<•About Us

North Main Gallery was founded over ten years ago as ARTS220 by Ruth Sauer as an outgrowth of her love of art and her experience and training as an art teacher. Over the years, the need for a fine art gallery for local and regional artists has grown and in 2006 Ruth bought and renovated an unused and historic building in the heart of Salem, New York in southern Washington County, on the border of Vermont and about 45 minutes east of Saratoga Springs.

Teaching Schedule

The artist/instructors give lessons to students 6 years old through adults. A variety of two- and three-dimensional materials are made available. The studio’s approach to making art emphasizes student individuality, in-depth involvement and exploration. Guest artists also may provide instruction on specific projects.

Classes are available by individual arrangement and fees vary. Contact us for more information.

Gallery Associates

STUDIO RUTH is the working studio of artists Ruth Sauer, Caroline Hooke, and David O’Keefe who paint on canvas and paper, make small pastels, collages, and constructions, create monoprints, and form figurative soft sculptures. The artists welcome visitors and enjoy discussing the work.

RUTH BARNGROVE SAUER

Ruth's richly-colored paintings on canvas and on paper are predominantly abstract in approach, their themes based on her memories of specific places, ones that she visited as well as those imagined. She says: "These I describe as Place Memories -- with shapes, colors, textures forming each work, reflecting and interpreting strong interactions with, and connections to, each remembered place.

A graduate of Connecticut College (B.A., Studio Art), Ruth trained as a teacher at Shady Hill School, Cambridge (MA). Further study included the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Art Students League, Boston Museum School, New School, and Pratt Institute. Exhibitions include Artists Space (NYC ); in Glens Falls (NY), the ArtWorks Gallery 21, D'Ella Showroom, Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (LARAC), and North Country Arts Center (NCAC)/Crandall Library; Gallery One (Greenwich, NY); Old Forge Arts Center (Old Forge, NY); and in Manchester (VT), the Equinox Hotel Area Artists, and Southern Vermont Arts Center (SVAC).

Currently, Ruth paints and teaches at ARTS 220--the new art gallery/ studio she founded this year on Main Street, Salem (NY). Other local teaching projects include Paula Krieg's NYSCA-funded Book Arts at the Salem Bancroft Library, and the Salem Central School's Continuing Education classes.

CAROLINE HOOKE

The poetry of myth and nature suffuses Caroline's collages, constructions, and mixed-media work. She began making constructions of found objects while still a child near the California beaches, and after exploring other mediums in formal training at Parsons School of Art (NYC) and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, she returned to and continues to work in the evocative art constructions she first loved.

Caroline's work, in three dimensions as well as in painting and drawing, integrates the strength and beauty of ancient early art forms with her strong memory of the Southwest's colors, textures, and moods. In her work, as she strives to portray a sense of the natural world that transcends time and captures the essence of humankind's harmonious co-existence with nature.

She says: "I have used stories, myths, masks, and layers of textures and materials to express inner thoughts, feelings, and memories. Reconnecting with our ancient past can perhaps help us understand ourselves, others, and our natural world around us."

Selected current professional affiliations include ARTS 220 (Salem, NY), as Associate; Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (LARAC), and the Crandall Library Folk Arts Project (Glens Falls, NY); Southern Vermont Arts Center (Manchester, VT); and Valley Artisans Market (Cambridge, NY). Caroline has received numerous awards for her work, from, for example, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Hyde Museum, the Left Bank Gallery, and Equinox Hotel Area Artists Exhibition (Manchester, VT).