This May, an extraordinary traveling art exhibit will begin its six-month celebration of Lake Champlain, the lake that Samuel de Champlain first explored 400 years ago. The exhibit–39 pieces of art, most of them paintings–was created by contemporary artists living and working in Vermont. I had the good fortune of seeing the collection come together […]
As it celebrates its 40th anniversary, the Westport Arts Center in Connecticut invited artist Eric Aho to organize an exhibition focused on a sense of place. Aho, who lives in Vermont, decided to tighten the focus to visual ideas about a place both universal and particular – home. In HOME (through June 1) Aho has […]
Block Island is an 11-square-mile, pork-chop-shaped landmass off the coast of Rhode Island. It may not sound like much, but it’s the biggest summer destination in America’s smallest state. A few years back, The Nature Conservancy deemed the island “one of the last 12 great places in the Western Hemisphere.” And for good reason: Dramatic […]
The nature and character of a juried exhibition is in part a function of the artists who submit and in part a reflection of the tastes and judgments of the jurors. The 2009 Portland Museum of Art Biennial (April 8 to June 7)looks to be mostly a matter of the latter. From the 970 artists […]
This past Sunday I drove west about 30 miles, to Brattleboro, Vermont, where the best of what a core group of people in a community can do was on full display. From the early 1920s, when outdoor visionary Fred Harris, founder of both the Brattleboro Outing Club and the Dartmouth Outing Club, brought Brattleboro to […]
What happens when sleeping roads wake up? Do they become beauties or nightmares? Vermont is about to find out. Until recently, the state’s sleeping roads had been hibernating in a dormant law that says that any road ever established by a town remains a town road unless it has been officially discontinued. That sounds innocuous, […]
Gardeners know winter really does end, and spring color always returns. Pansies, daffodils, and forsythia commonly herald the vernal transition, but still other blooms also contribute to a stunning early-season display. Here’s how three New England gardens host diverse plantings that strut their stuff in April and May.Get Our FREE Yankee Best New England Vacations […]
SLIDE SHOW: New England stone walls by William Hubbell, from Good Fences: A Pictorial History of New England’s Stone Walls (Down East Books, 2006; $29.95) When geologist Robert Thorson came to work at the University of Connecticut in 1984, he was smitten by stone walls. In all his travels–from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest to […]
Almost one year ago, in my March 6, 2008 posting, I called your attention to Greg Cook and his indispensable website, New England Journal of Aesthetic Research. NEJAR is probably the best regional art site in the country, so I was flattered when Cook invited me to submit nominations and to vote on the just-released […]
Dorothy Eisner (1906-1984) was a thoroughly modernist painter who worked her way through most of the artistic trends of the 20th century from the Ashcan School and Social Realism to Abstract Expressionism. Her mature work, however, took the form of a rather Matisse-like application of painterly expressionism, very loose, free, and colorful, to paintings of […]
Andrew Wyeth is dead. He reportedly passed away peacefully in his sleep at the great age of 91. Had this been summer, he probably would have drifted away in Port Clyde, Maine, but, as it is winter, his final resting place was Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the little hamlet where he was born in 1917. America’s […]
Editors Note: This week we have a special treat. Along with two poems by Elizabeth Potter, we also have the paintings that inspired them. It’s rare that we get to feature this kind of collaboration, so I hope you enjoy it.Fog Bank An apparition moves when the sea desires company. Restless with lapping at rock, […]
