The Catskill Mountain Artisans' Guild presents "Catskill Arts & Air," an open-air art series at the Pakatakan Farmers' Market in Halcosttsville every Saturday throughout the summer.

The regional farmers at the market, which is held at the historic Round Barn, will joined each week by local artists, writers and musicians.

The festival-like series is an added bonus to the great bounty, creativity and atmosphere that the Pakatakan Farmers Market already offers our community and visitors.

The events schedule includes:

Saturday, July 3
Debb Rendo will be demonstrating how to carve and paint wood to create folk art from 10 a.m. -12 noon on as the first of ten artist demonstrations scheduled this summer at the Pakatakan Farmers Market, Route 30, Halcottsville. Rendo, who creates her own hand-carved, painted pine original "Folk Art" patterns is the opening event of "Catskill Arts & Air," an open-air series of art, music, and literary events each Saturday this summer at the market.

Saturday, July 10
"Catskill Arts & Air" presents a writers tour featuring Dr. Robert Titus, who will lead a journey through Dry Brook to explore the geological vestiges of the flood still carved in the landscape. Participants will meet at 9 a.m. at the Pakatakan Farmers Market, Route 30, Halcottsville. All tours leave the market at 10 a.m. and return by 2 p.m. Hikers should pack a lunch, water and gear necessary for the forecast.

Also that day, Nat Thomas, a member of both the Longyear Gallery and the Catskill Mountain Artisans' Guild, will show the dying techniques he uses to create his vibrant fabrics. The demonstration will be held from 10 a.m.-noon.

Saturday, July 17
Martha Bremer will demonstrate traditional basket weaving and some caning techniques from 10 a.m.-noon at the market. Bremer, a master basket weaver has been mostly self taught for the past 25 years and her present focus is on traditional and functional styles.

Saturday, July 24
A writers' tour takes participants to the Halcott Center Grange to meet Don Bouton, a man who has treasured farming as away of life for more than eight decades. This event begins at 9 a.m. at the market. Hear stories of growing up on a Halcott Center farm in the 1920s and '30s that inspired Donald¹s first book, By the Light of the Kerosene Lantern. Bouton will also read excerpts from his new book, Cow Tales and Farm Life in the Catskills, due to be published in December, which was inspired by the farm he and his wife Shirley Woolheater bought in the 1940s, and their life there. The tour leave the market at 10 a.m. and return by 2 p.m.

Artist Demonstrations continue this week from 10 a.m.- noon as Carlyle Bradford who works with her hands employing one of nature's oldest forms of ceramics concrete. Her demonstration will feature how she is inspired by nature and molds this organically mixed stony material into functional pieces of home and garden sculpture.

Saturday, July 31
Artist Robin Bruck-Tanner of Loving Earth Studio will show how she creates her distinctive pottery on from 10 a.m.-noon at the market. She will demonstrate the potter¹s wheel and some of the methods used to activate the surface of the clay with texture.

Saturday, Aug. 7
Explore the villages "lost" to the reservoir system with Mary Sive, author of Lost Villages: Historic Driving Tours in the Catskills, starting at 9 a.m. at the market., Route 30, Halcottsville as part of this weeks "Catskill Arts & Air" writers event. Travel with Mary to see remnants of villages now under the Pepacton Reservoir. Visit the Pepacton Cemetery, where many of the 2,000 grave remains from "lost villages" are re-interred. The tour leaves the market at 10 a.m. and return by 2 p.m. Author signed books will be available. Pack a lunch, water, and gear necessary for the forecast.

Back at the market, Becky Nielsen will demonstrate her unique painted river rocks from 10 a.m.-noon. She began painting river rocks just eight years ago and enjoys hunting for the right stones, ones that have been naturally sculpted and offer hints of the final outcome.

Saturday, Aug. 14
The art of carding, spinning and weaving will be showcased as Mountain Yarns presents a "Sheep to Shawl" demonstration from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wild and Wooly Women' will be on hand with their looms "dressed," spinning wheels greased and piles of fiber ready to go. A shawl-length cloth will be created in just one afternoon. Visitors can watch the demonstration or card some wool or spin on a spinning wheel and learn what it takes to make cloth. Also meet some of the "wooly" animals that provide fleece and yarn.

Also at the market from 10 a.m.-noon, Barbara English will demonstrate how glass work is created from start to finish. Barbara will show the design stage, using various techniques , to glass cutting and preparation of the layered piece for the first kiln firing, to the intermediate firing and completion of a piece of artwork.

Saturday, Aug. 21
Enjoy a moderately easy and scenic four-mile hike through Kelly Hollow with David and Carol White, starting at 9 a.m. at the Pakatakan Farmers Market, Route 30, Halcottsville at the final writer¹s tour of the "Catskill Arts & Air" open air arts series. Carol and David White, authors of Catskill Day Hikes for All Seasons and editors of Catskill Trails will lead hikers on trails through Kelly Hollow which offer a scenic variety of forest and terrain, beautiful streams and waterfalls. Pack a lunch, water, and gear necessary for the forecast.

Artist demonstrations continue at the market from 10 a.m.-noon with Val Wells demonstrating the art of paper marbling. She will exhibit the process by floating paint on a surface of viscous liquid, move the floating paint with rakes and combs to draw patterns, and transfer these designs to paper.

Saturday, Aug. 28
Craft artisan Lisa Scalf will demonstrate how she takes recycled cans and fabricates them into footstools and other fun items from 10 a.m.-noon. Lisa's inspiration for this collection stems from her grandmother in Kentucky who made footstools from cans in the 1940s and 1950s, long before the current trend of recycling.

Saturday, Sept. 4
The textile team of Jeremy and Claire Herz will demonstrate fusible quilting techniques from 10 a.m.-noon as the final event of the "Catskill Arts & Air" festival series at the Pakatakan Farmers' Market. Jeremy is predominantly a designer, while Claire is well-versed in all aspects of quilting.
The "Catskill Arts & Air" open-air arts series is presented by the Catskill Mountain Artisans' Guild in collaboration with the Mark Project with support from the Roxbury Arts Group, the Pakatakan Farmers Market of the Round Barn and the Delaware County Historical Association.

For more info visit www.catsguild.org, pfmarket.org or call 845 586-3443. Funded in part by grants from the Catskill Watershed Corporation and the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation.