The Cooperstown Farmers’ Market is getting a makeover, with a nature-themed mural by artist Sasha Glinski set to be unveiled during the village’s upcoming Winter Carnival.
Peg Odell, the program and communications manager at Otsego 2000, which runs the farmers’ market, said Thursday, Jan. 22 that the mural was funded through the Farmers’ Market Resiliency Program, a grant administered by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
She said the grant total was $49,339, and about $6,000 of the grant went to funding the mural. The goal is to use the funding to do more outreach for the farmers’ market in the coming year and for additional space upgrades, Odell said.
“It just unites the space, making it run the whole length of the wall,” Odell said. “We wanted to do something that was beautiful to look at, to brighten the space. We wanted to make sure we weren’t competing because we want to focus on the vendors who are selling their local food and crafts and other items on that side.”
“I think with the landscape, it was a nice balance between providing something bright and interactive and nice to look at, but then also be able to be a nice back drop to the vendors,” Odell continued.
She added that there would be a special activity targeted largely toward community kids in the style of a scavenger hunt Saturday, Feb. 7 during the carnival, which is scheduled to run Thursday, Feb. 5 to Sunday, Feb. 8. Odell said the mural includes clouds in the shape of different food and craft items individuals can get at the market, and participants will be asked to find the shapes in the clouds.
From the beginning of the project, Glinski said she wanted to create something that was family friendly and would “feel like a storybook.”
Glinski said Monday, Jan. 26 she felt very lucky to be approached with the idea to do the project, which Odell said she worked on through December and January.
Behind the stage, there is a mural of a central New York landscape with some of the produce individuals can buy at the market in baskets at the bottom, Odell said. The stage at the front of the market, she said, houses live music and local musicians every Saturday. She added that the market’s slogan, Rooted in Community, is painted on the section of the mural that resides behind the stage.
Glinski said this was the first part of the mural she did, calling it a “bite sized piece,” about 10 1/2 feet wide by 8 1/2 feet tall. She added that this created a “focal point in the market” that was not there previously.
“It’s a good selfie station too,” Odell said. “People can get their picture taken in front of it.”
Glinski said her original idea for the space included a moon as the focal point, with hidden images. As it is a daytime market, she said the idea shifted, and the final mural features trees in different seasons, adding a “fantasy element,” but creating a visual interest that emphasizes the performer.
The mural stretches the entire west wall of the inside of the market, she added, about 100 feet long. The stage is part of the wall, and behind the stage is the landscape with the phrase “Rooted in Community.” The farmers’ market is open on Saturdays year round.
The focus of the main part of the wall, Odell said, is a blue sky with white puffy clouds, and the bottom third of the wall consists of hillsides. Odell said the market was very lucky to have Glinski, a “talented artist,” a market vendor herself, for the project.
Elements of the mural are taken from sketches of the Cooperstown area, Glinski said. A tree on Main Street is one of the trees she included in the mural, and she said she tried to envision the crops grown during different seasons in the region.
With a background in painting for the theater, Glinski said she came to the area in 2014 for a scenic painting internship with the Glimmerglass Festival, where she has been ever since, now as the scenic charge artist. Glinski, who now lives in Richfield Springs, said that she has a lot of experiencing with big paintings.
She said that around the time she moved to the area, she became “enchanted with the landscapes that surround us.” Glinski added she began doing her own personal landscape painting, which she sells at the farmers’ market.
The mural project, Glinski said, is the “perfect marriage of all of those things,” incorporating skills to make large-scale paintings on a hard surface, which she does in her day job, with her love for the community and the market.
Glinski said the phrase “Rooted in Community” is present throughout the entire mural.
“More metaphorically it is present in all of the things that are hidden,” Glinski said. “Every vendor I believe in some way is represented in the mural, which is a really cool thing to be able to do just because I have so much familiarity with this community. It’s a really dream project to work on just because it is a community that I’m a part of and so familiar with.”