Mountain Home, May 2023

12 Good Vibrations

By Gayle Morrow

Spring clean your body and mind at Emerge in Wellsboro.

24 Educational Entertwainment

By Karey Solomon

The trouble begins at Elmira's Center for Mark Twain Studies.

28 Shifting Sands

By Janet McCue

Big Flats artist Connie Zehr learns to love glass.

34 Relishing the Game

By Carolyn Straniere

Pickleball is on a roll in Corning.

36 The Many Susquehannys

By Lilace Mellin Guignard

The East Coast’s longest river is perfect for paddling.

42 Back of the Mountain

By Wade Spencer

Put your hiney in the Piney.

Glass Masters

By Jan Bridgeford-Smith

Amy Schwartz and Bill Gudenrath put the class in CMoG’s studio.

From Memphis to Route

49

By Karin Knaus

And now, the Academy Corners Blues Committee brings local music to the valley.

Heavy Metal

By Karey Solomon

Artists Tony Moretti and Gwen Quigley make masterpieces together.

Cover design by Gwen Button.This page (top) Bill Gudenrath, courtesy Corning Museum of Glass; (middle) John and Amy Doan, by Karin Knaus; (bottom) by Sean King.

COMMUNITY US

We’ve grown up here, just like many of you. Since its founding, C&N has been a part of the communities we call home. We live, grow and succeed together, so C&N will always be committed to providing more helpful service, convenient locations and expert advice to you— our neighbors.

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E ditors & P ublish E rs

Teresa Banik Capuzzo

Michael Capuzzo

A ssoci A t E P ublish E rs

Lilace Mellin Guignard

George Bochetto, Esq.

d ir E ctor of o PE r A tions

Gwen Button

M A n A ging E ditor

Gayle Morrow

s A l E s r EP r E s E nt A tiv E

Shelly Moore

c ircul A tion d ir E ctor

Michael Banik

A ccounting

Amy Packard

c ov E r d E sign

Gwen Button

c ontributing W rit E rs

Maggie Barnes, Carrie Hagen, Don Kelly, Roger Kingsley, Don Knaus, Steve McCloskey, Dave Milano, Brendan O’Meara, Marshall Nych, David O’Reilly, Linda Roller, Richard Soderberg, Karey Solomon

c ontributing P hotogr AP h E rs

Bank with locals like you. cnbankpa.com

Bernadette Chiaramonte, Tom Kearse, Laura Nych, Linda Stager, Matthew Stevens

d istribution t EAM

Grapevine Distribution, Linda Roller, Amy Woodbury

t h E b EA gl E

Nano Cosmo (1996-2014) •

Yogi (2004-2018)

ABOUT US: Mountain Home is the award-winning regional magazine of PA and NY with more than 100,000 readers. The magazine has been published monthly, since 2005, by Beagle Media, LLC, 39 Water Street, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901, and online at www.mountainhomemag.com. Copyright © 2023 Beagle Media, LLC. All rights reserved. E-mail story ideas to editorial@mountainhomemag. com, or call (570) 724-3838.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS: For a one-year subscription (12 issues), send $24.95, payable to Beagle Media LLC, 39 Water Street, Wellsboro, PA 16901 or visit www. mountainhomemag.com.

Musical Fireworks!

6, 2023

Friday, July 21

“Opening Night Orchestral Fireworks” at Mansfield University

7:00 p.m. — Steadman Theatre, Mansfield University, Mansfield, PA

Sponsored by C&N

Handel “Music for the Royal Fireworks”

Bach “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 3

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Featuring — Georgian—American pianist Ketevan Kartvelishvili

Saturday, July 22

“Tchaikovsky Meets Mariachi”

7:00 p.m. — Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

Sponsored by Corning Incorporated Foundation

Handel “Music for the Royal Fireworks”

Bach “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 3

Arturo Marquez ................................... Danzón No. 2

Tchaikovsky Capriccio Italien

Sunday, July 23

“Wellsboro POPS!”

Featuring the EMMF Orchestra, with music from Broadway, tango and “Stars and Stripes Forever,” featuring Dave Stahl, former lead trumpet for Frank Sinatra

2:30 p.m. — Wellsboro High School, Wellsboro, PA — FREE

Sponsored by the Dunham Family Trust in Memory of Robert C. Dunham, UPMC, SWN, Wellsboro Electric Company

Monday, July 24

“Bach to Rock” featuring Jason Mathena and David Wert, percussion

7:00 p.m. — Tioga County Courthouse, Wellsboro, PA

Sponsored by Seneca Resources

Tuesday, July 25

“An Evening of Serenades”

7:00 p.m. – Deane Center, Wellsboro, PA

Sponsored by the EMMF Board of Directors

Wednesday, July 26

EMMF String Quartet

7:00 p.m. — 171 Cedar Arts Center, Corning, NY

Sponsored by Corning Incorporated Foundation

Franz Schubert String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D810, known as “Death and the Maiden”

Thursday, July 27

“Endless Mountain Love Songs”

– A harmonious night of acoustic love songs by slide guitarist and vocalist Abbie Gardner, with guitarist Sean Kiely.

