Excelsior Avenue is in the heart of the Village of New Paltz and the center of the SUNY campus. Yet it hasn’t existed for decades. In that way, the name conjures up the ineffable nature of a place, any place. We think we understand it, we begin to think of it as home. . . . and then it disappears. But it’s never really gone, nor can we ever really leave it behind. It haunts us like a half-remembered dream. The art you see here is a response to that haunting.
In my youth, cemeteries always seemed like such a waste of space. But now, a walk through the New Paltz Rural Cemetery can conjure up all sorts of conversations with all kinds of p