Yarrrr! or Yee-haw?

At Uncommon Grounds, we are often asked what “those little stickers” we have available at the register are for. Those fun stickers are called “Cruzin’ Caps” which are used to prevent coffee lids from spilling liquids in transit.

While we hope that the Cruzin’ Caps are used for what they are intended to be used for and certainly don’t condone the defacing of public property. However, the above image gave us a chuckle.

Is it a pirate?

Is it a cowboy?

Strrrretch!

Uncommon Grounds (UG): What led you to Pilates?

Meghan Del Prete (MDP): I was a Dance Major at Skidmore College and began taking the Pilates mat classes offered in the department. I was amazed at how much Pilates changed my body and improved my dancing. I quickly became hooked!

UG: Has working with fitness always been your goal?

MDP: Since I was 4 years old I have loved to dance, and growing up it kept me very active. I was lucky to continue dancing in college. I had a double major though and after graduating I was able to get a job at a graphic design firm doing Production Management and Marketing. It was a fun job, and I learned so much about that field, and running a small business. But after a few years of sitting at a desk all day I realized that I was happier doing something that kept me moving. Pilates felt like the perfect fit for me. The method is very similar to the way you train your body in ballet so it felt natural for me. Initially, I loved the idea of working with dancers because of how much Pilates had helped my own dancing. But as I learned more about Pilates and saw amazing results with all kinds of bodies and injuries I became very excited about having such a wide array of bodies to work with. It means the work will never become boring!

UG: Tell us how “not all Pilates” is the same?

MDP: The Pilates method was started by Joseph Pilates, who called his work Contrology. He spent his life developing this exercise system, and before he died, he asked Romana Kryzanowska to continue his life’s work, teaching Pilates around the world, which she has. Joe died in 1967 at the age of 87 and since then has not developed any new exercises. (Joe never did Pilates on a ball or a BOCU.) Many people he trained or his teachers trained fell in love with Pilates and began teaching the method as well, sometimes incorporating their own variations, and many of them started to offer their own Pilates Certification. A lot of variations on the work have been very good with nice results. But there are some variations that have injured people, which should never happen with Pilates. Obviously, this can give Pilates a bad reputation. Unfortunately, “Pilates” is not trademarked, so although a lot of variations on the method have been “inspired by Pilates” legally they do not have to be called something else.

Apparatus, in its natural habitat.

To be a Pilates Instructor there is no license required or standard in the industry for certification. It is possible to become certified online or attend a weekend workshop. Wherever you take a Pilates class, it is important to find out what the instructor’s certification is. Pilates is not something you can learn in a couple weeks time, or simply by practicing on your own. A good certification program requires passing a test to demonstrate an intermediate level of proficiency to begin, is a minimum of 600 hours spent in the studio training under the supervision of Master Teacher Trainers, includes in-depth testing at various points in the program and awards certification based on an individual’s readiness, not simply a number of hours spent in classes.

UG: Are classes taught in sequence or can people jump in at any time?

MDP: We offer various levels of ongoing mat classes, so you could start at any time. Pilates is very different from other forms of exercise though, so regardless of how physically fit you are we always suggest starting with Private sessions. This allows the instructor to tailor the workout for your body’s needs, and modify the exercises accordingly. In a group mat class you just don’t get that kind of individual attention, which is essential to learning the method safely and correctly.

More apparatus!

UG: When did you move into your current studio and how has the move affected your business?

MDP: The studio opened at the Lofts last July. It has been great to have more space! In our old location we had to move the apparatus into the hallway so we had space to have mat class. Now we are able to have more than one class happening at once. That makes it easier to accommodate our client’s schedules. We also have a shower room, so clients are able to schedule class on their lunch break, shower and go back to work if they want. Also being located in a Condo building has brought in business from lots of people that live or work here.

UG: Have you considered working with other teachers?

