Learning Icelandic was not anything like my French or Latin classes at school. There was no text, no patient kindly instructor to assist me over the inevitable confusion of la and le, de and da. And on the farm, there were no road signs or public signs to read and learn from. I had two […]
Welcome to the August 2010 edition of “Jud’s New England Journal,” the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire. About the Word “Ayuh” It has various meanings, including “no.” Some people feel “ayuh” is no longer utilized in New England today, but they’re just […]
For reasons I’ve never quite understood, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston rarely has exhibitions that interest me enough to drive to Boston. Maybe it’s my own largely contemporary tastes or the MFA’s art historical focus. In any event, Nicholas Nixon: Family Album is enough to get me to Boston to see what I’ve […]
It was difficult, perhaps the most difficult thing, to be without a common language. I have always said that being in Iceland gave me perspective and I think that related to many aspects of life. I could easily relate now to the many who travel to a new country, looking for work, unable to speak […]
I had hitchhiked out there with Jane. We had started in Reykjavik, looking for work, but we were told there were no jobs to be found at all. The herring had gone and Iceland was in a depression as a result. My only contact, Peter Knuttson, a Brit who lived marginally in Reykjavik and somehow […]
George Sherwood brings a somewhat unusual background to the creation of art. The Ipswich, Massachusetts, resident earned a BFA at the Hartford Art School back in 1976 and spent time as a street performer in Burlington, Vermont, before enrolling at the University of Vermont to a study for a degree in engineering (B.S. 1984). He […]
VIDEO: Marginal Way The Marginal Way is a seaside path that stretches along the granite coastline of Ogunquit, Maine. Entirely paved and mostly flat, it’s hardly a strenuous hike, yet it remains one of the most popular in New England. People flock to the Marginal Way for the view. Though only 1-1/4 miles long, it offers […]
Returning after so long, I found that life on the farm had changed dramatically and yet it is the same. Imba and Steini no longer keep cows (I discovered this is true of many farms) but they still have sheep and also she has many more horses than before. She has always loved the horses. […]
On June 15, 2010, at 6 a.m., our Boeing 757 touched down on a long runway and taxied toward what I could see was an elegant new airport. Same place, different building. I had, of course, expected the airport to be modern and updated. And I expected the rocks would still be there but they […]
The Maine art community, myself included, never really appreciated painter Rackstraw Downes when he was a seasonal resident of the state. Though he had a summer home in rural Morrill from the 1960s until fairly recently, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Rackstraw Downes show in Maine. Now that Downes, a New York City […]
For the next few blogs, I’ll be writing about Iceland, which is, to me, the most fascinating country on earth. I hope you will agree. In June of 1969, when I was twenty years old, I traveled to Iceland and found work on a farm called Frodastadir (Froe-tha-stah-theer) herding sheep on horseback, milking cows, shoveling […]
Back in 2006, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, received a $140,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the exhibition and publication of its extensive collection of works on paper. The following year, the Henry Luce Foundation gave the Wadsworth $50,000 to do conservation work on the works on paper in […]