7:00 p.m. — Penn Wells Hotel, Wellsboro, PA

Sponsored by Penn Wells Hotel (Dinner 5:00 to 6:45. Call for reservations: 570-724-2111)

Friday, July 28

“Lift Up Your Voices and Sing”

7:00 p.m. — Mansfield University, Steadman Theatre, Mansfield, PA

Sponsored by Ward Manufacturing

Radion Shchedrin ........................

“Carmen” Suite for Strings

Teresa Chung, Resident Conductor

W. A. Mozart Coronation Mass K.317 Peggy Dettwiler, Choral Conductor

Saturday, July 29

“Classic Gems”

7:00 p.m. — Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

Sponsored by Corning Incorporated Foundation

Piazzolla .......................................................Tangazo Mozart ..................................... Sinfonia Concertante Beethoven ..................................... Symphony No. 7

Sunday, July 30

“Explore the Universe” featuring the EMMF Brass Quintet

8:00 p.m. — Cherry Springs State Park, Coudersport, PA – FREE Sponsored by the William & L.R. Gale Community Foundation (For Park reservations, call 814-435-1037)

Monday, July 31

“From the Forests of La Plata to the Meadows of Bohemia” featuring Hua Jin and Phil Palermo, violin, and Melanie Mashner, harp

7:00 p.m. — Deane Center, Wellsboro, PA Sponsored by Guthrie

Tuesday, Aug. 1

“Under the Summer Sky” featuring the EMMF Brass Quintet

7:00 p.m. — Gmeiner Art Cultural Center, Wellsboro, PA Sponsored by Quality Inn of Mansfield

Wednesday, Aug. 2

“Anyone Can Play the Drums!” featuring Jason Mathena and David Wert, percussion

7:00 p.m. — Knoxville Yoked Church, Knoxville, PA — FREE Sponsored by the Deerfield Charitable Trust

Thursday, Aug. 3

“Big Band Sounds from Hollywood” featuring Bram Wijnands, Rick Doganiero & friends”

7:00 p.m. — Deane Center, Coolidge Theatre, Wellsboro, PA

Sponsored by Spencer, Gleason, Hebe, & Rague, P.C.

Friday, August 4

“Fill the Hall with Great Sound”

7:00 p.m. — Mansfield University, Steadman Theatre, Mansfield, PA

Sponsored by Visit Potter—Tioga

Shostakovich Symphony No. 9

F.J. Haydn Concerto in C Major, featuring Gita Ladd, cello Brahms ........................................... Symphony No. 1

Saturday, August 5

“Nothing But the Best”

7:00 p.m. — Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY

Sponsored by Corning Incorporated Foundation

Wagner “Die Meistersinger” Overture Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite Dvořák Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”

Sunday, August 6

“Corning POPS!” featuring Anthony Nunziata, direct from Nashville & Broadway with orchestra, in memory of Cornelius W. (Neal)

O’Donnell Jr.

2:30 p.m. — Nasser Ice Rink, Corning Civic Center

Plaza, Corning, NY — FREE

Sponsored by Corning Incorporated Foundation, Community Foundation of Elmira—Corning and the Finger Lakes, Tyoga Container, Williams Toyota and the Rotary Club of Corning, Guthrie, X—Gen

Glass Masters

Amy Schwartz and Bill Gudenrath Put the Class in CMoG’s Studio

By Jan Bridgeford-Smith

Courtesy

Corning Museum of Glass

Glass is the great equalizer, reflecting the image of whomever stands before a mirror without regard to rank or fame. It’s found in the equipment of Michelin-starred restaurants and local soup kitchens. Glass moves data across oceans, continents, and the heavens, thereby connecting disparate people and places, paying no attention to borders or politics. Our modern life is suffused with, dependent on, and decorated by glass. And when it comes to celebrating this marvel, few places in the world rival the small city of Corning, New York.

Situated along the banks of the Chemung River, birthplace of Corning Glass Works, now the global enterprise Corning, Inc., the town is also home to the world-renowned Corning Museum of Glass.

Established in 1951 by Corning Glass Works in honor of the company’s 100th anniversary, the nonprofit museum is dedicated to the display, celebration, and promotion of glass, glorious glass.

But here’s the challenge. The greatest contributions of glass to humankind can only be realized when a fiery amalgam of sand, lime, and sodium carbonate, the material’s origin stew, is patiently taken through a process. From delicate beads to fiber optic threads to breathtaking sculptures, glass is a human endeavor requiring a skilled hand, a patient attitude, laser focus, and an intimate knowledge of how the substance moves, reacts, and responds to the demands placed on it. To work well with glass, you must learn how to dance with it, seamlessly, as if you and the medium are one.

In 1995, the museum addressed this challenge by hiring Amy Schwartz and William “Bill” Gudenrath, a husbandand-wife team from Manhattan, to start the Studio. This state-of-the-art teaching facility for glassblowing and coldworking opened in 1996.

After more than twenty years of active leadership, cofounders Amy and Bill remain the guiding forces behind the Studio’s mission to be “a leader in the world-wide glass community and a creative resource for the region.” A 2015 collaborative venture by the

Ah, glasshopper!:

Tobias Mohl (top) is a 2023 Spring Artist in Residence at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass; a student learns handson at the 2023 winter class; Bill Gudenrath (bottom) teaches at the Studio in 2008.

