Tags: gallery, photography, art, mixed media, exhibition, princeton, kingston
NJ WILD
Archive for the ‘ART’ Category
Rainbow Before Sandy, The Berkshires cfe NJ WILD readers know, at October’s wild end, I was led to the Berkshires, in Western Massachusetts. i was only to stay two days. My purpose was to hike in wooded hills and re-experience the finest arts at the Clark Institute, the Williams College Museum and Bennington’s, As complex 2012 wound down, mountains, art and limitless vistas had become more essential than usual. Sandy had other ideas.
Green Mountain Trees Await Sandy cfe My brief mountain getaway stretched to more than a week, with no heat or water in this Princeton dwelling, and major trees down along routes I needed in order to return home.
Long-time friends from corporate America laughed in unison when I referred to myself as a refugee. But what else are you when you can’t go home? The mountains had many messages for me, which I assiduously reported in my journal.
Sandy Approaches Williamstown cfe Above all, ‘Sandy’ is far too trivial a name for a natural event of that magnitude. Even though this Storm King lived up to its moniker, burying Jersey Shore cars well inland in sand like blizzard drifts.
Though cradled in the Green, the Berkshires, the Catskills and in the shadow of Mt. Greylock, this Jerseyan was haunted by a Shore town’s name, “Sea Girt.” Girdled by the sea. I do not know the fate of that oceanside haven, but it probably is not good. The truth is, we could change the name of New Jersey to Sea Girt. NJ WILD readers have ‘heard’ me all these years, insisting, “It’s not Mother Nature, Folks. It’s US!” This has now been demonstrated to the entire world, irrevocably, inescapably. On the heels of a political campaign in which catastrophic climate change and environmental perils, let alone carbon footprints played no role. Are we facing the truth now? Or are we all caught up in REBUILD and THE NEW NORMAL? What ‘Sandy’ revealed was the fate of all our coasts. What Sandy scrawled was the signature of sea-level rise. Vanishing glaciers mean more water in oceans, which means more ‘fuel’ for storms whether rain, snow or wind.
Where I Read Storm News, Williamstown: The Chef’s Hat cfe In the mountains, reading local papers and the New York Times, welcomed like a local, comforted as the refugee I had become, the scariest reality had to do with my beloved trees. One estimate, early on, was that we lost, in those few Sandy hours, 2 million trees. Think “2 million carbon sinks” everyone, two million living, breathing entities that used to absorb the CO2 we insist on pumping into the greenhouse called Earth. What the mountain newspaper asserted was, “This was not a storm of floods nor even of winds — this was a case of trees-turned-weapons.”
Sandy Fury North Williamstown cfe Drive anywhere, without even leaving Princeton. Toppled tree roots tower over dwellings of increasing magnitude. Even Morven itself is dwarfed by roots of the downed conifer in its front yard. Get out of the car to meet friends in the most privileged enclaves. Hear the tumultuous ripple of ‘tarps’ over roofbeams. Try to speak and hear above the roar of chain saws and tree-devourers.
Calm Before Storm, Bennington VT cfe Sandy is no respecter of history, pedigree, address, or life station. Years ago, I completed Tom Brown’s Tracker School. Ralph-the-Seneca was one of the participants, needing to learn Indian ways, especially foraging for wild foods, as intensely as I did. Ralph had been brought there to teach us the art of bow-making. At the end of making fire, Ralph took me aside, in the opening of a sturdy barn. “We are poisoning Mother Earth,” he intoned solemnly, back in 1983. “And she will do what any healthy animal does under those circumstances. She will vomit us out.” Although I was far from Tracker School and our beloved Jersey Shore - in fact, from New Jersey’s three unique coastlines — that battered Shore, the Delaware River and the Delaware Bay, i experienced Ralph’s prophecy’s being fulfilled.
FATE Climate change has never been a factor of ‘belief’! It’s here, now, big-time. Are we big enough to face it?
