My new release from the Brian E. Tierney Preserve, “Tierney Springtime”, brings you into the wooded hills of Roxbury in Western Connecticut. Jack’s Brook, a lively tributary of the Shepaug River, is found snaking through a rock-strewn glen in the faint morning twilight as broad, verdant leaves of riverside skunk cabbage jostle in the breeze.
Although the lush greenery of skunk cabbage is a refreshing sign of spring, anybody that has traipsed through patches of this plant in the wetlands as a child is all too familiar with the potent stench of its sap. That foul odor, not surprisingly, inspired the comparison to the rank odor unleashed by frightened skunks. Luckily, the stench of skunk cabbage isn’t quite as noxious and doesn’t linger nearly as long as that of an actual skunk, but it’s unpleasant just the same.
In spite of its unfortunate reputation, eastern skunk cabbage is actually a quite remarkable plant which is expertly adapted to the climatic extremes of New England. Beginning as early as January and February, the mottled flower hoods of skunk cabbage can be found melting through the snow and ice on their wetland habitat. That’s right: skunk cabbage is one of the rare plants that is able to generate it’s own heat, sometimes in excess of 20° to 30°F above that of the surrounding air. This incredible ability affords it the opportunity to push its flowers up in late winter in order to draw pollinating insects before its competitors have so much as sprouted. And believe it or not, even that offensive odor serves a very clever purpose. Since the smell roughly resembles that of rotting plants and animals, it attracts flies and similar insects that emerge very early in the year and pollinate the flowers of the skunk cabbage.
But truth be told, finding this natural garden of springtime foliage was actually just a welcome bonus along the route to my planned destination. The sight that had drawn me out to Tierney Preserve to begin with was a waterfall locally known as The Cascades which was mentioned in Russell Dunn’s book, Connecticut Waterfalls: A Guide. He had opted to prepend that generic name with the name of the brook upon which the 15-foot falls are formed, thus making them Jack’s Brook Cascades. You can see this waterfall in my new piece, “The Falls at Tierney” (above), where they weave through a rocky, woodland gorge in the faint morning light filtering down through the springtime canopy.
From a purely technical perspective, the waterfall really is more of a steep, spirited cascade. But I can understand why Dunn included it in his waterfall guide, since Jack’s Brook Cascades are every bit a waterfall by aesthetic standards. That is to say, it simply feels like a waterfall. Suffice it to say, you can expect to see “The Falls at Tierney” added to my ever-growing Waterfalls of Connecticut collection, which I urge you to check out at connecticutfalls.com if you haven’t visited lately. I’ve added a few more waterfalls over the course of the past season, so you’ll probably find something new.
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“I saw, as for the first time, what a severe yet master artist Winter is. Ah, a severe artist! How stern the woods look, dark and cold and as rigid against the horizon as iron!”
-John Burroughs
“The Snow-Walkers” (1866)
What better way to kick off the New Year than celebrating the quietly beautiful snowscapes that are a hallmark of wintertime in New England? My new piece, Mad River Lullaby, was produced only a few weeks ago and portrays a broad bend on the Mad River as it snakes through snowy woodlands just down the road from my home in Wolcott, Connecticut.
The Mad River is impounded downstream of this vista to create the 120-acre Scovill Reservoir, so the serpentine meander featured in Mad River Lullaby is typically inundated. In this rare instance, however, the reservoir had been drawn down several feet, allowing the Mad River to briefly reclaim its more natural footprint. Freshly-fallen snow, courtesy of a December storm, delicately frosted the bare trees and “tidied up” the muddy cobble left behind as the reservoir receded.
Throughout 2013, I managed to travel all over Connecticut and Western Massachusetts and even enjoyed a couple jaunts into Vermont and Eastern New York. Nature was not so shy during many of these travels, presenting several opportunities to capture rare and intimate glimpses of her beauty wherever I set off into the landscape. But, as nature photographer Moose Peterson once said,” The real prize is what you bring home in your heart, not on your memory card.” Indeed, when I browse through my work from this past year, I recall countless fulfilling days of being out in the wilds. Those experiences… those memories… are the reason that I love this art form so deeply.
To all of my viewers, I wish you and yours a bountiful and memorable new year in 2014!
Two of my new prints will be among the many fine pieces on display at Lost Acres Vineyard in Granby, Connecticut this week for Arts & Agriculture, an exhibition of works inspired by the agricultural heritage of the Farmington River Valley.
