Calico Reimagined Artists Confront the Anti-Rent War at the Hunting Tavern

ANDES — To mark the 50th anniversary of the Hunting Tavern Museum, the Andes Society for History and Culture (ASHC) invited 16 artists to reinterpret one of the region’s most defining and complicated chapters of the history of Delaware County, the Anti-Rent War.

The exhibition, curated by Jayne Parker of Hawk + Hive, offers more than an artistic tribute. It’s a dialogue between history and contemporary urgency, between masks and meaning, protest and power. Installed inside the very rooms where some of the original events unfolded, including where Sheriff Osman Steele’s body was laid after his 1845 shooting, the works don’t just commemorate the past; they interrogate it. The narrative history of this epic story is expanded by the incredible imagery of Caroline Fay’s ‘The Watcher’, a depiction of a young girl with a tin horn draped over her neck. This powerful painting helps the viewers connect with the impact this event had on the children. Monica-Lisa Mills’ ‘Dressed in Calico’ is a striking painting, as she explains, “I thought of the women at home stitching the men’s costumes from the same fabric their dresses were made of, perhaps imagining themselves as a part of the resistance.” 

Before creating their pieces, the artists met with ASHC Director Joanne Kosuda-Warner at the tavern for a private tour. They studied original protest costumes, tin horns, masks, maps, and period portraits, material traces of a story often half-remembered. That encounter with living history catalyzed responses as varied as the artists themselves.

Zachary Lank, in Calico Revolt, rendered solidarity in oil. “What we ordinary people have is each other,” he said. “When we come together... new and better futures can be won.”

Lisa Sanders created two pieces: a black cherry wood sculpture inspired by the expressive but “inhuman” protest masks, and Mourning Piece, which connects tin horns with the necessity of community cooperation in resistance.

Patrice Lorenz turned to the landscape in The Land in the Sky: “The land tells its own version... a shard of bone, a stone wall... the remnants of lives lived, battles won or lost.”

Dave Ortiz, in Different Faces, Same Game, stripped identity from his subjects to universalize class struggle: “Greed remains the root cause of humanity's repeated downfalls.”

Caroline Fay found inspiration in a child. In The Watcher, a portrait modeled after her daughter and referencing young Nancy Hunting Ballantine, she explores “the quiet power of youth.”

Emily Pettigrew, in Anti-Renters Awake! Arouse!, transformed salvaged wood into a mask-like object. “These artifacts have a strikingly folk-pagan look... which I’m not sure the creators were entirely aware of.”

Melissa Murray’s Push the Door to Open responded to the Tavern’s layers of age—peeling wallpaper, forgotten objects—and the “polysemic shadows” cast by both protest and native presence.

Monica-Lisa Mills, in Dressed in Calico, envisioned the women behind the scenes: “Perhaps imagining themselves as part of the resistance.”

Spencer Merola painted with actual Dingle Hill soil, revealing how “the rugged terrain stacked the deck against intimate knowledge of the land.”

Scott Hill, in Big Eyes Big Thunder, drew from Rip Van Winkle: “We are all now living through another shift and awakening... There will be darkness, but the light will come.”

Gary Mayer’s Conflict in Calico mimics an altarpiece, blending burlap and calico into sacred iconography of protest: “Struggle of the poor is so often associated with myth and religion.”

Ryan Steadman, in Smoking Gun, turned three painted faux book spines into a minimalist narrative about the sheriff’s murder and its reverberations: “Timeless yet mysterious.”

Scott Ackerman, in Calico Nights, showed two figures standing in calm defiance: “Perhaps they commissioned a celebratory portrait of victory.”

Jeff Quinn, in Sides, explored division and injustice, quoting John Stuart Mill: “The increase in the value of land... should belong to the community.”

James Litaker offered a stark, emotional Untitled work aiming to capture “the scariness of the moment, the determination of the moment.”

History in Brief 

The Anti-Rent War was a mid-19th-century tenant uprising centered in the Catskills and Delaware County. Farmers, burdened by feudal-style leaseholds held by wealthy landlords, began organizing in the 1830s and 1840s. Disguised as "Calico Indians" and sounding tin horns to call gatherings, they resisted eviction and taxation.

In 1845, during an attempt to collect rent, Sheriff Osman Steele was fatally shot in Andes—a pivotal moment in the movement. The resistance sparked legislative change, leading to the end of the patroonship system in New York State.

The Hunting Tavern in Andes, built in the 1820s, served as a social and political hub during this era. Now preserved by ASHC, it stands not only as a historic site, but also as a platform for re-engaging with past struggles.

Relevance Reawakened

The artists embraced the complexity of representing protest, especially the Anti-Renters’ use of Native imagery. Rather than avoid this tension, many leaned into it, using it as a springboard to reflect on mimicry, power, and the ethics of resistance.

Ultimately, this exhibition is less about reenactment than reawakening. It shows that the Anti-Rent War is not just a local tale or a closed chapter. It’s a mirror, held up across time, daring us to see what still needs changing.