It's refreshing to learn that the initial presence of the artists in the Adirondack Park was for practical missions. Their purpose was to create accurate maps and sketches for military and business purposes. The marriage of art and business endeavors is one that is interesting and often overlooked today. The reliance that people have on artistically gifted people is still prevalent. Ranging from aesthetic based projects to logistical needs, artists are an integral part of our society, and their activity in the Park represents that. 

Architects, for example, are necessary for residential buildings as well as massive constructions. Interior designers conjure up incredible aesthetics that make people feel certain ways when they walk into a room, which will effect their mood and ability to function at a certain level. 

Although today we don't need artists to draw out maps of the world (we have satellites), it's interesting to learn that they were once called upon to fulfill that role. 

Cultural Patchwork

Reading about the music of the Adirondacks gave me further evidence that the Adirondacks aren't just a place, but a real community. Loggers and settlers alike banded together in the fairly isolated northern wild to make music, tell stories, and dance, bringing with them influences from wherever they grew up or whatever job they had or whichever stories they'd heard. The impression I got from the Woods reading was that the culture of the Adirondacks (as least for the laypeople) was a rich and diverse one, but also a culture very much focused on the community. People gathered in bars or people's houses to entertain each other and share stories about the day's events. It seems to me (although I'm really only getting this from the one, biased article we read) that there was a real sense of camaraderie in these ADK logging towns that maybe wasn't as prevalent elsewhere in the country by that time. I think that because of the relative isolation of the Adirondack towns and the lack of technology (especially roads and vehicles), the people of the Adirondacks were able to focus on each other and the songs and stories that their neighbors had to tell. In a way, this seems to be one of the gifts of "wild" places like the Adirondacks: places without all the technological amenities that we're so used to nowadays make you tune into your surroundings and actually interact with and learn from the people you're around. With the philosopher's camps we've talked a lot about how people can learn from nature by immersing themselves in the natural world, but I think that something can also be said for what people can learn from other people in the landscape of the wilderness. This idea reminds me of when we talked in class about Aldo Leopold's definition of land and how that definition included not just the rocky earthen crust, but also the animals and plants and people that use that earth together in a community, interacting not just with abiotic features but with each other as well. When these elements of the land each bring to the table their own unique experiences and backgrounds, it creates an impressively diverse microcosm wherein individual differences are united under the common experience of place--of living in the Adirondacks. This is a bond that forms, on some level, in any region where its inhabitants feel a strong connection to their place/"home base," like Manhattan or the neighborhood I grew up in or even the U.S. as a whole. I think what's different about the Adirondacks, however, is that it developed so much later and in such a different place (ie. more "wild") than most other places that emanate a similarly strong sense of place, meaning that the historical, technological, and environmental forces aiding in the construction of the Adirondack culture were pretty different than those in places like New York City. In my eyes, it is this difference that gives way to the Adirondack's rich cultural experience as one that is closely linked to the particular circumstances of its founding.

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