The first of these new pieces, Talcott Mountain Rustic (at top), brings us to a belt of farmland in Simsbury at the foot of Talcott Mountain during mid-October. An old tractor sits parked in the fields, painted with alternating bands of shadow and light as the day’s end grows close. Talcott Mountain climbs prominently from the horizon, its broad slopes jacketed with bold autumn colors and its crest lined with bare cliffs of traprock.
My other new work on display, titled Forgotten Barn (not shown), portrays an old, sun-bleached farm building near Holcomb Farm in Granby. Overgrown weeds and shrubs crowd the walls of the aged barn, which sits nestled against the forest edge beneath an inviting expanse of blue sky and soft clouds.
The exhibition, fully dubbed Arts & Agriculture: Celebrating the Farmington Valley’s Natural Beauty, is presented by the Granby Land Trust and Granby Artists Association. The opening reception is scheduled this Wednesday, November 6, and all works will be on display and available for purchase through December 8, 2013.
Consider this your invitation to the show! The address is below:
Lost Acres Vineyard
80 Lost Acres Road
North Granby, CT 06060
Click here for more details about the show from the Granby Land Trust.
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the New England landscape is the dramatic way in which it is forever being transformed by seasonal rhythms. During the summertime, I find myself walking through thick forests that seem virtually tropical in their abundance of crowded greenery. Yet only months later, I revisit the same forest to find a drastically altered landscape. Lively greens have been replaced instead with an earthy mosaic of grey and brown tree trunks that emerge from a white blanket of snow and reach skywards with bare branches. In between these two extremes are myriad transitional states that blend into a seamless cycle of change. So although I am always seeking to imbue my landscape photography with what I call “a sense of place”, I am mindful of the fact that these places are in perpetual transition and can be surprisingly difficult to pin down.
In the spirit of seasonal transition, I will introduce you to my latest fine art prints in a chronology that follows the landscapes of Connecticut from the last days of Summer through the changing of the leaves during Autumn, culminating in the frozen landscapes of deep winter.
Early September on the Connecticut Coast Westbrook, Connecticut
In Southern New England, the early days of September find summertime in its final throws, with temperatures still just about warm enough for a comfortable walk along the beach. My new piece, “Seaside at West Beach” (below), foreshadows the dynamic and temperamental side of nature, qualities which become even more evident as the days pass and early September transitions into early Autumn.
“Seaside at West Beach” brings us to the shores of Westbrook, Connecticut where gentle waves engulf the shell of a long-perished clam. The entire scene possesses a certain surreal quality, owing largely to the way in which sunlight had managed to momentarily struggle through the dark clouds of a passing thunderstorm.
The shell in the foreground is that of a soft-shell clam, known colloquially as the “steamer”. These are rather common mollusks in Westbrook Harbor, thriving in the silty intertidal zone beside razor clams and quahogs. Some of my fondest childhood memories of the Connecticut coast involve digging for these clams on the sandbars in the very place where I produced “Seaside at West Beach.
Late September in the Farmington River Valley Peoples State Forest, Barkhamsted, Connecticut
With late September comes the first days of Autumn, and while it may be too early for the leaves to have started showing their fall colors, there are other indicators of the changing season. Local agricultural fairs are in full-swing all over Connecticut, even though the agricultural way of life has all but disappeared from much of the state. Connecticut farms began to decline sharply in number during the later half of the 19th-century, but aerial photography of the state from the 1930s reveals a landscape that was still heavily quilted with angular cropland in all but the most developed areas. Today, only a tiny fraction of those farms remain. Over the course of the last 80 years, most of them were subdivided to build neighborhoods or abandoned to become forest. Agricultural fairs are one of the last lingering cultural influences from a time when farmland was still a common sight in just about any Connecticut town. Late September is also the time when I usually head to the local orchard for a taste of real apple cider, a drink which has always been part of my “autumn ritual”, for it seems that it embodies the quintessential character of New England.
Yet another sign of the changing seasons is evident while I’m out on photo shoots. During the months of July and August, for example, I can hike comfortably through the wilds of Connecticut with little more than a t-shirt and jeans. Late September is a different story altogether, for although daytime temperatures may still be fairly mild, there’s an unmistakeable chill in the air when I’m hiking out to my destinations in the pre-dawn hours. Such was the case when I scrambled down the banks of the Farmington River in Barkhamsted, Connecticut to compose “Barkhamsted Rapids” (above).