Long ago, –when Ilene Dube urged me to begin this nature blog for the Packet Publications–, I, who had never seen a blog at that time, discovered in the naming that I had to define “wild. One of the key definers, so long as I’ve known of him, starting with Desert Solitaire, is Edward Abbey. Whenever I read nature books, I write favorite lines in empty pages in the front and the back. Lines which buttress me in my sometimes daunting challenge of preserving land in our New Jersey at D&R Greenway Land Trust five days a week. Lines which form my life paradigm, actually — recognized by Ilene, who was so right that I must communicate in this 21st Century format. One of my favorite “Abbeyisms” I just added to e-mail signatures, as AOL somehow deleted the carefully crafted sign-off that had always been there. Basically, Ed Abbey said it all. I don’t need to write about nature for you. All we have to do is to contemplate Ed’s clarion call: “LONG LIVE THE WEEDS AND THE WILDERNESS!” (The Journey Home.) Ed challenges all authority in ringing tones, such as, “Are we going to ration the wilderness experience?” D&R Greenway’s Art Curator, Diana Moore, answered Ed’s challenge in her speech at our art opening reception for “Crossing Cultures” - “The message of this exhibition is that D&R Greenway saves land for all.” (Come see this edgey array, so praised by Jan Purcell in the Times of Trenton on Friday: business hours of business days, through July 27.) Ed saw the earth as a being before the astronauts sent back their image of our jeweled sphere of blue: “The earth is not a mechanism but an organism.” Protesting roads in national parks, he trumpeted, “You’ve got to be willing to walk!” (NJ WILD readers - you have read these concepts in these posts ever since we began. These positions wouldn’t be so powerful in me, without Edward Abbey.) Ed dedicated The Journey Home to his staunch father, “who taught me to hate injustice, to defy the powerful and to speak for the voiceless.” Ed educates me not only as a naturalist and courageous voyageur, but politically: “All government is bad, including good government.” His rage at the despoilation of nature pours forth in what used to be called “deathless prose.” Only, in today’s techno-era, –which Ed would deplore–, prose isn’t deathless any more. Ed decries “the degradation of our national heritage”, as I rail against despoilations of New Jersey. Caustically, he blurts, “They even oppose wilderness in the National Parks.” Ed sums it all up, although s writing of the Southwest. NJ WILD reader, just substitute our beleaguered New Jersey: “THE IDEA OF WILDERNESS NEEDS NO DEFENSE. IT ONLY NEEDS MORE DEFENDERS.” BE ONE! Support your local land trusts, and walk preserved trails weekly, to remember why preservation and stewardship are the key issues of our day. (Yes, I know - there’s catastrophic climate change. It is slowed by the presence of nature, trees, broad rivers and absorbent, fruitful wetlands…) Take your stand against what Ed calls “…a fanatical greed, an arrogant stupidity, … robbing us of the past and tranforming the future into nightmares…”
SEEKING CHRISTMAS IN NEW JERSEY
Little Caboose That Could, Bordentown, (from the Christmas of 2009) With rain pelting down, highways clogged, people on either side of cash registers surly, I cannot help but ask, “But, where is Christmas?” One thing I have always known - Christmas is not at the malls. This time of year, we can change that spelling to ‘The Mauls’. I must go searching for Christmas, and right now, in NJ:
Baubles of Yesterday - Mystery Destination, NJ I have searched for Christmas before: Married, with daughters, my Swiss husband and I would travel in quest of Christmas, seeking to evade the mercantile, to recapture sweet, even tender Christmases of his childhood and mine. Some of the most memorable: Carolers in sleighs at Waterville Valley. Snow sifting down upon their down jackets. Swiss chocolates and quaint gilt-trimmed, native-Swiss-scened Christmas cards upon our pillows when we came in from Midnight Mass. Snow and sweetness everywhere. Walking Aspen streets to the scent of woodsmoke, mountain stream singing that year’s carols outside our town condominium. Red and gold vintage popcorn wagon, spilling white kernels, while an ink-sky spilled the next day’s powder. In restaurants , firelight on copper, warmth in every welcome. “Froeliche Weinachten!” – the (non-written) Swiss language wish for a blessed Christmas, mingling with “Au Guri” in Italian and Happy St. Stephen’s Day, (more important than New Year’s) in the Christmas-card town of Zermatt, [where Werner was right at home at last, but which he'd never visited until we found it in 1964.] But this is New Jersey. Where do we go to find Christmas here? (Not to celebrate Christmas - that’s another story, to be told), but to feel it? Where better than a town whose residents helped give us two Trenton and one Princeton victories for Christmas in 1776 and 1777, whose residents gave us and continued to nourish Independence?
My simple nearby answer - Bordentown. Where everything still breathes of long ago. My Christmas recipe calls for a very large dose of history; an aura of peace; warmth of welcome; and sparkly diversions I find nowhere else. It is enhanced by vintage bookstores, and art galleries and purveyors of jewelry of other days. My Christmas always involves feasting, — easy, relaxed, memorable, casual or opulent, even reasonable, in Bordentown.
Bordentown’s Bon Appetit - The Storied Farnsworth House In Bordentown, history peals forth like Christmas bells.