MDP: Yes, now that we have room in the new studio, I am working with other teachers. This is something I am really excited to offer my clients. All of the instructors are certified through Romana’s Pilates(TM), so we are teaching the same thing (which is important!) but with different perspectives. From my training in NYC I saw how valuable it was to take lessons with all of the instructors. Working with different instructors at the studio will give you a more well-rounded workout and guarantee that you will not get bored! We may each take a slightly different focus for your workout, or we may choose different exercises to achieve the same goal. Sometimes even the way one teacher explains a concept you have heard 100 times before makes sense in a new way when you hear it explained with different words. I am so happy to offer this kind of studio experience to my clients.

UG: What are your long-term goals?

MDP: Moving to our new space and growing our staff were two goals I have had for awhile, and am so excited to see them taking shape. From here I would like to keep growing our business and what we can offer to our clients and community. There are a lot of ideas I have for bringing in guest teachers and offering workshops and programs for specialized groups, like different types of athletes or specific injuries. Soon we are starting to become part of The Dancer Advantage Program. This was started by a Romana’s Pilates Instructor in NYC, and studios around the world are participating. The program offers private and semi-private sessions for dancers at a discounted rate. It is an exciting opportunity that will allow a dancer to continue taking discounted Pilates in any city they travel to. There is a possibility of scholarships as well, which is even more exciting.

UG: Any advice for folks looking to improve their health or fitness?

MDP: Do Pilates! Obviously I am biased, but I have seen it really work in amazing ways. The beauty of Pilates is how efficient the workout is. In 20 minutes you can work the entire body. It does not have to be a huge sacrifice of time or money, and it does not have to be miserable. Pilates does not hurt!

If Pilates is not for you, I think the important thing is to keep moving! Find something you love that fits with your lifestyle, then working out will never be a chore.

Contact Meghan at meghan(at)reformyourbody(dot)com or 518-871-1315 to find out about some exciting introductory deals that Reform Pilates is offering throughout the month of June!

Scales? Waves? What are they?

Comy dropped another beautiful latté the other day while we were looking. Will any of our other baristas unseat the Master Comy G?

It's official! Divinyl Revolution is here!

When the word went out that downtown mainstay Last Vestige would be closing its Saratoga Springs location, an audible gasp was heard throughout our small town. What would happen to music? Where would folks spend hours flicking through albums?

Never fear, friends! Former Vestige employee Britney Nasser took over the record store’s vacated space at the end of January and has now re-opened it as “Divinyl Revolution“!

Kid Robot! SuperFishal!

Along with the requisite stacks of used LPs, 7″s, CDs, DVDs and VHS tapes, folks can find new items in the store such as skateboards, Superfishal T-Shirts/books/stickers, Kid Robot products (!), comics, toys, vintage clothing and much more. The stock seems to have shrunk a bit since the transition, but the CD selection seems to be more focused with less “tossers” and more “winners”.

The face draws you nearer!

Britney tells us the store will be holding in-store musical performances and plenty of other events as Divinyl Revolution settles in to its new home. For vinyl lovers out there, look forward to shipments of new and classic LP re-releases to be showing up at the store in the near future. If you have any special requests or are looking for anything in particular, feel free to visit Britney any time – she’ll be glad to help.

For now, stay tuned to the Divinyl Revolution Facebook Fan Page to keep apprised of any specials or upcoming events.

Comics, stickers, 8 tracks, Superfishal Gear and more!

Note; outlet accessible!

Just to let you know; last week we added two more seats at the Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga Springs! This may not be big news to anyone except for regular customers, but we thought we’d mention it anyway. And that these seats are extra comfy. And that they look like they were made to match our store.

Enjoy!

Plates and bowls on display in our window.

This week has shown an incredible influx of new art at our stores. The final piece of the puzzle is Karin Kuck’s pottery located in the window of our Saratoga Springs location. You might remember Karin’s cow paintings, but did you know she also makes gorgeous plates and bowls? We are impressed!

