To the editor:

I want to congratulate this community as the host of BluSeed Studios for over 20 years and the new home of Cedar Street Studio. We are fortunate to have a vibrant arts community, both because it makes this a better place and because it makes it a desirable place for people to move to. We should recognize the service of Carol Vossler and dozens, maybe hundreds of board members, teachers, artists and craftspeople who have made BluSeed special and important. We are so lucky as well that the mantle of art leader has passed to a wonderful artist and dedicated member of our community, Jazen Reuss. Jazen has worked at BluSeed and has the skills and expertise to run a for-profit center for art and art education. We must support her.

We must also now memorialize the 20-plus years of BluSeed. The sale of the building will both continue to give us an art center and make it better, but the proceeds must now be put to good use and the history preserved. I ask everyone to join me in urging the remaining board members of BluSeed to give that money to Pendragon for art education and a place at the new theater that recognizes the gift Carol Vossler and others have given us for so long. The proceeds must go to a community organization that will continue the work of BluSeed. That should be Pendragon. There is no other place better suited to continue the performing arts that were at BluSeed.

Jayzen will be a force for visual art and creativity at Cedar Street Studio at the same time. We should support both and the BluSeed board, which must give the proceeds to a non-profit, should give that money to Pendragon. I hope you all agree and will join me in urging that outcome. I hope you will all go to the theater, take an art class or participate in an event at Cedar Street. Wonderful places like Cedar Street Studio and Pendragon Theater thrive when we support them with our dollars and our attendance.

Join me in supporting a memorial to BluSeed, in taking a ceramics or other art class at Cedar Street and in telling the BluSeed board that money needs to go to Pendragon for art education and children’s theater.

James L. Sonneborn

Saranac Lake