Bell of Bordentown NJ Wild readers know, I crave above all Revolutionary history. Thomas Paine is the Revolutionary of choice in Bordentown. This is the only place anywhere in the world, in which the man whom the Founding Fathers credited with forging the Spirit of ‘76 ever owned property.
Thomas Paine Statue, High on a Bordentown Hill, where we lost a Revolutionary Battle
Rights of Man - Jefferson Credits This Book with The Spirit of ‘76
Patience Wright - Sculptress - Lived Here America’s first sculptress, who took her 1700’s fame and sailed to London where she perpetuated her fame, increased her skill and success. Her son, Joseph, became a renowned painter. One Patience Wright sign suggests she may have been a spy… In which case, she, also, secured the rights of man.
Bordentown’s Restorations are Stunning, Even When Trees are Bare
Cleaved Bonaparte Tree and Architectural Dig, Point Breeze Strolling Bordentown’s brick sidewalks (I convince myself each brick came from the brickworks at the nearby Hamilton/Trenton/Bordentown Marsh, where I love to hike and bird, especially after new snowfall.) Charles Lucien Bonaparte, –when he lived on the Bluffs above the Hamilton-Trenton-Bordentown Marsh–, discovered and named new species in the Marsh. He would send news of such creatures as the mourning dove, named for his wife, Zenaide, and the Cooper’s hawk to scientific colleagues all over Europe. His species discoveries, and who knows what from that consummate politician, his Uncle Joseph, traveled under sail, from the confluence of the Delaware River and the Crosswicks Creek, at Bordentown.
View of the Confluence of our Delaware River and the Crosswicks Creek From Bordentown’s River Line Train Station Here lived a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Frances Hopkinson, who also created the Great Seal of New Jersey, and his son, Joseph, who wrote Hail Columbia.
Frances and Joseph Hopkinson House Here Clara Barton founded her free school, the tiny building still crowning a triangle of land not far from Jester’s Cafe.
Clara Barton’s School
Jester’s Cafe, a Warm Welcome In All Seasons
Warm Welcome of Summer Venerable Bricks: Quaker Meeting House
Quaker Meeting House, with early Bordentown mural on side wall hidden here in shadow
Old Bordentown Mural near Quaker Meeting House
Nearby is the Point Breeze land on top of the Bordentown Bluffs, where Napoleon ordered his brother Joseph, former King of Spain and of Naples, to live but not to rule, because so convenient to Philadelphia, New York and Europe, under sail.
View from the Bonaparte Estate, Point Breeze Next to the Farnsworth House is the impressive John Bull memorial, first steam engine in America, which pulled the legendary Camden and Amboy Railroad across Farnsworth Avenue — the railroad that carried Abraham Lincoln to his Inauguration and his grave. See what I mean about gliding through time’s veil?
Please, Santa? Bordentown for Christmas…. River Line Trenton Sign (Trenton is one stop north — through the Marsh)
This Way to Camden and Walt Whitman’s House
One of the Many Forms of “A Beautiful Day…” Upon reading “Her Idea of a Beautiful Day”, in My Story As Told By Water, my first thought was, ‘Well, what would be MY idea of a beautiful day?’ Its subjunctive question immediately appeared - ‘What is YOURs?‘ – readers of and cherished commentors upon NJ WILD–, what renders a day beautiful in your life, at this moment in time? My Story as Told By Water is a riverine memoir by David James Duncan. This man is a modern bard, in prose and diatribe, of the endangered American West, –particularly its rivers, especially of its salmon. Over and over, Duncan teaches, “As salmon go, so go the rivers.” And the indigenous people whose lives since time immemorial have depended upon the rivers and their creatures. With salmon and salmon people go the state, the region, the nation and ultimately the globe. Especially here in the east, we do not GET it about the peril of and the implications of industrial murder of salmon.
Sunfish, Baldpate Mountain Pond, Brenda Jones Edward Abbey taught us first the evil of dams. David James Duncan blows on Abbey coals. My Story As Told By Water is my favorite title of the genre, the way Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is my favorite opening line of any novel. Young Duncan fell in love with water using a garden hose in his childhood driveway. His first love was abruptly relinquished for the real thing, when the boy fell INTO his first trout stream, discovering crawdads and fish. Duncan’s chapters tango between ever increasing passion for natural waterways, and fury at all who would destroy them. His rage and eloquence increase exponentially in our era of greed-enthronement. The boy describes having been stunned by his grandmother’s rabid devotion to her job as a real estate agent: “Her idea of a beautiful day was one that increased the likelihood of her selling a house.” Nature, to Duncan’s grandmother, “had an unwashed, unsaved ring to it.” Needless to say, “a beautiful day” to this author involves water, usually fresh, with the promise of fish. David James Duncan forces me to consider my own definition of a beautiful day. The instant answer is any day with friends, sharing nature with the perfect blend of passion, knowledge, and curiosity. Remarkable food is often involved, and frequently art. But if I had to choose but one factor for “my beautiful day”? NATURE.
