Deborah Masters is one of the more powerful contemporary sculptors that I know – personally or not – and I feel privileged to have actually been friendly colleagues with her since just after our different years at the NY Studio School. Seeing her 50-year retrospective, with her work living among the rolling hills of upstate NY, and in her barn-studio, is mind-blowing. The massively-proportioned figures tower over not only the viewer, but the landscape surrounding them, and even the smaller-scale pieces have a weight of inner belief bulging out. These sculptures are modern talismans, beacons of our current and ancient spirits, lords of the past, present and future worlds. With seeming references to, for example, pre-Columbian, Mexican, ancient Etruscan and early Greek sculpture, with contemporary references and personal experiences flowing through them as well, these sculptures breathe the essence of life and the mysteries of the cosmos that have driven humankind since the beginning of time to create art and give form to the formless spirits that guide us. Initially modeled in clay, the sculptures are then cast into concrete, which usually is painted or patinaed. Some of the preliminary experiments for her many public commissions, such as the painted reliefs at Kennedy Airport Terminal Four, Immigration Hall, and the Ocean Parkway Viaduct at Coney Island, as well as so much more, can be seen on the three remaining Saturdays in September from noon-4pm, at her studio at 253 Slate Hill Road, Chatham NY 12037. In addition to creating these enormous artworks – some at least 12-feet tall -- Deborah has been a force of nature herself, and had been one of the central activists fighting for the NYC loft law and housing rights for artists, and in 2020, the documentary about her activism, “Sweet Soul in Exile,” won an audience award at the Berlin Short Films Festival. This upstate exhibition is a testament to the intensity of Deborah Masters, and if there is any way you can see it, you will be well-rewarded.