(3) Courtesy Corning Museum of Glass

Chihuly Garden and Glass, a museum in Seattle, Washington, showcasing Dale Chihuly’s studio glass, and the Glass Art Society, an international nonprofit membership organization, also based in Seattle, produced a comprehensive study entitled The Landscape of Glass Art in America. The report noted that “organizations like… the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York have become pillars in the glass art community, making their regions central to the studio movement in the United States.”

Love at First Glass

Amy exudes warmth and a quiet joy thanks to an infectious smile and dark, twinkling eyes. Before coming to Corning, Amy worked in the computer field near Wall Street and blew glass as a hobby. “My first glassblowing teacher pointed Bill out to me and said, ‘if you really want to learn glassblowing, that’s the man you should take a class from,’” she says. “At that moment, Bill, in his red jacket with his red backpack, rode into the studio on his red bicycle, and I swear he had a red aura. He made one piece at the furnace and then left. Months later, I signed up for a class with him.” They started dating several months after the class.

Amy was three months pregnant with their first child when the couple relocated to Corning in the summer of 1995. “In March of ’96,” she says, “we had our first child, and in May of ’96 we had what I affectionately called ‘our second child,’ which was the Studio.”

Tall, with an easy grin and a gentle Southern accent, Bill is a master glass artist, an expert’s expert—glassblower, scholar, lecturer, teacher, and author. Invited by the museum to design, build, program, and lead the Studio, Bill is arguably a rock star in the international glass community. Today, he serves as resident advisor of the Studio, a fellow of the museum, and a hugely popular instructor/ mentor who is requested far beyond his availability.

It’s easy to understand his reputation. He moves around a hot glass studio with the ease and comfort of a concert musician on a familiar stage, all the time narrating the process while giving tips and tricks. For Bill, the siren call of glass happened thanks to a chemistry set he received at age eleven. But his creative curiosity also led him into music, a pursuit that eventually led to a master of music degree from Julliard. His instrument of choice? Harpsichord. The earliest references to the instrument appear in the fifteenth century and the oldest surviving harpsichords date from the 1500s. It’s not surprising then, given his love for an antiquated instrument, that Bill’s fascination with bygone objects extends to his career in glass.

Recognized for decades as one of the foremost authorities on glassmaking techniques of the ancient world through the eighteenth century, Bill spent years as a sleuth identifying historical hot glassworking techniques. After the 2016 release of his first opus, The Techniques of Renaissance Venetian Glassworking, published on the CMoG website, the Associated Press dubbed him the “glass detective.” But in addition to a slick moniker and creation of a comprehensive, widely consulted resource, Bill mastered the methods and made them his own. His pieces, sold in galleries, museums, and exclusive shops around the world, are stunning examples of how ancient techniques, when correctly applied, produce a modern piece of art that happens to be a functional object. What’s more, he creates intricately decorated Venetian glass pieces solo, when most experts work in pairs.

The couple work together to create “a space that is accessible,

See Glass on page 10

Craft brews made on site, can be enjoyed in our world famous, fully stocked “Tavern Room” bar offering 6 of our craft brews on tap. To-go craft brew available in Growlers and 6-packs!

Enjoy local favorites like Prime Rib and London Broil in the Spacious Dining Room. Check our website for breakfast and dinner hours.

Lodging is also available. Come stay in one of our many cabins or motel rooms at a reasonable price.

welcoming, and supportive for people working with glass at every stage,” says Amy. “The Studio’s programs support absolute beginners through to internationally recognized artists.” It’s an endeavor that requires major investments of money, imagination, and expertise. Though Amy was recruited to nurture and develop the project, she’s also been tasked with other responsibilities along the way. For over a decade, from 2002 to 2014, she directed education programs for the entire museum, including K-12 school highlights and curriculum-based tours, and the museum’s docent, Scout, Junior Curator, Explainer, and public education programs. From personal experience and decades of observation, she knows a glass-as-art experience at any age can kickstart a love affair with this magical material.

Today, Amy’s full-time focus is on the Studio. Her position as director resembles that of a Broadway producer combined with stage manager, theater director, concierge, and nonstop hostess for an operation that welcomes thousands of visitors each year,

all of them eager for an artistic encounter with glass. She is devoted to ensuring that everyone who participates at the Studio, as an instructor, artist-in-residence, seasoned gaffer, or glass art novice, has “a five-star experience in a warm and friendly environment.” It’s a monumental show of hospitality coupled with nonstop attention to endless details. Her portfolio of responsibilities includes curricula design, instructor selection for year-round classes, student selection, scholarship awards, and oversight of the residency, walk-in, group, and school programs. These are just the highlights.

An accomplished artisan in her own right, Amy also carves out slivers of time to maintain “a glassblowing practice as a designer and maker of functional and decorative objects.” She credits southwestern Native American pottery, Venetian blown glass, and concepts popularized through the Bauhaus movement with inspiring and influencing her work. In addition to creating items that exemplify elegance through form, her pieces are distinctive for their depth and richness of color.

Raising Their Second Child

Amy and Bill are zealous advocates and compelling ambassadors on behalf of the glass community. They’ve witnessed the life-changing magic that can happen when an individual is introduced to the wondrous properties of hot glass. Learning about glass, Bill says, “is not a theoretical thing. It’s not something you just talk about. It’s really entirely hands-on and practical.” It’s a medium that requires special equipment and focused attention to mastering not only the techniques but also the order in which the procedures occur. And because of the demand imposed by the material, “to reinvent the wheel” on your own, Bill observes, “would take a lifetime.” “Glassblowing is always learned by doing,” Amy adds. “You watch and you practice. We used to pass around VHS tapes of glass masters at work, and we would watch them over and over. These days we have the internet and YouTube, and everything is there.”