Check out the subtle Cow plate!

Here’s a brief bio about the show:

Struggle, the latest body of work by Geralee Hall, is a series of multimedia images that explores the artist’s fascination with contour and the vacancy therein. As the title of the introductory piece suggests, the work is a ‘digression’ from Hall’s usual work with oil paints, for the series, created with Sharpie pen and children’s acrylic paint, is decidedly dressed-down, unnervingly innocent. The bare simplicity of its settings – and the ghostly anonymity of its inhabitants – accentuate that which has not been recorded.

The pieces in the series are interpretations of images both original and appropriated: the latter from common journalistic sources such as Newsweek and Time, the former from the artist’s personal archive of photographs, memory, and imagination. All have been stripped of their detail, offering, instead, an outline, a gesture, the alarming juxtaposition of white and color, action and stillness, whimsy and war. The viewer is given the opportunity to consider the perhaps fragile arrangement of what we think we know when it is combined, inevitably, with all that we don’t.

Decorative plate by Allison Petroski.

This profile could be half art archive, half “Where Are They Now?” post since artist Allison Petroski is a long-time alumnus of Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga Springs. A quiet, sweet woman, Allison is blessing our front window with her beautiful ceramic works. Her profile on Fine Art America details a heavily spiritual personal view of artwork. It was eye-opening to find out that some her intimately intricate designed vessels are intended to hold the remains of pets and loved ones.

We sat down with her today in her studio in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. to find out a bit more about her work:

Uncommon Grounds (UG) : What lead you to the specific media of thrown ceramic?

Allison Petroski (AP) : I taught art at the Charlton School for Girls and when they had an excess in the budget I asked, “Hey could we get a wheel?” and I started throwing every day. I just love it. Love it, love it, love it! It became my passion immediately.

UG : Oh! Interesting. Did you have any formal training with it?

AP : I went to Skidmore and did their community program for two years, and then went back to school at Burlington College to finish my degree in ceramics.

UG : A-ha! So, how do you feel your work has progressed? Did you have a vision of what you wanted to make before you started working with ceramics?

AP : Certainly as you learn, you’re always adding to your toolbox. As soon as I got good enough to start throwing lidded vessels, that’s all I wanted to do. Someone came up to me and said “Ohh, you make urns!” and I thought “No, I don’t make urns.” But then I fell in love with the idea and I realized that it was such an amazing place to hold someone’s remains. And now I’m trying to market a lot of these as funereal urns. The decorative ones like the pieces in the window at Uncommon are simply decorative, like you could put them up on your mantle as a beautiful piece of pottery. Whereas some of the new work, I’ll be marketing more as pet urns and hopefully people urns eventually.

UG : How often are you here in your studio? Are you here every day?

Horse-hair raku fired vessel.

AP : In general yeah, I’m here all the time, trying to build up an inventory. If I’m not here I’m actually trying to work on the business aspect of by working on the Shringar Pottery website. I’m calling it Shringar Pottery because it’s an Indian word that honors the beauty of the creativity of a woman.

UG : So where do you fire all your pottery?

AP : Here! There’s a kiln here. I also do raku out back which is an alternative firing method. I used horse-hairs in this piece [picks up vessel similar to pic on right]. You lay horse-hairs on it when it reaches 1800 degrees. You take it out of the kiln with special tongs and you put horse hairs or feathers or whatever you want to use. It leaves this imprint.

UG : Ohh! Wow, interesting! What’s next for you?

Mantra pot.

AP : I’m starting this new line of “mantra” pots. One of them is in the window show at Uncommon. I put mantras on them so that people can use them as devotional pots. I’m very into the spiritual aspect of art. I’m looking for more art galleries to show my work and more opportunities for people to appreciate it.

Trio of toy portraits.