I was frankly stunned to discover that “my beautiful day” need not be fair. “A beautiful day” to me is something that hardly ever happens any more — a time of long soft soaking rain. Gentle in quality and quantity, lowering a scrim over the harsh world. Rain that whispers, at most sizzles. This precipitation is neither so white and stiff as was my bridal veil, nor so dense and weighty as Jacqueline Kennedy’s widow’s veil — which cast a pall over my life, and was first worn in the impossible aftermath of this very day, November 22, in 1963. The most beautiful day to me now, in New Jersey, in the year 2008, is rain that tiptoes along the thirsty earth. It simply nourishes seeds, –without dislodging soil, let alone removing pebbles. A beautiful day’s rain never topples trees because of both quantity and intensity, without even factoring in damaging wind. What I require now is rain as it was before global warming. Lately, as NJ WILD readers know, I’ve learned to be out in what the Brits call “a mizzle of rain.” There’s a blessing in it — tactile, even spiritual. I may prefer the days of rain and fog because they soften the impossible harshnesses of the 21st Century. You also know, nature is my church, and the Towpath and Canal in particular. David James Duncan says it better: “Church became a place where I waited for rain.” “Pine Drops” hold the rain, by Lauren Curtis
RIENDS IN FIELD AND FOREST: Celebrating Partners in Preservation Art Exhibit til December 2 D&R Greenway Land Trust is regionally renowned for nature art exhibitions, to focus attention on nature and the urgency of its preservation in our beleaguered state. Curator Diana Moore has designed and hung our current art. Its opening reception is free and open to the public, this coming Sunday, November 6, from 4 - 6. Please join us by calling 609-924-4646 to register, or e-mailing info@drgreenway.org. The stunning fine art photography of ‘our’ Brenda Jones, and Vladimir Voyevodsky, stellar mathematician from the Institute for Advanced Study, joins the superb oil paintings of Joe Kazimierczyk, whose Sourlands-centric work and farther afield in New Jersey has appeared in these ‘pages.’ A host of memorable artists awaits each of you. All the art either was inspired by or actually created on four lands we preserved with Green Acres Partnership: Coventry Farm, Farmview Fields (across from Coventry on the Great Road), Greenway Meadows, in which our 1900 barn is nestled, and Institute for Advanced Study land. All art is for sale. A percentage of the proceeds supports our preservation and stewardship mission. Here is Tiffany So’s beautiful invitation to art and nature, November 2011:
My dear NJ WILD readers know that I spend my weekdays at D&R Greenway, helping to call attention to the importance and urgency of saving nature in New Jersey. One of our key programs is, somewhat uniquely, art in the service of preservation. Our new Curator, Diana Moore, is a legend in her own time. She has gathered stunning images, particularly oil paintings by Joe Kazimierczyk and photographs by Vladimir Voyevodsky of the Institute for Advance Study, for the show opening Monday, October 24, through December 2. Walking through the Upmeyer Room, arrayed with Joe’s scenes of lands we’ve preserved, is like a stroll in the forest, even when it’s pouring outside. The Voyevodsky (iconic Institute mathematician) images of birds and animals of the Institute Woods leave me as weak in the knees as a day in the Brigantine (Wildlife Refuge, near Smithville). Our Brenda Jones has four splendid photographs in the key position of the Evelyne V. Johnson Room, three of which include natural materials spilling from image over mat. Al Barker of Bordentown has works which stun, not only for their luminous precision, but for their exceeding low price as a favor to us. His work normally sells in the four-figure range. The Art Opening is November 6, Sunday, from 4 - 6. As you will see, all are welcome and these festive receptions are always free. The art may be seen business hours of business days at One Preservation Place, off Rosedale Road. All art is for sale, 35% supporting our preservation and stewardship mission. Please come see the art, and experience our 1900 barn, which belonged to Robert Wood Johnson. Now it is a focus of art and preservation!