Sharing knowledge, know-how, and unbridled enthusiasm is the purpose that guides the Studio. These ideals are embodied

Courtesy Corning Museum of Glass

The glass is always greener: Cedric Mitchell, a 2023 Spring Artist in Residence at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, is on fire.

in every aspect of the facility's operations. It’s evident in the work areas that have been outfitted with top-tier equipment and all the tools necessary so that artists and students are able to take risks and make discoveries. Programs and visitor experiences are tailored for people of all skill levels to forge and deepen their understanding of glass.

Workspaces are outfitted such that they can provide opportunities to do furnace working, flameworking, kiln working, cold working, and more. Resident artists and students of the Studio have access to the world’s largest museum collection of glass—numbering 50,000 objects—as well as the prestigious Rakow Research Library. Working glass artists, whether newly acquainted with the medium or wellestablished in the glass community, can apply for a fully supported residency at the Studio.

The facility also maintains a year-round schedule of classes, from introductory to master’s level and ranging from one-day workshops to intensive, on-site, two-week sessions. Cognizant that cost can be a barrier to participation, the Studio awards 100 scholarships per year. The Studio also shows its commitment to fostering accessibility for glass artists by making their workspaces available.

What the popular Great British Baking Show did for cake art, the Netflix series Blown Away did for glass working: put it squarely into our cultural zeitgeist. The show is a competition among artists to create marvelous concoctions in glass. The grand prize for the season’s winner is a residency at Corning, and this growing attention translates into bourgeoning requests for classes, artist-in-residence placements, and access to studio facilities. The museum’s response to this growing demand has been an ambitious campaign, StudioNext, affirming the organization’s commitment to remaining a global leader in glass artistry and glass innovation with an emphasis on nurturing and promoting “unbridled creative expression and push[ing] the conceptual and technical boundaries of art in glass forward…” This endeavor is about expansion writ large. In addition to more space, the campaign will impact these four key areas: revolutionizing contemporary art in glass, inspiring the artist in everyone, creating transformative opportunities, and invigorating the region.

Space is needed to achieve these goals. The Studio’s physical plant will be upped by 36,000 square feet, taking the facility from 24,000 to 60,000 square feet. This hefty increase in square footage will allow for development of the first large-scale kiln casting facility in North America, which will feature an impressive array of equipment such as six large kilns, a 500-pound gravity-feed casting furnace, and a 1,000-pound overhead crane system. Mold-making and cold-working rooms are included in this configuration, and cutting-edge technologies such as computer numerical control, or CNC, machines—they’re automated, pre-programmed, machining tools—3D printers, neon-making facilities, and wood and metal shops are also part of the plan. This is the basis for revolutionizing contemporary art in glass.

The Studio’s goal of inspiring the artist in everyone can be seen in plans to boost the number of available artist-in-resident placements, introducing an intensive two-year training program for aspiring artists, and enlarging the space used for the Make Your Own Glass component, considered a “keystone experience” for visitors. Creating transformative initiatives include expanding opportunities for diverse voices in glass to be showcased.

For nearly a quarter century, Bill and Amy’s work to advance the

See Glass on page 41

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Good Vibrations

Spring Clean Your Body and Mind at Emerge in Wellsboro

By Gayle Morrow

We are already intuitively familiar with sound therapy. It’s all around us. Our senses recognize it. It’s that little gurgling stream behind your house, a horse’s contented munching, the bass you can feel throbbing in your chest when you’ve got “Heartbreaker” cranked. Sound therapy comes in a variety of waves, so to speak, and both our bodies and our minds respond to those waves. That’s the idea behind singing bowls.

“We blend the medley of guided visualization and the physical reverberation of sound,” explains Laura Lee Robinson, who, with her husband, Jesse, own and operate Emerge Healing Arts & Spa in Wellsboro. A singing bowl session can be relaxing and soothing, transformative and clearing.

“It’s like taking an inside [your body] shower,” she says.

What’s not to love about that?

Sounds are created through friction and

vibration. Sound therapy has been in use for ages—think chanting, drumming, bells, chimes, rattles, wind instruments like the didgeridoo or bagpipes—and the effects of sound on us have been observed and studied all that time as well. Sound waves may act on the body’s energy field—“fundamentally the universe is vibration,” notes Laura Lee—and, since our body composition is largely space and water, it does make sense that sound waves would have an effect on our physical selves. And, since our bodies and our minds are inextricable, it also makes sense that sounds have impacts on our brains, thoughts, and emotions.

“It really is about the experience,” Laura Lee says. “For me it’s about access to the innate wisdom—it’s an access point for anyone.”

So what is that experience all about?

Laura Lee obtained some of the singing bowls she uses in Nepal. “I feel like they have an

extra magic,” she says. For a singing bowl session, she uses those bowls as well as others, including some made of crystal. The session takes place either in the salt cave (more on that in a minute) or in one of the treatment rooms. In the salt cave, the light is a warm yellow, and it’s easy to relax on the heated chair. Laura Lee uses mallets to create a range of sounds on the singing bowls, and augments the tones with her voice. The session is about an hour from start to finish, and can leave the participant feeling energized, peaceful, renewed, or some combination of those.