Finding myself woefully under-dressed for the cool air of the river valley, I was shivering as I set up my tripod in the morning twilight. When the Sun finally began to rise behind me, illuminating the trees on the opposite side of the river, I could almost immediately feel a reassuring warmth permeate my body. I shot “Barkhamsted Rapids” only 15 or 20 minutes later, just as the sun had risen high enough to completely set the trees aglow, but while it was still low enough in the sky that the river itself remained bathed in cold shadows. The result is a piece that exhibits a strong contrast between light and dark… between warm and cool… between the summer months that are being left behind, and autumn months that lie in wait.
October Arrives in the Naugatuck Valley Black Rock State Park, Watertown, Connecticut
Even if September doesn’t show many signs of the changing season, October is sure to usher in the full momentum of autumn. Perhaps the most ubiquitous indicator of fall is the changing colors of the woodlands, when summertime forests transform into a brilliant display of reds, purples, oranges and yellows. Each year, Connecticut’s fall colors arrive at their own pace, governed by a mysterious blend of shortened days and varying patterns of temperature, humidity and precipitation. In many cases, these factors can differ starkly from one location to the next, so that the leaves in one forest may have started changing by mid-September, while the leaves in a forest only a few miles away might be held over until early October.
But by mid-October, about the time I ventured to Black Rock Pond in Watertown, Connecticut to produce “Mattatuck Mist” (below), the color change had hit nearly every region of the Nutmeg State. In many places, leaves were already beginning to drop from their branches by the millions.
In “Mattatuck Mist”, we find subtle cues that plant us firmly in the later days of October, such as the strands of reeds that delicately poke through a vivid mosaic of fallen maple and oak leaves which have settled in the shallows of Black Rock Pond. As our eyes travel through this piece, however, we enter an ethereal waterscape bathed in lingering mist, where the forms of towering evergreens crowd the pond and fade to hazy outlines in the distance.
Historically, the name Mattatuck was of Native American origin and referred to a vast swath of land in western Connecticut that we know today as the Central Naugatuck River Valley. When the English settled the region in the mid-1670s, they were content to continue using the term. But when the settlement of Mattatuck was officially incorporated as a town of the Connecticut Colony in 1686, it was decided that the place would be renamed “Waterbury” in light of the many streams and brooks that ran through the territory and emptied into the Naugatuck River.
November in the Connecticut Valley River Highlands State Park, Cromwell, Connecticut
As we move into November, the landscapes of Southern New England have already largely been transformed by progressively cooler temperatures and noticeably shortened days. The dramatic colors of autumn have run their course, and even though the season doesn’t technically give way to winter until the later half of December, the bare trees seem to have already thrown in the towel.
But when I stepped out upon the muddy banks of the Connecticut River on a brisk November morning, I found skies washed over with soft colors and broad, glowing clouds stretching from the horizon. My piece from that morning, “A Cold Day on the Connecticut”, is a testament to the inspiring displays of color that can be had even after the blazes of autumn have come and gone.
This particular stretch of the Connecticut is flanked to the west by River Highlands State Park, a swath of forested bluffs encompassing over 170 acres in Cromwell, Connecticut and rising as high as 150 feet above the river below. Incorporated into the state park system in 2001, “River Highlands” seemed a fitting title given the geography of the area. But if officials had been guided by historical precedent, we might know it today by a much different name!
Back when sailing ships were still a common sight along the Connecticut, this section of the river was termed “the Blow Hole”, owing to the unusually swift winds that pushed through the bluffs and gave passing vessels a brief boost of speed. But traditional lore, perhaps dating back as far as the 17th-century, suggests that the unusual name originated with some of the first generations of Connecticut settlers. Colonial-era Puritans are said to have named the area “The Devil’s Blowhole” on account of the ominous howls that were occasionally heard emanating from the bluffs. In all likelihood, they were simply hearing the wind whistle as it whipped through the terrain.
Despite centuries of precedent, state officials felt that “Blow Hole State Park” would sound downright silly and they ultimately decided against it. Thus, River Highlands State Park was born.
Early January on the Shepaug River Hidden Valley Preserve, Washington, Connecticut
By the time New Englanders find themselves in the thick of winter, the warm and lively landscapes of summertime seem impossibly distant. In Connecticut, daytime highs average in the 30s for a full three months, with cold nights oftentimes bringing single digits. The days are several hours shorter than they were in times of warmth and, in heavily-wooded areas, it seems as if the Sun struggles just to crest over the treetops. Yet, despite the ever-present cold and darkness, there’s a subtle beauty to be found in snow-covered landscapes and a certain introspective quiet engulfs the wildlands. My new piece, “Winter Bliss and River Ice”, is an intimate expression of these unique wintertime qualities.