Chateau Prieure Lichine, Where we Dined with Alexis and his wife, night after night, in 1964, Meeting Our First Wine Caves due to his enormous generosity NJ WILD readers know that, for all my cherishing and championing of our New Jersey, my heart belongs to France in general, and Provence in particular. Where I lived merrily, between the Mediterranean, the pre-Alps, the Alps and the Esterel Massif and Forest (oaks and pines like our Pinelands) from October 1987 through August 1988. I was homesick for Provence before I ever even knew there was such an entity - when I thought Provence was France and vice versa. My neighbors, Charles Mouzon, the Carre’s, and La Contessa/La Marquise soon set me straight. Fretting over having to return to their home province, like Mary and Joseph at the time of the birth of Jesus, in order to vote - to vote THREE TIMES in 1987, they soon let me know that it was an ordeal, an imposition, to “return to France.” “But I thought THIS is France.” “Mais, Caroline,” they sang vehemently, starting almost every new concept with, “But, Carolyn!…”, “this is not France. It’s Provence!”
Pissaladier, Specialite de Nice, Provence, France
Olives of Nice, Marche aux Fleurs, Nice, Provence, France I “met” Provence as a separate entity in 1976, Washington’s Birthday week, with my childhood friend, Bernadette Thibodeau. We spent ten days at La Voile d’Or in Cap Ferrat, a Florida-like out-thrust from the South of France where we encountered Heaven on Earth. So splendid was that time, that we reminisce about it to this day. Remembering, actually, this week the maid (bonne a toute faire! - maid who does everything) who brought us vases for our fragrant freesia and mimosa from Provencal roadside markets, the most fragrant flowers of our lives, blooming everywhere in February. Priceless vases from one of the stars in the Cote d’Azur’s hospitality crown, for our flowers which were, essentially, weeds…
Olives of Provence for Sale, Nice, France So spectacular was that journey in beauty, art, sea and garden views, and above all, wine and gastronomy, that I returned for ‘Spring Break’ with my husband, Werner; my daughters, Diane and Catherine, and dear friends, Weezie and Jack Christian, with their youngest children, Paul and Maureen. The excellence of my haphazard (for that was a sudden journey) time with Bernadette was, if anything, surpassed, with the Christians. NJ WILD readers already know that, all my life, leaving France, I have felt ripped from the womb. Reading Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route, A Wine Buyer’s Tour de France, for the second time, I am plunged back into my trueland, –France in general and Provence in particular. To the place about which part-time resident, now, Kermit Lynch insists, “Only here am I chez moi.” (Only here am I where I belong.) Kermit is a legendary wine importer, who believes, as I do, in ‘natural wines.’ Real wood casques, preferably venerable, and/or from other splendid vineyards, such as Margaux and Latour. No chemicals. No sulphur, no sugars, no water, no wines from other vineyards, let alone wine of other regions.
Alexis Lichine’s Guide to Wines of France, which became our Bible… Needless to say, in this book, with Kermit, I am spending a great deal of time in caves. Not Lassen Volcanic National Park, where my mother tried to force me to enter caverns formed in various eruptions. Famous for eruptions, she was, and I wanted no part of that energy, nor a tour sous-terre, below the earth, as the French would say.
I didn’t like Mammoth Cave, either, into which my sister and I were dragged, in order to appreciate stalagmites and stalagtites, stand there and watch them grow. Nor — there or another cave, concretions christened ‘organ pipes’? And forget bat caves — though I appreciate bats, and wish them well, not only their imperiled noses.
Footprint of Prehistoric Boy embedded in Floor of Peche Merle Cave, France The caves I adore, and for which I yearn, are those were prehistoric men and women used dyes and blow-pipes and their own hands, their memories and yearnings for wild beasts, to create art. As I wrote in the poem By Lamplight, “the caves, themselves, cooperating in rare art.” Underfoot, one steps across prints of ancient people, in the half light of that cave where art was essential, where art emerged before words…
Chateau Lascombes Label - we stayed in the tower… The caves I’m remembering today, however, I experienced with my husband, Werner, in 1964. Guests, first, of Alexis Lichine in Bordeaux; then of the Bouchards in Burgundy, we descended, in steamy July, into primordial cold. The air was redolent of old wines, dust, oak, and time itself. When we sipped wines from the casques, in that heady time on the heels of the legendary 1959, we were to spit the residue onto earthen floors. Candles flickered. Moisture dripped from ceilings and formed on walls. Casques gave way to bottles, often adorned with cobwebs. These legendary vintners loaned us silver tastevins (shallow silver cuplets with a flat thumb-holder lthumb-print-sized bumps to raise each vintage to hesitant candlelight for careful evaluation.)