It is, she says, “an invitation for what we’re ready for.”

The singing bowl session is one of the newest services offered at Emerge, but there are others. As Laura Lee points out, “We’re celebrating our eleventh year as Emerge. Emerge is emerging!” Her daughter and her future son-in-law have joined the practice, so

See Vibrations on page 14

A-salt your senses: The salt cave and singing bowl sessions at Emerge Healing Arts & Spa will have you humming with joy.

Microdermabrasion

“not only is our practice expanding, but our family is, too.”

She’s reworking the interior flow of the home to better accommodate the bed-and-breakfast guests and to provide a more accessible display area for Emerge Botanicals. “My [EB] maker has retired,” Laura Lee says, and so the extensive variety of almost-richenough-to-eat and beautifully-packaged, small-batch, wild-crafted skin care products—moisturizers, cleansers, toners, and more—are now made in-house, and as much as is possible from local and organic ingredients. These are the products used for all Emerge facial services.

Guests and clients can try out Emerge’s new cupping therapy services—facial or full body. Cupping is another ancient therapy that is enjoying a resurgence. During a cupping session, a trained therapist uses special cups—they can be made of glass, silicone, or other materials—to create negative pressure on your skin via suction. Facial cupping improves skin texture, Laura Lee explains, and acts as “natural plumping.” Body cupping affects the whole layer of connective tissue, she says. It opens space within the body and “makes the tissue like butter.” Treatment varies with the individual’s need, and can be whole-body or spot-specific.

The ninety-minute Detox Package consists of the ionic footbath, the far infrared sauna and, as the main ingredient, dry salt therapy— halotherapy—delivered in the salt cave via a piece of equipment known as a halogenerator.

“The beautiful part of our detox services is we can do day-of booking,” says Laura Lee.

You’ll start with the warm ionic footbath—water, salt, electronic coils (no worries about mixing electricity and water, honest)—and, seriously, what’s not to love about giving your hard-working tootsies an opportunity to wiggle about in their own little ocean? The science behind it all is that the salt reacts with the coils and draws toxins out of your body as the water is split into negative and positive ions. It is non-invasive and completely pleasant.

Your next stop is the salt cave, where the halogenerator disperses microscopic particles of pure salt into the air. You breathe it in—you may feel relaxed enough to doze off; the sodium chloride acts as an anti-bacterial agent and as a “toothbrush” for your respiratory tract.

Finally, it’s sauna time. Unlike a steam sauna, the far infrared sauna is dry, using light to heat your body rather than the air around it. The term refers to the wavelength of the light. There are numerous potential health benefits associated with “taking a sauna,” including just plain sweating.

The bottom line?

“You can have a full day here, including tea on the porch, and enjoy a full sanctuary experience on many levels,” Laura Lee says. Whatever Emerge service you decide on—you’ll feel something soothing right away when you step through the doorway. It’s as though the house, one of the borough’s gracious Victorians, is suggesting that you take a deep breath and relax. Give yourself the gift of time and place by scheduling your singing bowl, cupping session, massage, facial, or detox package. Book an overnight stay, or stop in to shop for the Emerge Botanicals that are just right for your skin. Find Emerge at emergehealingarts.com or call (570) 360-8180. The gardens will be blooming soon—don’t wait!

Bernadette Chiaramonte

Nigel Kent

Linda Stager

Nature’ s Verse

If, as the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, "April / comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers" (and a snow flurry or two), then May comes down the hill like a promise that the earth will never run out of beauty. From Taughannock Falls in the Finger Lakes to Goodall Hollow where it feeds into Asaph Run that then feeds into Pine Creek Gorge, we have no shortage of places and critters that beckon us to stop and appreciate where we live.

Linda Stager

Paul Bozzo

From Memphis to Route 49

And Now, the Academy Corners Blues Committee Brings Local Music to the Valley

By Karin Knaus

If you’re traveling the Route 49 corridor between Knoxville and Osceola, and you keep your eyes open, you’re bound to spot a sign letting you know you’re passing through Academy Corners. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it map dot along a stretch of road lined with farmland, small businesses, and longstanding homes. The township building across from the sign paints a literal image of the rich history of this rural area. Residents John and Amy Doan are doing their part to contribute to that history by bringing music to this storied community.

John and Amy are founding members of the Academy Corners Blues Committee, and for more than twenty-five years they’ve been bringing national-touring rhythm and blues acts to the area. Its origins are simple. John grew up in a musical family, himself

a saxophone player who, back in the day, played in a band with his sister Sherry and some friends. Amy and her brother Charlie had hosted a small musical festival, The Three Trees, on their 600-plus-acre farm just over the border in New York. Amy’s family, who ran Painter’s Meat Processing in Elkland, also catered all over New York and Pennsylvania, even operating the New York State Grange booth for the New York State Fair.

