SUSAN METZGER at MARSH BILLINGS ROCKEFELLER NATIONAL HISTORIC PARK

2009-11-02T17:34:00.004-05:00

THANK YOU

to everyone who followed my blog

while I was away in Vermont!!!!!!!!!

I will be posting on my regular blog from here on.

http://www.susanmetzger.blogspot.com/

2009-11-02T17:27:00.002-05:00

Back in Tidal Maine

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The Stand

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Celtic Hill

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Old Stone

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Favorite Farm

Six days left and thinking about home

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Only One Week Left

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Round bales in the Elm Lot

Milkweed dip in the French Lot

Looking east from the top of Mt. Tom

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Taken from our dinner table at Simon Pearce tonight...

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WHY I DON'T PAINT OUTSIDE

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I was happy to find this - This is the remnants of the old

hillside swimming pool that was abandoned in 1930.

Still plainly visible 79 years later.......

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A river runs through downtown Woodstock

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Time here running out...

The three boys here on the farm

Everything winding down...

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Sky in the water on the west side of the

pogue and the old stone wall in the red pine

forest...exploring with Abbie......

thanks so much for coming!!!!

2009-10-06T08:30:00.002-04:00

VENICE

Sanford R. Gifford

1864

"In his 1879 article on Gifford, S.G.W. Benjamin reiterated that his

art did not suffer from the shortcomings that contributed to the demise

of the Hudson River School:

If there has been a fault in this school of American landscape art,

it has been, perhaps, in endeavoring to get too much in a picture,

in trying to be too literal; so that the great attention given to the

details has excited wonder rather than stimulated the imagination,

and has marred the impression of general effect which should be the

chief idea in a work of art. For the materials an artist has at his

command are, at best, so weak compared with nature, which is ever

toned and harmonized by the atmosphere, that is is very easy to lose

sight of the leading idea of painting."

2009-10-06T07:45:00.001-04:00

The Door in the Woods

9.13.09

10.5.09

BELLE

2009-10-05T21:47:00.003-04:00

MY CONSTANT COMPANION

Survived the storm in the Lower 9th Ward

and now here she is in the Summer Pasture, MBR, Woodstock, VT.

2009-10-05T07:06:00.002-04:00

Niagara Falls

c1830

Thomas Cole

"This view of Niagara exemplifies the story of art and conservation.

It provides a rich opportunity to discuss great natural landmarks,

and the role of art in bringing popular attention to America's wilderness."

from the collection at Marsh Billings Rockefeller

2009-10-04T17:55:00.001-04:00

In the Studio

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Hiking the Pogue Brook Trail

From the North Ridge Trail

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The Pogue

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Early Morning Walk

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Hudson River School of Painting

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Albert Bierstadt

Oil on Canvas

75 x 109 cm

Landscape paintings by artists associated with the Hudson River School are particularly important because of the School’s associations with the American conservation movement.

Before the 1820s, American artists painted portraits and documentary works depicting important historical events. A few painters tried landscape painting. AfterThomas Cole arrived on the scene in 1825, views of natural wonder became sought after by art collectors. Cole and the artists who followed his example became known as the Hudson River School. They celebrated nature above all man-made things. Their landscapes sought to recreate the majesty of the natural world and to inspire admiration for its beauty.

After Cole’s death in 1848, Asher Durand, an engraver and portrait painter, became the most prominent painter of the Hudson River School. In a series of essays entitled Letters on Landscape Painting, Durand set out his idea that landscape painters should seek to depict nature exactly and not alter it in any way.

As artists celebrated nature on canvas, city dwellers who hung landscape paintings on their walls came to believe that the natural scenes depicted were worthy of preservation. At the same time, writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson revered nature on the page.

This confluence of artistic, literary and political attention to America’s scenic beauty eventually laid the foundation for the creation of the first national parks and helped establish conservation as a national value.

In the movement’s later stages, artists such as Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt expanded the ideals of the Hudson River School painters. They painted enormous canvases of dramatic natural scenes in the American West and around the world.

2009-10-01T19:09:00.001-04:00

Clean & drying for a new day tomorrow.

SCULPTUREFEST!!!! in West Woodstock

2009-09-30T16:12:00.002-04:00

SculptureFest

It was a grey & drizzly day today but I stumbled upon

all this wonderful sculpture today in West Woodstock!

2009-09-30T15:57:00.000-04:00

A Short Walk in the Park

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Please forgive the complete amateur film maker!

And turn on the music!

2009-09-28T20:35:00.002-04:00

Architectural Survey of the Belvedere

(my studio)

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2009-09-27T20:51:00.000-04:00

IT'S RAINING IN VERMONT

So, some pictures of home in Maine.

I took these during the annual Spring running of the alewives in

Damariscotta Mills. The town still has a tradition of giving the

small fish to widows. This is the Mulligan Smokehouse and the

smokers taking a break.

