Hilltop House and Studio

Dorothy and Robert Riester Collection and Archive Project

About a month before the health crisis, we opened a fascinating can of worms at the Hilltop House. Within the home is the collected items from Dorothy’s life, and items run the gambit from photographs documenting art, events, trips, and old family photos, to sculpture test-runs, sketch books, commission-related documents, personal correspondences, maps, deeds, and ephemera across a wide range of topics and subject matter.


In February of 2020, we began working with master's students from Syracuse University’s Museum Studies program, along with their professor and program director, Andrew Saluti. The students were in the early stages of the project, helping us to organize and catalog our collection. Their time working onsite was cut short for a few months, but work began back in earnest when it was safe to do so.


Our collection reveals the story Dorothy Riester, a woman who did more than just work within her fields of interest. She continually pushed the boundaries and created new ways of operating in these areas of study. By taking on this project, we will better understand how far reaching Dorothy's influence was, her deep involvement in the arts world, and the impact of her passions both in our immediate community and afar.


A big part of this project is addressing how to create a digital archive of our materials, one that can be available online and accessible for anyone. A resource like this opens doors for additional research and invites more opportunities to create connections and form collaborations. The development of a digital archive for the Dorothy and Robert Riester  Archive and Collection is in process by the software developers at Whirl-i-Gig, developers of CollectiveAccess, an outstanding open source software for museums and archives.


Support from the CNY Arts COVID-19 Arts Impact Fund, the John E. Streb Fund for New York of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, and The Central New York Community Foundation have made this endeavor possible. We look forward to sharing news and stories as they are uncovered during this project.

CORONA, Corona
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CORONA, Corona

8/25/20

A discovery-with a title fitting for the times-was made this week in the Riester archive and collection.


Titled "CORONA," this journal, printed by Montana State University in 1983, is "for those who see boundaries as entrances and ends as beginnings. CORONA brings together those who work and play on the edges of their disciplines, those who sense that insight is located not in the things but in relationships, and those who suspect that the imagination is involved in what we know."


Within the pages of this journal, we found a familiar name- Neva Pilgrim.

Pilgrim is an award-winning singer and artist-in-residence at Colgate University, and was also a founding member of the Society for New Music. Each year, the Society for New Music has helped facilitate Cazenovia Counterpoint, a month-long celebration of the arts, of which Stone Quarry Hill Art Park has continued to be a participating site due to Dorothy’s engagement early on.


American composer Dexter Morrill commissioned "Reflection, you have stolen," was written specifically for Pilgrim to sing. The piece uses the poem written by Margaret Atwood as part of her poetry collection Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein. Pilgrim is accompanied by the sounds of computer tape digitally synthesized at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stamford University. A copy of the recording -printed on a flexi disc- is included in the publication as an insert.


Of the discovery of the journal in the Riester archive and collection, Pilgrim said, “Learning that Dorothy Riester had this in her collection is a vivid reminder of her support/love/interest in ALL the arts. That's why what began as New Music in Cazenovia, by Dorothy's invitation to (now) SQHAP, evolved into a vibrant festival of the arts that includes music, writing, art of all types, and programs featuring young talent. Many in the Caz community have been supportive of her vision and continue to be!”


We hope to share a digital recording of the piece with you soon.


The Riesters Celebrate the Holidays
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The Riesters Celebrate the Holidays

Holiday cards and wintry images from the Riester Collection and Archive, curated by project interns Melissa and Ann.

Slide color photograph of art park landscape in snowy winter. “Memorial” statue by Dorothy Riester is in the middle ground to the right.
Holiday Card of Hilltop House living room and fireplace. Printed by Dorothy Riester from original ink drawing by Dorothy Riester.
Holiday Card of a tree with birds. Printed by Dorothy Riester from original ink drawing by Dorothy Riester.
Black and white photograph of Dorothy and Bob Riester Christmas 1950 decorative plate, arranged with cut evergreen branches tied together in a bow and a patterned floral tablecloth in the background.
Large panoramic holiday card black ink drawing of art park and Hilltop House from different views, as well as a view of Cazenovia from the Hilltop House.


The evolution of a logo
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The evolution of a logo

Images from the archive showcasing the historic evolution of Stone Quarry's logo.

This exploratory sketch by Dorothy Riester for the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park logo shows her connection to the history and topography of the land, both of which frequently inspired her. While her design speaks to the land's past, it also suggests the strong foundation of what she planned to build, a community space where art and nature go hand in hand, just as they do in the final logo.
An engineering design and building plan for a model of the original Stone Quarry Hill Art Park logo, artist unidentified. A great quote on the document reads, “Using problems of the past to solve problems of the present fills in creative opportunities (Don’t put the past into the future).”
Archive and collections interns Melissa and Kate hold a small wood and stone maquette of Dorothy’s original logo for the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park. In honor of Dorothy’s legacy, this maquette was the first object officially documented in the collection database in 2021.
This group of maquettes in the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park collection were amongst the first to be recorded in the new collection database. This process includes adding an accession number to reference the object, a description of the object and its condition, the materials from which it was created, the object’s maximum dimensions, the creator of the object, and the new storage location as well as where it was previously stored. The accessioning process began in 2021 and was made possible through a grant from the Greater Hudson Heritage Network and the New York State Council of the Arts.
This closeup of the logo maquette in the previous picture shows the objects new storage location in an archival box, cushioned by archival foam. The archival tag attached to the object records the newly given accession number for easy reference to the collection database for more information about the object.