When the two met, their backgrounds made music and food “a natural fit...we like to entertain,” says John, and that gave rise to the ACBC. For their wedding, they opened up the barn on the Painter family farm, now operated by Amy and her sister, Dorotha, as The Barn at Hillsprings Farms in Addison, which hosts weddings and other events. ACBC’s first event was Blooz

in the Barn, a music and food combo, and has since organized numerous Blooz at the Barn happenings, as well as bringing music to other local venues. In 2021, the group organized the Cowanesque Rock and Blues Festival, bringing eight bands to the stage at the Barn.

“I love music,” says John, who, with the committee, has brought in ninety bands since ACBC’s inception. “The ACBC is mostly a committee of two, but when it gets close to show time, I bring in people smarter than me, like Mike Watkins.” Having music on his mind is what also led him to create his own amphitheater on his farm just down the road from the Academy Corners sign.

“I was standing on my hill looking down one day and realized the bank was shaped like a ‘U.’” Recognizing it might lend itself to pleasant acoustics, he

Academy Corners Blues Committee

Find a good time on Route 49: Music fans enjoy sweet tunes, tasty food, and soft grass at the amphitheater in Academy Corners.

immediately got on his bulldozer and started carving out rows for seating. “I started at the top, carved out a row, and let the dirt roll down the hill, then moved down and did another,” says John. The terraced hill rises out of the field adjacent to the Knoxville/ Deerfield airfield, and he’s added a few rock features for seating. With the amphitheater in place, he set to work building a space for bands.

That performance area holds some fascinating local history, as it was constructed from the remains of the old Academy Corners bridge. The pavilion John built is created with the recognizable green beams from the historic bridge, and repurposed pallet racks from the former Metamora manufacturing facility in Elkland form the trusses. On one side flies the American flag, and on another, a sculpture of a guitar, also repurposed from Metamora. When not hosting a band, the structure houses a friend’s 1950s-era Cessna.

After years of concerts, there are a few amusing stories. John recalls that the stage was originally built in between two ponds, but he thought it might be wise to fill them in after a relative fell into one when the dancing got boisterous. John laughs, too, about a time when they brought in someone to offer an opportunity to tandem skydive at a show, tying in to the amphitheater’s location along an airstrip. They don’t think they’d do it again, though, as one of the tandem teams came a little too close to the stage for dancers’ comfort.

This month, the amphitheater will be home to new stories with the latest festival, The Local. On May 27, for just twenty bucks, guests can enjoy music beginning at 1 p.m. Nine local acts will entertain from two stages.

“I won’t have anything you can’t dance to,” says John. If you get hungry or thirsty, and you probably will, local food, including chicken BBQ from the Knoxville Fire Company and Chef Reginald Hartmann, the man in charge of barbecuing the afore-mentioned chicken, as well as local craft beer from the committee’s friends at the Wellsboro House, will be available. Guests may also BYOB.

Expect the styles of music at The Local to suit sundry tastes. Performers include Galeton’s Tyler Ruef doing his brand of country, Tim Swan on bagpipes, Valley favorites Ryan Hoke and Brent Tracy, Billy Christ, Corning’s Blue-Eyed Soul, and the Houston Baker Band featuring musicians and voices from Blossburg and West Elmira.

Also performing are the talented students from the Uptown Music Collective, Williamsport’s music education and experience program for young people, and the Southern Tier’s own Celtic rock band, Kilrush, notorious for bringing crowds to their feet with their driving, high energy sound. Rounding out the performances is local “organic rock and roll straight from the soul” band Yetsu, fresh off the release of their album Forever Endeavor, which happens to be in heavy rotation on this writer’s Spotify.

With a storied history of skydivers, national blues legends, and creative endeavors like The Local, the ACBC continues to make Academy Corners more than just a map dot on your way through the Valley.

THE LOCAL!

LOCAL BANDS/30+ MUSICIANS FROM THIS AREA

Knoxville/Deerfield Airfield Amphitheater, Knoxville PA

Sat. May 27th • 1pm till ?

Local BBQ Chicken from the Knoxville Fire Co. and Chef Reginald Hartmann and local craft beer from the Wellsboro House & B.Y.O.B.

Camping & Parking Free. Admission: $20

Music By: YETSU (originals jam band), TYLER RUEF(Country), HOUSTON BAKER BAND(Rock,Blues), BLUE EYED SOUL(R&B Soul), Tim Swan(bagpipe),UPTOWN MUSIC COLLECTIVE(High School Blues Band), KILLRUSH (Irish,Celtic), RYAN HOKE,BRENT TRACY (Rock & More). Looking for local sponsors and vendors. Contact: jdoan1@stny.rr.com More info coming soon.

EVENT SPONSORS

Bill Christ Windows & Doors

Karin Knaus is an English teacher in the Cowanesque Valley who lives for live music and dancing, and who deeply identifies with the character in this story who fell in a pond due to boisterous dancing.

The 31ST AnnuAl BLOSSBURG COAL FESTIVAL

Celebrating the history and heritage of the mining industry in Blossburg and the surrounding communities.

In 1792 coal was discovered in the Blossburg area during the building of the Williamson Road.

Blossburg was home to William B. Wilson, the first US Secretary of Labor. After Wilson’s death in 1934 the family farm was sold to the American Legion Post No. 572 of Blossburg and is still located there today.

The first Coal Festival was held Memorial Day weekend in 1993, 201 years after coal was discovered in Blossburg.

We invite you, your family, and friends to help us celebrate.

For more Information call 570-638-3313 or visit www.coalfestival.com

May 26—May 27

**More activities will be added as details are confirmed.**

FRIDAY, MAY 26

5:00

6:00

7:00

TBA Ghost Stories

SATURDAY, MAY 27

9:00 a.m. Car and Bike Show Registration begins on the Island

10:30

*Tentative schedule. All times and activities are subject to change.

Educational Entertwainment The Trouble Begins at Elmira’s Center for Mark Twain Studies

By Karey Solomon

When Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) talked, he’d quickly find himself with a rapt audience of devotees. Tales of his own adventures, writing best-selling books, and sharing a quirky, humorous take on a life filled with challenges and very hard work made him the nineteenth-century version of a rock star. He needed a refuge, a place to recharge and regroup, and he found one at Quarry Farm in Elmira. It’s a hidden gem today, and its caregivers mostly intend for it to stay that way. But visitors are welcomed to the farm for “The Trouble Begins,” its twice-yearly lecture series named for a handbill Clemens wrote to promote long-ago talks.

In 2023, the spring lecture series begins at 7 p.m. on May 10 in the barn-convertedto-lecture-hall with a talk by Steven Courtney concerning the friendship between the two pastors who officiated at the wedding of Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon—and remained friends thereafter. “Between Mark Twain and Bella Z. Spencer: Satire and Sentiment on the Subscription Book Market” is offered by Jessica Jordan on May 17. An

unpacking of race and racism issues in the author’s life and work, by Ann M. Ryan, is on May 24, and on May 31 Lawrence Howe will give a talk on Clemens’s poetry. There will be four more lectures in October. One hopes Clemens would approve, at least in part, to all of this. As he said in his autobiography, “I like criticism, but it must be my way.” The lectures are free and open to the public.

While attendees don’t have time or permission to explore the house, they have the opportunity to experience the view and the peacefulness of the grounds, two of the elements enabling Clemens to accomplish substantial amounts of writing for the five to six months out of the year his family spent here in the late 1800s. In 1874, his sister-inlaw Susan Crane commissioned an octagonal study overlooking the Chemung River valley, which served the dual purpose of giving Clemens a dedicated work space away from the hubbub of family life and spared them much of the fug of his beloved cigars and occasional earthy expletives (“When angry, count four,” Clemens said. “When very angry, swear!”). The restored building was removed

to the Elmira College campus in 1952, where it’s open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (closed for college holidays), often with a student docent nearby to answer questions. This year it opens on May 30.

Clemens first visited Quarry Farm in 1869. He’d been hired in 1867 to take—and then write about—a five months’ European/ Mediterranean cruise, an account later published as The Innocents Abroad, and also launched the lucrative sideline of traveling to give lectures. Prior to this, he’d been compelled to pursue a variety of occupations, from miner to typesetter to piloting steamboats through the quirky maritime geography of the Mississippi River. On the cruise, he befriended fellow American travelers, particularly the much-younger Charles Langdon. When the homesick Charles showed him a picture of his sister, Olivia, Clemens was immediately smitten. When the two were introduced a few months later, his love was emphatically not reciprocated. But their correspondence and occasional meetings worked their magic. Eventually Olivia agreed to be his wife, writing

Never the twain shall meet: The public is not allowed inside the residence at Quarry Farm—that's a treat reserved for Quarry Farm Fellows working in an area of Mark Twain Studies. But public lectures are held in the converted barn and visitors are welcome to enjoy the porch and view.

Dave Rochelle

to a friend, “A great satisfying love, has slowly, gradually worked its way into my heart—into my entire being.”

The Clemens family never owned Quarry Farm. What was a slate-cutter’s cottage was purchased in 1869 as a summer home by Jervis Langdon, a wealthy Elmira merchant, abolitionist, and philanthropist, and father to Charles and Olivia. Springing from vastly different backgrounds, Clemens and his future wife were an unlikely pair, but Jervis took a liking to the rough-hewn, self-educated Missourian, whose formal education had been interrupted early in life with the death of his parents. After Clemens declared his desire to exchange his life as an itinerant lecturer for more settled newspaper work, Jervis purchased a major interest in the Buffalo Express to help his future son-in-law, and bought the couple a lavish Buffalo home as a wedding gift. They were married in early 1870. Clemens’s initial enthusiasm for newspaper work was already waning; and after the following summer back in Elmira, where the newlyweds returned to help care for the now-dying Jervis, he realized his interests lay in non-journalistic writing. It was a decision Olivia supported.

“Our perception of Olivia is extremely

limited,” says Barbara Snedecor, former director of Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, currently editing a volume of Olivia’s letters. “She was gracious, intelligent, warm, and compassionate. She loved her husband unfailingly, and he her. She was a tremendous strength to him.” She managed his household, taught and played with their children, entertained an impressive array of guests, and helped him edit his work for publication.

The summer cottage, left to Olivia’s sister Susan Crane, and for many years operated as a dairy farm, was a refuge for Clemens when the family returned to Elmira. In subsequent years the couple’s three daughters were born there. The house was enlarged several times, and remained in the Langdon family until 1982, when the original Jervis Langdon’s great-nephew, also named Jervis Langdon, donated the property to Elmira College, thus anchoring the Center for Mark Twain Studies. The carefully-crafted agreement specifies the property should be used “exclusively for the support of scholarship on the life and work of Mark Twain.” Quarry Farm Fellows, those Mark Twain scholars researching and writing on some aspect of Clemens’s life and work, can apply for a fellowship to stay at the farm

to concentrate on their research and work for a two-week period.

