ADK Great Camp

I really enjoyed the activity we did in class where we were able to build our own Adirondack great camp. While I must admit I at first pictured a very different camp than the one we built. I had imagined something very similar to the vast camps that exist now only to take up copious amounts of land and run on lots of energy. Even the camp we built at a modest 2000 square feet and with all the green amenities it makes you think about all the things we really may not need. Should we really feel great about the home we are building with solar panels and wind turbines if it is still a large home put into the middle of the wilderness? We are still causing a disruption with a house that is anything but modest. It becomes very hard now a days to define what we "need". There are things that are pretty standard in homes today but by no means are all these things necessary for our survival.

ENVST 220 Does Architecture

The Most Elaborate Treehouse There Ever Was

                                             Camp Peregrine

                                            Solar-Powered Air Freshener

                                             Cabin of Champions

When we created hypothetical new homes in the Adirondacks this week, it added a new level to something I have been thinking more and more about lately. I have been having a much harder time defining the word progress. This is mostly due to the fact that I am having trouble putting value on the major gains and losses that our species has made over time. Medicine, for example, has become more advanced than the average person can understand in the last few decades alone. Part of me is in awe of the fact that we now know enough about the brain to consider neuroscience its own field – and an ever-growing one at that. However, I am disappointed at the same time at the seemingly endless and ongoing destruction of the natural world around us. To anyone who bothers to investigate them, environmental issues are glaringly obvious. Looking at our fantasy ‘wilderness’ homes, it’s hard to say which aspects of them represent progress and which ones don’t. Is progress the alternative energy we hypothetically powered them with? Or is the fact that we are adding homes to the park (“green” or not) the exact opposite regardless of what type of energy we used? It doesn’t seem to be doing the park any good either way, so does that mean progress is only ever defined from the point of view of humans? It seems to me that we try to quantify and measure progress when it exists in a totally separate sphere from the environment's perspective than from ours.

Great Camp Design

This week in class we spent a little time designing the Great Camp we would build if we started today. While my groups pan ended up being interesting, there was a moment in the conversation where we said we should just not build! We got excited by the idea of actually putting wilderness first, because though you're taking the time to build and "eco friendly" home, you're still building! And thats still bad! Even if you're house is Carbon neutral and completely self sustaining, think of the trees you murdered to create the roads you created to get to the perfect spot. Think of the pollution from the machines you used and the scar you have ultimately left behind.
All this kind of got me thinking about the great camps we visited. These camps inspired me to want to protect the Adirondacks. They symbolize history, and though it's human history, it's important to the park. What if there was some way to accept the great camps already built as historical monuments and preserve them to show people the importance the Adirondacks had on our race, while also banning the construction of more? Although these Great Camps were a show of prominence and wealth, they also did grab up and ultimately protect a ton of land. They are a huge part of why the Adirondacks are exist as partial wilderness. Today, we see houses being built for the same reason, but without the idea of buying land to protect in the deal. As each house protects less land, more land is built on and destroyed. Maybe there is a way to keep the origins of the park intact, without ruining the rest of it.

A Desert Artist Finds Beauty in the Adirondacks

Many of the artists we read about this week, such as Frederic Remington and Rockwell Kent, were names that I had previously associated with the Adirondacks, but Georgia O'Keeffe stood out to me both because she was the only woman read about, but also because I generally associated her art with the American southwest.  Those who are familiar with Georgia O’Keeffe know that she was madly in love with, and spent the majority of her time in, New Mexico.  She is generally considered an artist of the desert, but it is lesser known that she also had a fling with the Adirondacks, and specifically Lake George.

  From 1918 to 1934 she spent part of every year at her husband's family's 36-acre estate on Lake George that served as a rural retreat.

 In 1923 in a letter to a friend she expresses her love for the region remarking, “I wish you could see the place here -- there is something so perfect about the mountains and the lake and the trees".

 Her art from the Adirondacks represents the solitude and still beauty of the Adirondacks, as well as the the electric colors of spring and the fiery red colors of autumn.

  Her work uniquely combines serenity with the sublime colors of the region.  

Campfire

When we visited the Adirondack Museum on our field trip a few weeks ago, I only took two pictures.  One of them, oddly enough, was of Don Wynn’s Campfire, 1975, the painting that Mandel describes on page 26.  She states that this painting “introduces a new subject matter into Adirondack art, the figure study.  Although this painting like the earlier camping scenes of Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, records a specific event in time, the size and Caravaggiesque lighting of his weary girl camper denote a change in the artist’s focus.  The figure is more important than the landscape.  This marks a real departure in Adirondack art.”

The things that attracted me to this painting were its great size and incredible source of light. (Caravaggio is one of my favorite artists and I love paintings that play with sharp contrasts of light and dark). Even though the light source is not depicted, we are forced to believe it is a campfire emanating from the lower right corner, just off of the picture plane. This imaginary campfire does a great job in illuminating the scene in a sort of magical way.  This glowing of the girl’s body and the objects surrounding her, sort of tell a story and draw the viewer into the painting while the surrounding darkness adds an element of mystery.  Personally, I like that this painting places dominance on the figure instead of the landscape of the Adirondacks.  Instead of showing the purity or forcefulness of the wilderness, themes that have been depicted by countless artists, it depicts what life is like for a camper in the Adirondacks.  It depicts a distinct moment in time and shows us the reality of camping in great realistic detail. We see food, pots and pans, and socks and gloves lying out to dry. We also see the psychological effects of camping on the girls face and posture; she looks very tired and contemplative.