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THE FOREST

The 550 acre forest surrounding Mt. Tom is one of the earliest
surviving examples of planned and managed reforestation in the
United States. "Winding amid plantations of Norway spruce,
white pine, red pine, and European larch set out as early as 1874,
carriage roads and trails lead into the depths of rich hardwood stands
of native sugar maples, beech, and birch trees and through agricultural
pastures punctuated by old stone walls. Scattered along these routes are
400 year old hemlocks, spared the axe to witness the march of history."

Kevin Leichner

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2009-09-21T17:37:00.001-04:00

Under the Iron Bridge - Woodstock

2009-09-20T18:40:00.002-04:00

The Marsh Billings Rockefeller Mansion

was originally built for the Marsh family in 1805

and sold to Frederick Billings in 1869, when it

underwent extensive renovations designed by Boston

architect William Ralph Emerson, who transformed

the property into a fashionable stick-style mansion.

In 1885 Billings hired architect Henry Hudson Holly

to create a Queen Anne style renovation.

Several stained glass windows by Tiffany were

included. Laurence & Mary Rockefeller inherited the

mansion in 1954.

2009-09-19T19:54:00.002-04:00

"As I go in under the trees, dependably,

almost at once, and by nothing I do,

things fall into place."

written in 1969 by Wendell Berry

'A Native Hill'

2009-09-18T18:53:00.001-04:00

2009-09-17T18:40:00.002-04:00

Seventh Day in the Studio -

Left the fumes behind and found

the waterfall below....

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2009-09-16T22:17:00.001-04:00

"...lovely, dark and deep."

R.F.

2009-09-15T20:14:00.001-04:00

ME - VT

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Nothing more beautiful for me.

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The Pogue

This is a man-made 14 acre pond tucked into the surrounding hills.

It was created in the 1880's in an already spring-fed boggy area.

It's rumored to be bottomless.

2009-09-14T21:11:00.001-04:00

Leaving the Summer Pasture...

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From the Summer Pasture

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Day 5

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THE WATERFALL GARDEN and FERNERY

Nurtured since the late 1800's, these quiet, serene

gardens are host to a variety of ferns, as well as

lady slipper

venus fly trap

liver leaf

May apple

trilliums

bellwort

bunchberry

Solomon's seal

Ginger

forget-me-nots

cohosh

2009-09-13T20:31:00.003-04:00

The Waterfall Garden and the Fernery remained shaded

by Norway Spruce and second-generation oaks, allowing

the adjoining paths to become covered with moss. The 3rd photo

shows an old stone bench.

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These stone bridges are largely unchanged

since c.1901.

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The watercourse was constructed under Elizabeth Billings

direction in the late spring of 1897. These were revived in

the 1960's by landscape designers Zenon Schreiber and Carl

Bergstrom. The 3rd photo is showing a long natural ledge bench.

2009-09-12T18:56:00.000-04:00

Diverging Paths

Vermont - Maine

2009-09-12T18:04:00.002-04:00

DAY 3 in the STUDIO - making progress...

Thank you DAVID DEKING for visiting me and the

lively conversation. See you in Silver City, maybe.

2009-09-12T07:24:00.002-04:00

All it has experienced, tasted, suffered:

The course of years,

generations of animals,

oppression, recovery,

friendship of sun and wind,

will pour forth each day in the song

of its rustling foliage,

in the friendly gesture of its gently swaying crown,

in the delicate sweet scent of resinous sap

moistening the sleep-glued buds,

and the eternal game of lights and shadows

it plays with itself, content.

Herman Hesse

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2009-09-10T21:33:00.003-04:00

PAINTING PANELS - Part I

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STUDIO'S OPEN!

Everyday but Tuesday 10-4

Tuesdays by chance or appointment (207-380-9890)

in The Belvedere

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The Forest Center, a classroom and meeting space, at the Park

is constructed entirely with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)

certified wood and has been awarded Platinum Leadership in Energy

and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green

Building Council. The Center uses renewable, non-toxic materials

throughout including wood rather than sheetrock for interior walls,

including white pine, ash, black cherry, hemlock, and red oak - all

harvested from the Park's forest, the oldest professionally managed

woodland in North America.

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The Forest Center's air-tight, well insulated building envelope

reduces loss and Energy Star high efficiency motors and appliances

stretch photovoltaic generated power. The 'on-demand' ventilation

system is activated by a carbon dioxide sensor only when people are

using the meeting space.

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The Center's roof-mounted solar photovoltaic panels generate

power. Outside power, when needed, is purchased through

Central Vermont Public Service's Cow Power methane recapture program.

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A high efficiency-low emissions wood-fired boiler uses

firewood cut from the Park's managed forest.

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