Bouchard, Pere et Fils, Bottles We tasted the wine of that year, followed by the splendidly aging, even miracalizing, 1959s. We saw and tasted pale pre-phylloxera wines, poured from cobwebbed heavy bottles. Not for a moment did I hesitate, let alone regret, cave entry, in Bordeaux and in Burgundy. Later, on the Friends of the Art Museum (Princeton’s) Tour of Romanesque France, in 1978, I met prehistoric caves, such as Peche Merle. There, walls were decorated with handprints of the artists. Footprints of the peoples of that time were immortalized in those gray floors over which we gingerly moved. Light flickered there, too. The Guide spoke French too fast, and any number of us were caught up in translating for the others. But there were no words for the level of magic held in the cave of Peche Merle to this day.
Human Hand Print, Dye-Blown, Peche Merle Cave, France Convolutions in those chilly walls had been turned into the flanks and hollows of prehistoric beasts. Perhaps in gratitude for the hunt. Perhaps in petition.
Head of Bear, Cave Wall, Peche Merle, France Petition, or gratitude - we will never know. I only know, French caves embraced, did not forfend me. Here is my poem, published in one of our Cool Women Poets Anthologies, revealing my strong sense that I once had a hand in creating cave art…
Peche Merle Cave Horse
BY LAMPLIGHT
I would return to the caves carry a small flicker of light in the pointed clay lamp that just fits in the palm of my left hand, leaving the right free to fumble and to know the true
contours of this mammoth’s haunch quick swelling of auroch’s chest smooth hollow at the bison’s sooty flank the cave itself collaborating in new art
NJ WILD readers know I spend most of my days furthering preservation of New Jersey’s scarce land, mostly through facilitating art exhibitions at D&R Greenway Land Trust, as well as welcoming a ceaseless stream of art visitors to our galleries. We show nature art so that people will more greatly appreciate nature, and therefore preserve it. Right now, guests may enjoy the Garden State Watercolor Society’s 42nd annual art exhibition, “In Step With Nature.” GSWS has chosen this nature theme to tie in with our preservation and stewardship mission. The art is available through October 14. But come to the August 19 Reception and/or Charles McVicker’s Gallery Walk on Wednesday, August 17. Both are free and both start at 5:30 and run to 7:30. Our reception, August 19, will be a lively mix of artists, collectors, Board Members, preservationists, and often people just in off the street to see what all the fuss (two full parking lots off Rosedale Road) is about. We prefer that you call to register, so that we know how much wine, cheese and fruit to have in readiness - 609-924-4646. A broad array of images, from realist through impressionist to abstract, stands out from our weathered barn walls. D&R Greenway Curator, Diana Moore, put this work together with an artist’s eye - whether she’ll admit this or not! Twenty one awards were conveyed at the Garden State Watercolor Society’s private reception August 6. Visitors are welcome at D&R Greenway, One Preservation Place, off Rosedale Road, to see and purchase these stunning works during business hours of business days. A percentage of the purchase price comes to us, a non-profit, to further the saving of land. A wondrous team of Willing Hands is at my side for receptions, so that guests feel fully welcomed, and all the focus is on the art. Come, join us. www.drgreenway.org Here is Tiffany So’s beautiful Constant Contact today:
Artist Joe Kazimierczyk Treasures North Jersey - his “Mountain Road” *** Fellow hikers, [though no NJ WILD reader], ask why I seem never to write of New Jersey North. The truth is, for me, the journey is the destination. You know my passion for empty Pine Barrens Roads, for being surrounded by dense woods, near resonant peat streams, going down every “No Outlet” in Salem and Cumberland Counties to the Delaware Bay. The splendor of Joe’s images from New Jersey North could almost convince me otherwise, however. NJ WILD readers know that I need route to and from nature sites to nourish, to serve as part of my haven experience. Roads I must utilize to reach North Jersey are fraught, competitive, frankly too corporate, populated with people in a driven mood (pun intentional). Those highways sap my strength, come between beauty and me, peace and me, nature and me. Those conduits undo the good of most northern excursions, with the possible exception of Ken Lockwood Gorge up beyond Clinton.