“Grand landscapes” -that is, photographs that present a wide, sweeping view of nature- figure prominently in my work, but occasionally the most poignant image is to be had by focusing instead upon smaller details. In the case of “Winter Bliss and River Ice”, taken in January, I found these intricate expressions of winter along the banks of the Shepaug River in Washington, Connecticut. During prior cold spells, sheets of thick ice had formed on small boulders in the shallows. The rushing waters of the river carved these icy crowns into marvelously organic shapes and a light dusting of snow transformed them into soft, white sculptures. But what really breathes life into these otherwise monochrome patterns of snow and ice is the vivid yellow reflection of the morning Sun as it kissed the cold waters of the Shepaug in the first few minutes of dawn.
Photographing Connecticut’s wildlands in the dead of winter is no easy task. “Winter Bliss and River Ice”, for example, demanded a slow, laborious trek along the Shepaug on snowshoes. Three layers of clothing shielded me from the frigid air that pooled in the valley overnight. Dim morning twilight did little to illuminate the snow-covered trails, cloaked as they were in the cold shadows of hemlocks.
And yet, when a shot comes together just right, the challenges of the terrain and the hardships of the climate are effortlessly forgotten. For a brief moment in time, it’s as if all of the world is being channeled through the viewfinder. In these moments, it makes little difference if I’m at the summit of a mountain, in the crowded forests of a river valley, knee-deep in a bog or surrounded by sprawling meadows. My mind doesn’t wander to the rain or the heat or the snow. These moments somehow seem to swallow me up entirely, so that when the shutter slaps shut on the final exposure and I step back from the camera, it’s as if I’ve all of the sudden returned to my body from someplace else entirely. A true “sense of place” is born of these moments; they are nourished by every season, they are the fruit that nature bears year-round.
Tolstoy wrote that “one of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken”. It is my hope that the visions of the American Northeast that I create might strengthen, if not renew, that link. I wish all of my viewers a bountiful new year in 2013 and I look forward to bringing you fresh, new work from the field in the coming months.
Connecticut’s Northwest Hills, encompassing roughly 1,000 square miles and 20 municipalities, are oftentimes thought of as the “the backcountry” of the Nutmeg State. These highlands are largely a rough and mountainous terrain, deeply-furrowed with valleys and river gorges that cut between several of the highest summits in the state. Conspicuously avoided by Connecticut’s major highways, the region is largely traversed by winding, woodland backroads. It is perennially colder here than the rest of the state, usually receiving the most snow and being the last area of Connecticut to see that snow melt away in the Spring. The population density is unusually low at only about 140 people per square mile, fully five times more sparse than that of Connecticut as a whole.
Even if Connecticut’s “frontier days” came and went centuries ago, the Northwest Hills are nonetheless host to lost vestiges of that bygone era; places that feel as if they were somehow left behind as time pushed forward. My latest work from this corner of the state illustrates just a couple of the enchanting landscapes that draw me back time and time again whenever I am moved to head northwest, out of the population centers of the Connecticut River Valley and into these rural wilds.
White Memorial Conservation Center Litchfield, Connecticut
In my piece, “Ethereal Passage”, a seemingly endless boardwalk invites us to wander into a twilight dreamscape of lush wetland foliage. As we follow the dimly-lit pathway, we all but lose ourselves in mist-laden forest silhouettes beneath a sky painted with delicate wisps of clouds that foreshadow the approaching dawn.
Despite the surreality of “Ethereal Passage”, it portrays a place which is very real, indeed. These wetlands lie on the fringes of Little Pond, a small body of water within the vast 4,000-acre White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield, Connecticut. Encompassing more land than even the largest of Connecticut’s state parks, the White Memorial Conservation Center is a most impressive effort in the preservation and management of the wilds of the Northwest Hills. A varied array of plant and animal life flourish within the Center’s six square miles of forest, rivers and ponds, open fields, wet meadows, swamps and vernal pools.
The origins of the White Memorial Conservation Center revolve around Alain White, a wealthy man whose dedication to preserving natural places began in the early 1900s and ultimately saw him becoming one of the most influential figures ever to exist in the history of Connecticut conservation efforts. The story begins at the banks of Bantam Lake in Litchfield in 1908, where Alain is said to have had something of an epiphany while fishing with a good friend amidst the quiet countryside. As if all of the sudden realizing his life’s mission, he commented that it would be grand if the landscape could remain in its peaceful and largely-undeveloped condition well into the future.
In that day in age, the idea of setting aside land to be protected from development was still relatively new; many industrious Americans insisted that the practice was as preposterous as it was wasteful. And, if he was so inclined, Alain could’ve simply shrugged off his passing idea, finished his day of fishing, and gone about his life no different than before. But, as unlikely as it may seem, that fleeting thought seized upon his consciousness and blossomed into a far-reaching campaign of preservation. In total, Alain and his White Memorial Foundation contributed nearly 6,000 acres of open space to the State of Connecticut, mostly for inclusion in state parks and state forests throughout Connecticut’s Northwest Hills.
Roughly 4,000 additional acres of land, comprising the White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield, now surround Bantam Lake… the very place where, little more than a century ago, Alain White sat patiently with his fishing rod waiting for a bite, entertaining the lofty idea that there was something inherently important in ensuring that future generations could find peace in places of nature. Certainly, he drew from the same deep intuition as the great John Muir, who wrote that “everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
And with that, I introduce to you another of my new works from the White Memorial Conservation Center: “Bantam River Quietude”. In this work, we overlook the calm waters of the Bantam River as they depart from Little Pond on their way towards nearby Bantam Lake. Mirror-smooth water reflects the soft colors from above so strongly that it is almost as if the Bantam River is fed by the sky itself. Only the wetlands, alive with pickerelweed and grasses and softened by a lingering mist, frame the the scene and provide orientation.
“Bantam River Quietude” is an expression of simplicity and serenity; an attempt to access that state of peaceful contemplation that Alain White found on that fateful day beside Bantam Lake.
Housatonic River Kent, Connecticut
Our next stop in the Northwest Hills brings us to the banks of the scenic Housatonic River, specifically that stretch which cuts through the old Bulls Bridge section of Kent. In 1897, Francis Atwater wrote in his book, History of Kent, Connecticut, that “the lover of the beautiful can see something fortunate in the circumstances which protected Bulls Bridge from the roar of the great world and left it sequestered and almost as picturesque as in its pristine days before the white man came and made his wide clearings.” According to Atwater, the railroad never quite made its way to Bulls Bridge. So, while so many previously small towns in Connecticut began to blossom into small cities with the advent of the rail in the mid-1800s, Bulls Bridge seemed to have been left behind.
Although Atwater wrote those words over a century ago, little has changed in the interim. Even as the importance of the railroads began to atrophy with the popularity of personal automobiles, Kent has continued to remain mostly rural and sparsely-populated. And, indeed, we can still see “something fortunate” in the sheer breadth of natural beauty that has been spared within Kent.
Take my new piece, “Housatonic Summer”, for instance. Here we are treated to a view of the boulder-laden Housatonic River as it furiously cascades southwards on its journey towards Long Island Sound, still some 40 miles away. The dense forest which crowds the riverbanks glows with vitality in the potent sunlight of late-morning. High above, the airy clouds against a bold blue sky top it all off. “Housatonic Summer” is more than just a journey into this riverscape of the Northwest Hills: it is a celebration of those perfect summer days that we’ve all come to love, no matter where we may live.
But this particular stretch of the Housatonic is rather unique for a few reasons. Only a few hundred feet downstream from this vista is Bulls Bridge, one of Connecticut’s only two remaining covered bridges that are still used by traffic. One might guess that the old village of Bulls Bridge was named after this bridge, but the exact opposite is the case. For roughly 250 years, the Bulls Bridge area of Kent was simply a well-known locale where the Housatonic River could be crossed. There were at least a few different bridges built there, beginning with one purportedly constructed by the Bull family, which ran an ironworks closeby in the mid-1700s. The wooden bridges of those early days didn’t have nearly the longevity of modern bridges, so as one wore out another would be built. It’s not clear exactly how many different bridges spanned the Housatonic in Bulls Bridge over the centuries, but the current version was not constructed until the mid-1800s. Spanning a distance of more than 100′ across the river, the bridge eventually received modern metal underpinnings which have strengthened it enough to allow a single lane of traffic to pass through on a daily basis.
Perhaps even more impressive are the gaping, smooth-bored holes in the limestone outcroppings that flank the western side of the river beneath the bridge and extend about 300 feet upstream. Known as “giant’s kettles” or “giant’s cauldrons” (or occasionally just termed “potholes”), these deep pits are the result of abrasive detritus like sand and stones getting caught in depressions in the bedrock floor of the river. As eddies in the water swirl them around and around, they gradually grind more deeply into the depression. Over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, this gradual grinding action can carve some surprisingly deep pits in solid stone.
One of these cauldrons is prominently featured in my new piece, “Giant’s Kettle on the Housatonic”. Producing this photograph required a good deal of planning and patience in order to fulfill my vision for the the shot. While I knew that I wanted to highlight one of these remarkable limestone rock formations, I needed to find a perspective from which I could capture all the elements that come together to make this stretch of the Housatonic such a captivating place. After scrambling some distance upon the pock-marked riverside bedrock, I came to the kettle you see here, which seemed to offer the opportunity I’d been seeking. Something as simple as setting up the tripod was quite challenging, since the only surface available was deeply-pitted limestone. Even once I managed to haphazardly brace the tripod legs, I had to wait over an hour for the perfect lighting conditions: bright enough to illuminate the vicious currents of the Housatonic that carved these kettles, but also subtle enough that I could simultaneously capture detail within the smooth, shadowy kettle in the foreground, where foamy water still endlessly swirls away, grinding an ever-deepening cauldron in the stone. All of the time and effort certainly paid off though, for in creating “Giant’s Kettle on the Housantonic”, I was able to swallow up the full magnificence of this grand riverscape.
Want to See More of Connecticut’s Northwest Hills?
There’s little doubt that the Northwest Hills of Connecticut figure quite prominently in my work; acre for acre, I find them to be some of the most wild and picturesque places in the state. Several of the most stunning landscapes in this region are featured in my artwork, so I’ve listed some collections below that will bring you ever deeper into this magical corner of Connecticut. Also, be sure to check out two of my previous posts —”Rivers & Streams Emerging from Winter” and “Car Troubles on the Way to Kent“— both of which discuss Kent Falls (located in Kent, only about 10 miles northeast of Bulls Bridge).
Kent Falls is probably Connecticut’s most well-known and scenic set of waterfalls. I’ve spent more time here than almost any other individual park in the Northwest Hills, capturing views of the remarkable limestone cascades and the wonderful transformations that occur with each season.
Located mostly in Norfolk, this is the only Connecticut state park which is not entirely located within the state’s borders. The northern tip of the park juts into Massachusetts, which jointly owns and maintains the park.
Encompassing some of Connecticut’s oldest hemlock and white pines, the old-growth forest of Cathedral Pines Preserve in Cornwall has recently been dubbed a National Natural Landmark by the federal government.
These three nature preserves, all located within Washington, Connecticut and owned by the Steep Rock Association, are amongst some of the most beautiful open spaces in the state.
Located in the rough woodlands of Roxbury, Connecticut, Mine Hill was once the site of a 19th-century ironworks, not unlike those that operated all over the Northwest Hills in those days. The roasting ovens and iron furnace still stand eerily amidst the forest, even though the area is now a scenic nature preserve.
If you’ve read any number of my posts here on From the Field, you probably know that I get a bit nostalgic when it comes to thoughts of the “old days” of Connecticut. You know, the days before the railroads came through, before industry completely transformed the previous two centuries of ever-steady Yankee lifestyle; the days when the state was still a bucolic patchwork of small, quiet towns connected by rough carriage roads. While I’m well-aware that it’s dangerously easy to idealize those bygone days, overlooking the many hardships and inequalities that people of that era faced, I still find something deeply comforting in the thought of a time in Connecticut’s history when daily life didn’t move at the breakneck speeds to which we’ve become accustomed in modern times.
In the 1830s, the population density of Connecticut is estimated to have been only about 60 people per square mile, a far cry from the staggering 750 people per square mile that inhabit the state today. It is presently one of the most densely-populated states in the nation, coming in at fourth place behind New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Indeed, things have certainly changed over the last few centuries. But perhaps a visit to Northern New England gives us a faint taste of what the Nutmeg State might’ve been like 200 years ago.
Fair Haven, Vermont
Take, for example, my new piece titled “Bird Mountain Countryside”, which brings us to Fair Haven, Vermont. Here we are treated to a broad expanse of meadows and pastures that lead our eyes towards the horizon where the monolithic slopes of Bird Mountain rise from a thick blanket of early-morning fog.
The lands of Vermont seem practically deserted in comparison to most places in Connecticut. In fact, the population density of the “Green Mountain State” is less than 80 people per square mile in modern times, rather close to the figure reported for Connecticut so long ago during the pre-railroad era.
