“For the last 19 years,” says June LaCombe, Maine’s one-woman outdoor sculpture campaign, “I have been trying to get sculpture out of the white box of the gallery and back into people’s lives where it belongs.” June LaCombe is not just an art dealer; she is an art believer. She curates exhibitions of outdoor sculpture […]
landscape
To understand the problem with lawns, it’s helpful to understand that diversity is essential to the natural world. Great energy expenditure is required to maintain a monoculture, whether it’s a field of corn or a lawn. A nonessential “crop” with a combined national acreage larger than Pennsylvania, our lawns require more water, insecticides, fungicides, weed […]
Massachusetts
Walden Pond: Thoreau’s Sacred Place
View a slide show from photographer Smari’s book on Walden: A Year. If you come early enough on a summer morning to Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, you get a sense of where Henry David Thoreau lived, and what he lived for. Light slants through the towering pines on the southeastern shore, glittering on the […]
This seaside garden in Connecticut is an oasis for birds and butterflies. “I choose plants to feed the birds or attract the butterflies,” says Bunny O’Callahan, explaining the composition of her seaside garden in Connecticut. “Sunflowers really draw the goldfinches in. I like to float on my back in the pool and listen to them […]
New England
Five Favorite New England Inns
Finest Summer “Cottage” Inn at Shelburne Farms 1611 Harbor Road Shelburne, VT 802-985-8498 (inn) 802-985-8686 (farm) shelburnefarms.org As I drive directly into the setting sun, the entry posts appear as two shimmering blurs. My vision clears, but the illusion of passing through the pearly gates persists. “Welcome to Shelburne Farms,” the gatekeeper says, advising that […]
Rhode Island
Rhode Island Foliage Driving Tour
I REALIZE THAT some travelers think of Rhode Island as a tangle of highway blocking easy access to somewhere else. I say give them a map and bid them Godspeed. I know this small and unruly state, and I can tell you for a fact that it affords more opportunities for easy enjoyment than any […]
Connecticut
California Comes to New Britain, Connecticut
New Britain Museum of American Art is an easily overlooked jewel in the crown of New England culture. I confess I had never been to New Britain, Connecticut, let alone to the New Britain Museum of American Art before stopping by last week on my way to a soccer tournament. New Britain on a Sunday […]
As often seems to happen with the inspiration for museum exhibitions, the idea for Georgia O’Keeffe and the Camera: The Art of Identity occurred to Portland Museum of Art curator Susan Danly as she was looking at photographs in the museum’s own collection. The Portland Museum of Art happens to own three portraits of the […]
An elite New England prep school might not be the place you’d expect to find one of the wild men of contemporary American art having a show, but then few if any prep schools have a museum to match Phillips Academy’s Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. Fewer still have such illustrious artist […]
New Hampshire
New Hampshire Seacoast: 18-Mile Vacation
The New Hampshire seacoast is the Lichtenstein of New England–a small, generally overlooked principality much beloved by the few who know it, and given little thought by the rest of us. That’s ripe for change. In an era when the long weekend has replaced the two-week vacation (itself a replacement of the months-long summer sojourn […]
Yankee
Simple Beauty of Lois Dodd
In terms of a sustained vision of everyday beauty, painter Lois Dodd would be hard to beat. Since the 1950s, Dodd has pursued a simple, direct, pleasurable approach to painting the stuff of ordinary life — the landscapes around her, the environments she inhabits, her gardens and yards, her homes and her friends — all […]
New England
Five Connecticut Art Trail Travel Packages
The Connecticut Art Trail is a nationally recognized partnership among 14 world-class museums and historic sites, created to promote Connecticut’s rich cultural assets as part of a travel experience. From bucolic farms, art studios, and former artists’ boardinghouses to grand and modern art museums in vibrant downtowns, the Connecticut Art Trail showcases diverse, quality collections […]