Jennifer Maher recently hung a huge show of her paintings at Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She holds the dubious honor of being the art-coordinator for both of our Albany and Saratoga Springs stores, so it’s nice to see her put together a showing of her own work on the walls. Along with being an accomplished painter, she recently entered the entrepreneurial world with her Custom Toy Portrait website. She quickly gained some high-level attention from the blogging world for her charming portraits of childrens’ toys, made custom to be kept for years to come. We sat down with Jennifer to get a bit of background information on her, her work and her portraiture business:

Uncommon Grounds (UG) : When did you start painting?

Jennifer Maher (JM) : Well, I’ve always painted but “officially” I started as an undergrad, I had a double major as an undergrad in fine arts and English writing. I was trying to sort out what I was going to narrow it all down to. So I did a lot of both; I wrote poetry, I wrote fiction and I tried to do a big project that I got a Ford Fellowship for as an undergrad where I tried to depict ideas in parallel ways with painting and writing. It didn’t really work very well and I ended up focusing on painting as I went into grad school. I put writing by the wayside.

UG : Where did you do your graduate studies?

JM : After undergrad, I came to Albany and got my masters and my masters in fine arts from SUNY.

UG : It was all painting at SUNY?

JM : Yeah it was all about painting. I did a lot of different things; one of them being a huge series of paintings based on documenting rave and dance culture emulating Tolouse-Lautrec. He did the whole “Moulin Rouge” series and I wanted to paint rave culture as a continuation of what he started. I felt like they were cultures that mirrored each other. I did a lot of imaginitive painting that broke out of my original training which was very strict and classical. At SUNY it was all about breaking out of that and doing things that I wouldn’t normally do. It was very uncomfortable for me, but I tried to do it with the rave series. Painting from my imagination, painting from photographs; all things that were very taboo in my undergrad work. It was helpful to get uncomfortable.

UG : Your show feels very much like a “retrospective” with many different elements and feelings throughout the space. Were you consciously trying to set this show up like that?

JM : It’s a big space to fill and I have a lot of art sitting around that I would like to sell. I also have a lot of different interests, artistically. For example, the “fake Rothko” series. I love Rothko, but I’m not really an abstract painter. What happened is my dad requested a “Rothko-esque” painting for Christmas and so I started playing with that idea. Although Rothko’s (paintings) are enormous, I like to paint really small so I thought it would be funny to paint really, really small Rothko-type paintings. I thought maybe someone would like these so I put them in the show. Then I had a couple of years painting landscapes when I moved to this area because I was just overwhelmed with how beautiful it is up here. I did a lot of tiny little landscapes detailing my drive to work. Along with that, I added some paintings that I made when I lived in Albany that were evening scenes of modern architecture and I like showing both the rural landscapes and the urban scenes. I’ve shown these paintings a few times and I continue to make them on the side as I work on the portraits of stuffed animals and quirky toys.

Faux-Rothkos in the wild.

UG : Yes! Speaking of that, how did the idea come about for your Custom Toy Portrait website?

JM : Well, I’m trying to continue to be a working artist which can be difficult at times. So this is a way to own a business of my own by offering something that’s completely unique. I really love to paint toys and have always done so. It’s a service that people might think, “Oh I’ve never thought of this, it’s something that could be very valuable to me.” I feel like I do it well and I’m just trying to hone it at this point.

UG : It seems like you love to do it! The paintings show a high-level of care and compassion towards the subjects often eliciting the feeling of perhaps what the owner feels towards the object… (See the recent “Choppable” challenge… and Jennifer’s painting here…)

JM : I love it! I’ve always collected bizarre little toys and painted them. I think that they’re a very forgiving subject matter because they are quirky and they have a bizarre little life of their own. Same thing goes for painting children’s portraits. I am very open to making children’s portraits. Since I started this business earlier this year, I’m just in heaven. The fact that people are paying me to paint these little awesome characters is amazing. I’ve gotten it to the point where I can knock them out really fast or linger on them for a few weeks and still have the same feeling about them. It’s a real treat to work on these paintings.