieces rooted in traditional craft, while Katie Stout’s work merges decorative arts with conceptual play. Francesca DiMattio’s ceramics draw on historical references, layering them into hybrid forms, and Kieran Kinsella’s carved hardwood furniture occupies a space between utility and sculpture. Other contributors, including LikeMindedObjects, Jackrabbit Studio, and Swell Studio, emphasize material experimentation and process, often foregrounding the hand of the maker.
Across these varied practices, a few throughlines emerge. Many of the works foreground tactility—grain, weave, glaze, and joinery are left visible, even emphasized. There’s also a recurring interest in rethinking familiar forms: furniture that reads as sculpture, lighting that incorporates unexpected organic materials, and objects that challenge distinctions between functional and aesthetic roles. As the exhibition statement notes, the pieces are bound by “a radical sense of craft” and an interest in how materials carry meaning.
The Hudson Valley, long a magnet for artists drawn to its landscape, provides both backdrop and connective tissue. “Sense of Place” situates itself within that lineage while pointing to a more recent shift: the region’s emergence as a hub for contemporary design as well as fine art. By staging the exhibition in a private home rather than a gallery, the organizers underscore that evolution, suggesting a model of creative life that is embedded in everyday experience rather than cordoned off from it.
Public programming throughout the run—details to be announced—will further activate the space, extending the exhibition’s emphasis on dialogue and exchange. For visitors, the draw lies not just in the individual works, but in the cumulative effect: a house that doubles as a testing ground for how art, design, and architecture can coexist, and how the idea of “place” takes shape through that interaction.