A CANOE CALLED DISCOVERY, CLINTON… cfe
It was worth taking highways to reach beautiful Clinton and its Colorado-like Gorge. But I digress: ***
Roads North Do Not Daunt Artist Joe Kazimierczyk - They Inspire Him: Route 202 North
Route 202 North Immortalized by Joe Kaz
There are hardy souls, [such as one of my all-time favorite New Jersey artists], Joe Kazimierczyk, who treasure northern sites and will pay any price, highway-wise, bear any burden to reach them. Joe, whom everyone calls Joe Kaz, is a joy as a person as well as through his art. As I once wrote in a poem to Vincent Van Gogh, I could say to Joe, “You write as well as you paint!” Joe Kaz — man of the eloquent brush. You can see his work, beginning this Wednesday, at the Verde Gallery in Kingston, next to legendary local/sustainable/gourmet’s haven, Eno Terra Restaurant. http://www.joekaz.com/galleries/verde_artists_collective Verde Artists’ Collective4492 Rte 27, Kingston, NJ, 08528
(609) 865-5456
Venue Type: Arts / Cultural Center
Hours: Wed - Sat 11-5, Sun 12-4 and by appt
Accessible to persons with disabilities.
Creator: Verde
Here is the key to the treasury of Joe’s superb art of the moment, catalyzed by nature, especially in the Sourland Mountains, which we of D&R Greenway Land Trust have done so much to preserve. Joe devotes his life to singing Sourland praises, as well as Hunterdon County and the D&R Canal and Towpath. Without preservation throughout our beleaguered state, Joe would be lacking the major sources of inspiration for his brilliant works.in oil and acrylic. http://www.joekaz.com/ My purpose is to honor Joe, as well as to be fair to the northern part of our fair state. When Joe speaks of North, he means in and near and on the way to and from the Delaware Water Gap. Up there, he can lose himself in trails and timelessness, return with shimmering canvases.
Round Valley, Northern New Jersey, Tryptych — Joe Kazimierczyk *** I’ll collect some of Joe’s words about North Jersey, which inspires him, beyond his native Sourlands. Joe and I were write/talking about bears in NJ, I remembering bears near Chatsworth in the Pines. He writes: I’ve only seen bears twice in NJ and both times were up there - once along the road on the way to Walpak, and once while hiking the trails near Rattlesnake Mtn. When I saw the bears on the trail, it was a mother bear with cub, so we just froze and didn’t move until the bears were out of sight. Another sight I’ll never forget seeing up there - a large hawk flying low with a big snake in its claws. Wish I could say what kind of bird but I’m not good at bird identification. Impressive sight though! Our initial interchange called forth these descriptions: I haven’t painted any scenes up there in a long long time. I’m attaching 3 that I did in 1989 - they’re done with acrylics, and quite a bit different from those I’m painting now. blue_mountain_1.jpg - this is a view from the AT atop Kittatinny Ridge somewhere above Buttermilk Falls, looking out over the Poconos. If memory serves, it was probably from Rattlesnake Mountain and nearby are a group of lakes and ponds named Blue Mountain Lakes.
Joe Kazimierczyk’s “Blue Mountain” mountain_road_walpack.jpg - Near the town of Walpak, Mountain Rd takes you to the base of Buttermilk Falls. From there, it’s a very steep climb up to the Appalachian Trail. I wish I had a picture of Buttermilk Falls - it’s 75′ tall, the tallest waterfall in NJ. There a nice pic on this guy’s blog. This Park Service doc also has a photo: http://www.nps.gov/dewa/historyculture/upload/cmsstgOMR3WC.pdf
Joe Kazimierczyk’s Mountain Road, Walpack mountain_road_walpack.jpg - Near the town of Walpak, Mountain Rd takes you to the base of Buttermilk Falls. From there, it’s a very steep climb up to the Appalachian Trail. I wish I had a picture of Buttermilk Falls - it’s 75′ tall, the tallest waterfall in NJ. There a nice pic on this guy’s blog. This Park Service doc also has a photo: http://www.nps.gov/dewa/historyculture/upload/cmsstgOMR3WC.pdf ***
Coppermines Trail by Joe Kazimierczyk coppermines_tail_2.jpg - this painting is really stylized - nothing like the realism that I paint now, but I think it still captures the feel of Coppermines Trail where and the hemlock filled ravine it follows. There are also some nice waterfalls at the top of this trail. Closer to the bottom of the trail you can see some coppermine tunnels that go back to the mid-1700’s. ***