After I finished developing this piece, I took a proverbial “step back” and found that it faintly reminded me of the 1849 painting of New Haven’s West Rock Ridge by Frederic Edwin Church, a 19th-century Connecticut-born artist. I won’t indulge in likening myself to this master of the Hudson River School, but I mention Church’s painting because, like my “Bird Mountain Countryside”, it portrays a classic, bucolic foreground coming to a certain crescendo at a prominent mountain in the distance. "West Rock, New Haven" (1849) Painted by Frederic Edwin Church
The big difference here is that my perspective of Fair Haven is current; if you were to stand exactly where I produced this photograph, you’d see the same fields, pastures and meadows. In contrast, Church’s idyllic agrarian New Haven has long ago vanished beneath increased urbanization and, especially, the concomitant phenomenon of suburban sprawl along city margins. In fact, the Hudson River School painters were known to “idealize” the otherwise real landscapes that they painted… so it’s tough to say if Church’s New Haven of 1849 actually even existed as he painted it. Maybe it did, but maybe there’s a measure of fiction blended into his portrayal. We may never really know for sure…
Ultimately, the point remains that what Church was trying to express in his “West Rock” -that is, an image of an agrarian society peacefully co-existing with nature- isn’t far from the reality that exists in modern times at the foot of Bird Mountain. Perhaps it is that the character of “Old Connecticut” is in some sense still alive within the valleys of the Green Mountains.
Killington, Vermont
Our next few destinations on this odyssey are within the town of Killington, Vermont… a place which is undoubtedly famous among Northeastern skiing enthusiasts. However, my latest works from Killington were produced in the warm, humid months of summer… long after the snow drifts had vanished. Indeed, the side of Killington I want to show you is little-known to those who arrive for a few days in the dead of winter and never leave the vicinity of the resort. If we venture elsewhere within the 46 square miles of territory the town encompasses, we find some rather beautiful places that lay off the beaten path.
“Mirror of the Shrouded Hills” (below), my new piece from Killington’s Kent Pond, features one of those scenic treasures. Here we find ourselves overlooking a landscape crowned by thickly-wooded hills and steeped in heavy blankets of lingering mist. Below, the hills are cast from the surface of Kent Pond as a soft reflection, out of which emerges the shadowy silhouette of a small, rocky island populated by only a few lonely conifers seemingly marooned from the surrounding forests.
What originally drew me to Kent Pond, though, was the outlet brook that departs from the body of water on its eastern shores. Some official maps call this stream “Kent Brook”, a name which is as sensible as it is unremarkable. Unofficially, this brook enjoys a much more interesting title: “Thundering Brook”. At the risk of exposing my childishly-excitable side, I will admit that any river called “Thundering Brook” is a river that I simply must see for myself.
My fine art piece, “Green Mountain Riverscape”, portrays a conifer-crowded glade scattered with boulders where Thundering Brook topples over tiers of terraced bedrock before disappearing some distance downhill. This piece was especially gratifying to produce, as I feel that I was able to faithfully capture the very wild and untamed aura that permeates the landscape surrounding the rugged watercourse of Thundering Brook.
“Green Mountain Riverscape” is, in a sense, a timeless vision of Vermont’s natural places, freed of any strict associations with modern times. As I look at the piece I wonder,” Could Thundering Brook really have looked much different 100 years ago? Or 200 years ago? Even 1,000 years ago?” Ordinarily, I dive deeply into the history of the landscapes that I photograph, for I feel strongly that understanding the history of a place brings me closer to its essence. But occasionally I am moved to forgo this craving for knowledge. This vista on Thundering Brook is not far from a well-packed dirt road… beside the brook runs a small-diameter pipeline of indeterminate use… and beside portions of the brook, the banks are well-packed by frequent visitors. But for all of these reminders of the modern world that surround Thundering Brook, there were inevitably instances in which I gazed in just the right direction from just the right perspective and, all of the sudden, it was as if I was looking not only at a river that receded into the distance, but also at a scene that receded deep into the past… so deeply that, for a brief moment, it was as if all the pesky considerations and attachments to clock and calendar, which are so much a part of our modern lives, vanished amongst the cacophony of cascades and waterfalls.
The calming waters of Thundering Brook, as they are seen in “Green Mountain Riverscape”, may not appear to be as furious… as violent… as “thundering”… as one might expect. I’ll admit that Thundering Brook was not exactly a roaring torrent on the day that I visited, a condition that I attribute mostly to the peculiar dry spell that dominated most of New England’s summer season. Every brook I visited this year, from Southern Connecticut to Central Vermont to Eastern New York, was generally at quite a reduced water volume. But given the circumstances, Thundering Brook still had a decent volume of water flowing; I can only imagine that it truly thunders during the springtime, angrily crashing through the forests of Killington as it hauls away meltwater. One source* states that Thundering Brook carries less than 10 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) in the summertime, but notes that “peak events” have seen that figure swell to a staggering volume of just under 800 cfs! Can you imagine the near-cataclysmic power being channeled through this brook?
