With the aid of power tools, the iconic Hudson River School artist might have made paintings like Stephen Hannock. A renowned modern-day heir to the legacy of Cole and his peers, Hannock has a technique--developed by accident, as this terrific Forbes profile relates--of building up layers of paint and sanding them to a glassy-smooth finish, yielding rich and luminous canvases.

Hannock will be speaking and signing copies of his new monograph Sunday afternoon at the Thomas Cole Historic Site in Catskill. The Daily Mail reports NPR documentarian Robin Young will be on hand to cover the event.

Image: Hannock's The Oxbow, After Church, After Cole, Flooded, Green Light, which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Both the Senate and Assembly have vowed to restore funding to New York's state parks, bucking an effort by Gov. Paterson to help balance the budget by closing dozens of parks.

But New York History says the parks will have to close anyway, unless the state's perpetually tardy budget-wranglers can get their act together soon.

In the 125 years since Niagara Falls State Park became the first state park in the nation, New York State has never closed a park, not even in the depths of the Great Depression. Parks and historic sites on the governor’s hit list for closure affect every region of the state, from Orient Beach State Park at the tip of Long Island’s North Fork to Wilson-Tuscarora State Park in Niagara County.

The Woodstock Times reports:

According to Woodstock Arts Board President Joan Roberts, who has been the public face for the struggling cultural venue in the town's gateway district - established to help protect the site of the town's key theater since the 1930s - the current situation's been threatened for months. But it was only in March that letters formalizing procedures were sent to her and placed on the Playhouse's temporary outdoor theater structure just off Mill Hill Road.

"We've got about $410,000 out in mortgages," Roberts explained, noting that of that, $76,000 was at Rondout Savings, whose local branch manager is on the current WAB Board of Directors. "We haven't paid the mortgage in a long time."