BUTTERMILK FALLS DESCRIPTION FROM Internet: This spectacular waterfall cascades down the mountainside just a few feet from the road; it is breathtaking in most seasons, but less so during dry periods. The National Park Service has built interpretive displays along a wooden stairway to the top of the falls, but use caution as it is quite steep and is likely to be damp. Adventurous explorers can take the Buttermilk Falls Blue Trail that climbs 1000 feet above the falls, and ultimately reaches the Appalachian Trail after approximately 1.9 miles. For more information visit http://www.nynjtc.org/trails/ebh/buttermilk.html. Although Mountain Road is unpaved and rough in some areas, it can be rewarding for wildlife-viewing. There are several parking areas, and, as with the other sites in this region, a host of birds can be found, including American Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow, Blue-winged, Hooded, Magnolia and Northern Parula Warblers, Wood, Veery, Swainson’s and Hermit Thrushes, Eastern Wood Pewee, Great-crested Flycatcher and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Wikipedia on Joe’s northern region of inspiration: At the south end of the park, the river cuts eastward through the Appalachian Mountains at the scenic Delaware Water Gap. A one-day auto tour of the park can include waterfalls, rural scenery, and historic Millbrook Village. Visitors can also canoe, hike, camp, swim, picnic, bicycle, crosscountry ski, and horseback ride. Fishing and hunting are permitted in season with state licenses. The park hosts significant Native American archaeological sites, and a number of structures remain from early Dutch settlement during the colonial period. The birder in me is intrigued, as I hope NJ WILD readers are, also. Do your own North Jersey research, and send me your results as comments. Lead me on new trails. Thank you! cfe And just in case you’ve forgotten the splendors of Ken Lockwood Gorge, north of historic Clinton:
Tasha O’Neill Immortalizes N. Jersey’s Trout-Central - the Ken Lockwood Gorge
These pictures are the fruits of Brenda Jones’ one day of birding at what used to be called Baldpate Mountain, and is now “The Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain”. If you seek a reason for preservation, look below… When Baldpate Mountain Country Park was renamed, Mercer County Executive, Brian Hughes, announced this significant christening at Ted Stiles’ memorial, attended by more than five hundred whose lives have been enriched by this splendid preservationist, and greatly diminished by his absence. “Even while Ted was fighting for his life, he was working on open-space preservation projects,” Mr. Hughes revealed. “The preservation of Baldpate Mountain was noteworthy in that it was an extremely difficult proposal to put together. It took a person whose expertise was second to none. It took Ted.”
Rose-breasted Grosbeak in Full Breeding Plumage - Brenda Jones Some people take pictures, such as yours truly. Some create art - Brenda Jones’ forte, as NJ WILD readers know.
Scarlet Tanager, Brenda Jones Some cherish birds. Some immortalize them.
American Redstart, Brenda Jones Brenda and Cliff Jones went to Baldpate Mountain recently, a place in whose preservation, of course, D&R Greenway Land Trust had a significant hand. A place dear to the heart of the late Ted Stiles, whose impossible death still stuns, but whose lifework lives on wherever there is wild New Jersey, especially Baldpate Mountain.
Black and White Warbler, Brenda Jones (These electrifying creatures bop down trunks like nuthatches. preferring deep forest…) *** BRENDA’S BALDPATE MASTERPIECES: ***
American Goldfinch, Brenda Jones (New Jersey’s State Bird) Remember, without preservation, there would be no habitat for these winged jewels of springtime.
Baltimore Oriole, Brenda Jones (despite their being Princeton colors, this bird is named for the colors of Lord Baltimore, Brenda notes)
Chestnut-sided Warbler, Brenda Jones (I’ve never even seen one, except in bird books and magazine…) *** Without preservation, there would be no habitat in which artists like Brenda can work photomagic. ***
Veery, Brenda Jones (I’ve heard Veeries, in Sourland Mountains, at Marsh - but not seen…) *** Without preservation, there would be no wide open, nor shaded, nor climbing settings in which NJ WILD readers can seek and achieve their own restoration! ***
Black-throated Green Warbler from below, Brenda Jones (I know, where’s the green? — bird names can be amusing/frustrating…) ***
Black Vulture, Brenda Jones (Brenda honors vultures) ***
Red-eyed Vireo, “Singing Its Heart Out”, Brenda Jones (The whole point of these songs and raiments is to convince prospective mates.) ***
Chipping Sparrow, Brenda Jones (This dapper little fellow is usually found on ground, even on your lawn, energetically feeding.) ***
Hooded Warbler from below, Brenda Jones (One bird name that works!) ***
Eastern Towhee “In His Tuxedo” — Brenda Jones (This is the bird that fought his rival in my parked car’s rear-view mirror last week!) *** Brenda Jones is always in the right place at the right time - see this black-throated green with its prey in that tiny beak — good provider!
*** along with another good provider, the Magnolia Warbler with a caterpillar
*** and this black-and-white with its spider
*** A TREASURY OF BREEDING WARBLERS BY BRENDA JONES *** made possible through the preservation of treasured NEW JERSEY LAND!
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