But even if Thundering Brook was lacking the water volume required to truly live up to its name, the impressive waterfalls along its course were still quite spectacular. “Thundering Brook Falls”, a series of roughly three big drops along the course of Thundering Brook, were the first landmarks that really sparked my interest to conduct a shoot in Killington.
My new piece, “Parallel Worlds”, features the final and tallest waterfall of the bunch. What I found especially intriguing about the views of this 60-foot waterfall was the unusual contrast between the forest and the watercourse. Owing to the green-tinted light filtering through the coniferous canopy, the entire forest in the upper portion of the frame is steeped in warm color tones and the underlying rock is softened by lush carpets of moss. Yet, at the foot of the woodlands we find Thundering Brook Falls cascading over slopes of barren bedrock, jagged and angular and glistening with subtle reflections of the sky above. “Parallel Worlds” leverages this intriguing disparity, inviting us to simultaneously accept nature as both vital and desolate… a source of nurture and a force of hardship. Through the lens of civilization, nature seems to express itself alternately as the giver and taker. There on Thundering Brook Falls, though, these parallel worlds blended seamlessly into a landscape that tapped a more primeval vein of my unconscious. And as I sat by the gorge in the humid early-morning air, the Sun triumphantly breaking through the clouds and casting bright beams upon the woodlands, I was reminded of the words of John Muir: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
To see larger versions of the Vermont landscapes pictured here, simply click on any of the photographs above and you’ll be brought to my online gallery.
To see all of my landscape work from Vermont, be sure to visit my Vermont Gallery at JGCOLEMAN.COM.
* Information on water volume was drawn from the profile for Thundering Brook Falls found on Waterfalls of the Northeastern United States, a website authored by Dean Goss. Be sure to check out his page for Thundering Brook Falls.
On November 1 at Lost Acres Vineyard in North Granby, the Granby Land Trust will be unveiling a range of new artwork featured in this years juried art competition, Places of Inspiration: Celebrating the Farmington Valley’s Natural Beauty. Among the fine works on display, you’ll find my piece “Carpenters Falls at Granby”, which features a truly exquisite waterfall found in the woodlands of the 4,800-acre McLean Game Refuge.
“Carpenters Falls at Granby” is heavy on texture and fine detail, from rough contours of water-chiseled bedrock and airy sprays of leaves to the wispy veils of the falls and the churning water below. The piece you’ll find on display is a 12″ x 18″ photographic print on Kodak Endura, matted with white-core black to 18″ x 24″ and framed with a dark-stain wood. If you’ve only seen my work on the computer screen thus far, this is a great opportunity to see how much more dramatic these pieces are in print!
For that matter, you’ll see a host of excellent works from several Connecticut artists, each of whom has found something truly inspiring in the natural splendor of the Farmington River Valley. And this isn’t just show-and-tell, folks… every piece is available for purchase.
Consider yourself invited to Places of Inspiration! And don’t worry if you can’t make the opening on November 1; you can drop by Lost Acres Vineyard anytime before December 1 and see the full display.
Lost Acres Vineyard
80 Lost Acres Road
North Granby, CT 06060
Want to know more about the Places of Inspiration show? Click here for more details from the Granby Land Trust.
You can be among the first to see J. G. Coleman’s print, “Old Dish Mill Falls on Jim Brook“, a fine-art landscape photograph taken at Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton, Connecticut. The work will be on display through the month of November at J. Vallee Brunelle Fine Art & Framing in Granby, Connecticut. “Old Dish Mill Falls on Jim Brook” is only one of many works that will be on display for Celebrating Art in Nature, the 2011 Granby Land Trust Annual Juried Art Show.
Celebrating Art in Nature is a small art show that features paintings, drawings, photography and 3D works inspired by nature and landscapes of the Farmington River Valley region. The opening reception for the showing is on Thursday, November 3, 2011 between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM.
The showing will run from November 3, 2011 through December 1, 2011 and every piece on display is available for purchase. The Granby Land Trust will receive 40% of the proceeds for every work purchased at J. Vallee Brunelle, which will help them continue to preserve Granby’s natural heritage (a portion of those proceeds will also go towards supporting the event).