This is the picture I took on my phone of Campfire by Don Wynn

A Healing Wilderness

      Nature's healing ability has been a common theme in class. The clear, fresh air of the park was thought to help tuberculosis patients and who could forget Adirondack Murray's description of an invalid's miraculous recovery after spending time in the park? However improbable some of the descriptions of the Adirondacks' healing abilities, there were enough documented stories of improved health to make the park a destination for the sickly. Not only was the wilderness purported to heal the body, but its ability to soothe the soul was also well known. It was this notion that led many artists to the park, as "the Adirondacks became the theatre in which both artists and philosophers, through their works, exercised their belief that nature could direct mankind in healing its wounds" (Mandel, 19). From the Mandel reading, it seems that many Adirondack painters were drawn to the wilderness not just for its natural light and striking colors but for the therapeutic effect of portraying its beauty, and transferring that beauty to others through their work. Mandel notes that "The initial animus for artistic change was a fascination with the wilderness, to know it first in a scientific, explorative way, then, as exploration made the terrain less "savage" and more accessible, to use it for the spiritual solace and self-expression" (Mandel 28). Adirondack painters like Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Winslow Homer, and William James were a part of this second movement. Although each artist employed a different style, their impetus was the same. It is probable that just as many people traveled to the Adirondacks to heal emotional ills as did those searching for physical healing, and these painters are a central reason for this. The portrayals of the vast wilderness is in stark contrast to the din and hubbub of city life, and its no wonder that people would be drawn to it.

Forever Wild on a Computer Screen

The first time I met Micheal Carducci was in the Science Center atrium last fall. We were both doing homework. He was facing away from me, hunched over his computer as he scribbled on a piece of paper beside it. I didn’t notice him immediately, but I noticed his computer—or more specifically, I noticed his computer’s background. It was the most beautiful picture I had ever seen. It caught a wide, snaking river in the afterglow of sunset, partially obscured by a dense canopy of trees, and framed by mountains that towered in the background. I’m not sure why I thought it was so beautiful—probably because I felt like I was there; I felt like I was the only person in the world in that moment, the only person lucky enough to appreciate nature’s perfection. It was my own patch of wilderness, frozen on another person’s computer screen. I couldn’t help but call over to him, asking him about his background. He said it was the Teton Mountain Range. I immediately changed my own computer background -- I couldn’t find his exact picture, but I found another that I’ve grown to love just as much.

Snake River with Teton Mountains Behind

Photo by Chad Ehlers

What, exactly does this have to do with the Adirondacks? Well, not too much. But my reaction to Micheal’s background is reminiscent of the role art has played in the Adirondacks. There is something about wilderness that fascinates humans—many of us feel a profound connection to isolated beauty and experience a sense of solitude that makes us feel more free than alone.

While the aesthetic and intellectual approaches of Adirondack artists have evolved over time, I think their fascination with the park has come mostly from this same connection—this feeling that in that moment they hold an ownership of the land. That patch of wilderness is theirs and theirs alone to appreciate. Maybe this is a selfish way to think about their motivation, but whatever their motivation, we have them to thank for artwork that helps us to share their connection with the land.

One of my favorite passages in Patricia Mandel’s Fair Wilderness describes the role light plays in Adirondack paintings (and, I think, in wilderness painting and photography, in general):

“Suffusing this landscape of imagination and fact was the purity of its light, unsullied by suburban haze. This light and its effect on color is responsible for two of the archetypal images in Adirondack paintings: the shrill orange-reds of its sustained sunsets and the dark blue shadows with which the winter sun carves its crusty white snowscapes” (13).

I can think of no better way to describe wilderness’s light as “pure.” It touches everything, glancing off jagged cliffs and mountains and settling on the lakes and rivers. In the brilliance of a “sustained” sunset or methodical sunrise, nothing can match the beauty of wilderness, with steam rising from the lakes and everything settling into serenity.

The Beeches by Asher B. Durand

(A good example of light in Adirondack painting).

Myriad artists have spent their lives attempting to capture this beauty. Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand (both founders of the Hudson River School), Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, Don Wynn—they have all dedicated themselves to capturing wilderness. Perhaps this is why it is so rare to see the human form in traditional Adirondack artwork. Wilderness art is the one place where human fixation lapses. Tait has depicted people in several of his works, including A Good Time Coming (1862), but even then, the picture conveys this sense of remoteness and “getting away.”

A Good Time Coming, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait

“Getting away” took on more significance after war times—although the post-Murray vacation rush waned with the Great Depression, artists like Eliot Porter took to photography mediums in day visits. Before Porter, post-war artists like Horace Robbins seemed to find exactly what they needed in the Adirondack mountains, and tried their best to capture this experience with oil and canvas. Robbins found solace in the Adirondacks after the Civil War, endowing his work with “a special quietude and order. Here was the artist’s postwar vision of the Adirondacks, a safe harbor, a place of peace amidst the chaos of a larger world” (18).

I find it interesting; the way Mandel describes this artwork as “orderly,” implying that humans alone are the source of chaos. Wilderness, by contrast, seems to have an inherent order to it. Perhaps this is why I found that picture of the Tetons so beautiful. There was something and raw and completely unaffected about it. No cars, no street lamps, no roads. I entered a blip in time and space where everything was in its place.