An Outdoor Art Adventure

StoryCorps Door-to-Door recently traveled to Syracuse, New York, to record interviews with Central New York Community Foundation, Inc., where we met local artist, Dorothy Riester, and her friend Stephen Waldron. Growing up in the 1920′s, Dorothy decided she wanted to be an artist at age 12. She remembered that as a young adult, she listened to a lecture given by American writer Gertrude Stein and decided to drop out of her liberal arts college. Stein’s words, she says, shaped her life: “If you know what you want to do, do it.” She enrolled in art school and became a sculptor.

Years later, Dorothy and her husband, Robert Riester, stumbled upon a piece of land for sale in Cazenovia, New York. They immediately fell in love with it and began building a home for themselves inspired by the shape of the land itself. As part of a community of artists, Dorothy and Robert opened their property up as a home for the work of their friends, and the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park was born. (more…)