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 […]
landscape
Poems and Paintings
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, […]
From Cape Cod to Colby
For 18 years, Bevin Engman, an artist on the faculty of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, primarily painted still-lifes. For most of that time, she painted books. Books – open, closed, stacked, shelved, scattered, arranged in an architecture all their own – provided the armature over which she applied paint. There was a formal, academic […]
Is winter the right time to prune my apple trees and blueberry bushes? — R.R., Jackson, NJ Most deciduous trees benefit from pruning while they’re dormant, so winter is a fine time to prune your fruit trees and shrubs, including apple, pear, cherry, blueberry, and currant. Some gardeners save the long, thin “water shoot” prunings […]
How to Build an Igloo
Have you ever wondered how to build an igloo? Dr. Norbert Yankielun shares the importance of “the appropriate snow for the appropriate shelter,” tips on technique, a small village of surprisingly elegant igloos, block shelters, slab shelters, and snow caves rises in gleaming white around us. It’s a perfect winter day in the Upper Valley–clear, […]
Winter in New England might be the season you look forward to all year, or it might be the season you endure, but no matter — we’ve got all of the tips, treats, and must-see places to make winter fun all season long. Grab your mittens and let’s go! #1 Build An Igloo Join Dr. […]
Megachurches in New England
Increasingly, New England’s churches aren’t defined by white steeples on village greens, but by evangelical megachurches changing the religious landscape.
[feature slug=”the-popcorn-myth”] Faculty art shows at colleges and universities all over the universe tend to be wonderfully democratic yet wildly incoherent free-for-alls lacking any cohesive idea or theme. For that very reason, I stopped reviewing them decades ago. It’s just not possible to say anything meaningful about a show of random works by a bunch […]
Art Detectives in Hartford
Art conservators have many of the same hi-tech sensing and imaging technologies available to them that medical and military personnel do — x-ray diffraction and fluorescence, infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, optical scanning, ultrasound, x-ray tomography, etc. Initially employed in the service of detecting cracks and damage and material properties useful in conserving works […]
Dennis Pinette is among my favorite contemporary Maine painters. In fact, he is among my favorite all-time Maine painters. Born in Belfast, where he now lives and works, Pinette is a native Maine artist who looks beyond the picturesque to the more piquant, poignant, and pungent aspects of the Maine reality. Though he still primarily […]
With a past both sad and even sordid, Dogtown has drawn painters, writers, lovers of history, and seekers of solitude. What is its secret?
The North Pole is melting. Whether you embrace the scientific consensus that global warming is a man-made phenomenon or want to believe that it’s just a natural phenomenon, the Arctic ice cap is demonstrably melting away, leaving polar bears stranded miles from the seals they hunt to live. The melting ice will eventually lead to […]