Recommended upcoming New England arts events

14^th Annual Cambridgeport Artists Open Studios (Cambridge, MA) Sept. 8-9, 2007

2^nd Annual Pawtucket Open Studios Arts and Design Showcase (Pawtucket, RI) Sept. 7-9, 2007

Country Roads Artists and Artisans Tour (Midcoast Maine) Sept. 14-17, 2007

South End Open Artists Studios (Boston, MA) Sept. 15-16, 2007

14^th Annual Jamaica Plain Open Studios (Boston, MA) Sept. 29-30, 2007

Artspace’s 10^th Annual City-Wide Open Studios (New Haven, CT) Oct. 9-28, 2007

Fort Point Open Studios (Boston, MA) Oct.19-21, 2007

A porch like this invites you to linger. Your eye is drawn beyond to the lush green tree canopy while you take comfortable shelter in the porch’s dappled light. From this vantage point, time draws still as an endless summer awaits beyond the porch rail. You revel in that glorious in-between space, that’s neither inside nor out, where you can enjoy both.

How does it evoke such dreaminess? Really, quite simply. For one, the scale is right. The height of the beam that receives the rafters is just high enough above your line of sight to provide a feeling of expansiveness, but not too high to negate the sense of protected cover that the gently sloping ceiling provides. The width too is just wide enough for a seating arrangement and perimeter circulation. It would have sacrificed some of its relaxed ease had it been narrower. Because the porch wraps the corner, it leads your eye around to anticipate what the other side holds, which also appeals.

The exposed framing and ceiling boards, tidy linear balusters, along with the building’s clapboards, all in white, set a straight-forward tone, suggesting a deliberate simplicity. Trivial minutiae have no place here. It’s about stripping away complication and artifice. The order of the geometry, down to the floor-board pattern that mirrors the rafter configuration above, reinforces a clarity of purpose; this is a place where things make sense, and those that don’t, will have to wait.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Recommended New England courses about house, garden and related creative arts

(Classes and schedules are subject to change so check program websites for updates.)

Berkshire Botanical Garden

After my recent visit to tour their gardens in Stockbridge, Mass., I became curious about their classes. “The Berkshire Botanical Garden offers visitors a peaceful refuge of natural beauty, stunning display gardens, exciting community events, and informative classes for all ages and levels of skill and knowledge,” according to their website.  This one-day offering appeals to my interest in trees and shrubs as elements of architecture. See what you think.

Click to read more ...

At first, this place appears like another small park, but it's more to the observant passerby.

The two-foot-thick, dry-laid, granite stone wall gradually steps up a gentle slope, takes a short turn and then steps back down the slope, enclosing an area about the size of a small, residential, in-town lot. Bench-height, large, stone plinths cantilever out from the wall at regular intervals, 10 per long-side. Tall, skinny black locust trees planted within the courtyard dapple the light, and an enormous old maple tree, growing in-line with a row of the benches, shades some of them. It’s peaceful and contemplative, adjacent to a graveyard and a row of antique houses.

It’s the Salem Witch Trials Memorial designed by architect James Cutler and sculptor Maggie Smith of Bainbridge Island, Washington. Each bench represents one of the 20 accused and killed as a result of the witch trials in 1692. Their names, method of execution, and date of death are engraved on the lower right corner of each bench in simple, elegant, capital letters. The deep engravings cast crisp, legible shadows on the massive rough hewn stones.

At the memorial entrance a flush stone threshold is engraved with statements made by the accused, like, “I am wholly innocent of such wickedness.” Some of the quotes trail off under the weight of the stone enclosing walls, possibly signifying how their protestations were ignored. There is no signage announcing the site, just the subtle engravings.

Interestingly, the grave of Judge John Hathorn, whose witchcraft verdict led to the deaths of the accused, lies in the adjacent graveyard, Old Burying Point. Until the Memorial was built in 1992, the victims of the witch trials didn’t have tombstones of their own. Unlike conventional tombstones, these horizontal, six-inch-thick slabs of granite float improbably above the ground, a comment perhaps on the improbable deeds of which the trial victims were accused. The locust trees, it turns out, were selected for the Memorial because the majority of the witch trial victims were hung from such trees, a grisly connection.

Though the bench tombstones can invite an intimacy between a seated visitor and the deceased, sitting on the actual engraving seems disrespectful. I saw one teenager put his foot up on one. This behavioral tension is in many ways another subtle part of the design. How do we as individuals behave within a community?

This quiet memorial creates an inspired place, not just inspired objects, to honor the victims of the witch hysteria. Thankfully these stone benches will be here for years to come, challenging those who encounter them to ponder their meaning and the meaning of those 20 deaths in 1692.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Thanks to a lead from a garden design ONLINE listing, I recently visited the Berkshire Botanical Garden to see their special event titled “Garden Ornament: Completing the Picture” which is running there through August 31, 2007. Located in Stockbridge, Mass this 15-acre property features 25, residential-scale gardens. Many include buildings in their design, which, as you can imagine, I find appealing. Oh, and yes, there are antique garden ornaments discreetly incorporated into the mix and available for sale. Most are so well placed that I fear once they’re removed/sold at the end of the show, the gardens will be somewhat bereft. They’ll need to title the next event the “Incomplete Picture”.

Meanwhile as a first-time visitor, I began my tour with the display gardens and found several to be compelling.

Click to read more ...