The man who wrote “fame is a vapor, popularity an accident” might have been surprised at his legacy’s staying power. Or maybe not. Joseph Lemak, director of Mark Twain Studies, says sales of the newest version of Clemens’s autobiography, published in 2020 because Clemens insisted it could only see print at least a century after his death, has helped fund the Mark Twain Studies program. It’s something Clemens might have immodestly predicted. He had told Howells, his friend, editor, and proofreader, “that this autobiography of mine would live a couple of thousand years, without any effort,” adding that if Howells hadn’t agreed, “I would have thrown him out of the window.”

For more information see marktwainstudies.com, or call (607) 7351941.

Karey Solomon is the author of a poetry chapbook,Voices Like the Sound of Water, a book on frugal living (now out of print), and more than thirty needlework books.  Her work has also appeared in several fiction and nonfiction anthologies.

Imagine You. Visiting the Finger Lakes Wineries and returning to your RV site, cabin, or full-size rental trailer for your unique vacation experience.

Imagine You. Sitting by the campfire with a glass of excellent wine you purchased that day at one of Finger Lakes’ many wineries.

Imagine You. Visiting the Corning Museum of Glass (just10 miles away) and the quaint town of Corning, NY with its many wonderful gift shops and restaurants.

Imagine Us. Welcoming you to our family campground. Visit us today!

Shifting Sands

Big Flats Artist Connie Zehr Learns to Love Glass

By Janet McCue

Connie Zehr moved from Southern California to the Southern Tier in 2010, despite the warning from a West Coast friend that she’d be moving to a wasteland if she relocated to upstate New York. Instead, Connie found color, community, love, and a new art form in her adopted region.

Connie works in sand. Her art installations are ephemeral, created for a site and swept away at the conclusion of the show. Yet the images of her art remain seared into the visual imagination.

But she also makes photographs of her sand sculptures, then sends those photos to be printed on aluminum. Hanging these aluminum prints in a grid allows her to “work large and on the wall”—a new type of installation for the sculptor.

“If I was not able to document it, it

would be heartbreaking,” Connie admits. “With the proper lighting, the sand photographs beautifully.”

Connie’s early work was often monochromatic, usually large sculptural shapes made with white sand. Occasionally, she incorporated wood or another object to create a shadow on the mound of sand. She often rolled out pieces of porcelain to form rods, letting them dry and then incorporating them into her sand sculpture installations.

“So it was white on white, hand-formed shapes of white clay in white sand,” she says.

When she moved to the Southern Tier, Connie enrolled in a flame course at the Corning Museum of Glass. It was a decision that would alter her art and enrich her life.

“I had never done anything with glass, actually manipulating glass, until I moved

here. And it was such a perfect combination because glass, of course, is made from sand.” After taking the flame class, she realized that the shapes she was making with glass were similar to the ones she had made in clay. Her epiphany came when she saw the possibilities of glass interacting with sand.

“Since I’ve been in New York, I’ve added color,” Connie explains. By mixing dried pigment into the sand in her installations, she “discovered that the color percolates up into the glass. A really interesting phenomenon.” Her exhibitions at the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca showcased this new and colorful bent. By featuring vibrantly pigmented sand, metal slag, and borosilicate glass, visitors saw how the ribbons of glass captured, reflected, and absorbed the surrounding colors.

At CMoG, Connie also met a

Zehr on page 30

(4) Courtesy Corning Museum of Glass

Detail from The Place Between: Colored sand, metal slag, flameworked borosilicate glass. 14" x 16" x 42".  Shown as a part of Fusion at the Delaware Contemporary in 2018.

GAFFER DISTRICT

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community of artists who congregate at a Friday morning discussion group. The free-flowing weekly gathering “always fills up with interesting things to talk about,” she says. She also makes a point of not missing the talks and shows at the museum, and she appreciates the opportunity to continue learning. “Visiting artists who take classes are accomplished individuals. They display their work and offer insights into the process during the talks they give at their shows,” Connie explains.

It was in the Friday morning discussion group where she met fellow sculptor Cornelius “Pepsi” Lyon, creator of a forty-acre sculpture park (see the story in the August 2013 Mountain Home). Not only did Pepsi and Connie become a couple, they became artistic collaborators, too. Visitors to the C Lyon Sculpture Garden in Horseheads might find Connie’s aluminum prints on some of his steel creations; she has used his glass objects in her installations. Pepsi’s glass “skiggly wigglies,” along with colored marbles, are featured in a series of pedestal pieces Connie is developing. Titling the piece How to keep from losing your marbles, the fanciful skiggly wigglies corral the marbles in the sand installation.

When she is not mounting an exhibit, Connie can be found in the basement studio of her Big Flats home, where she works on a “really huge table” to create her art and photograph it. She feels fortunate that the State of the Art Gallery has a “very nice alcove to do a sand installation.”

As spring beckons, Connie moves out of her basement and into a live studio—her garden.

“The garden is a really important part of my life,” she admits. “Since I’ve been in New York, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with ornamental grasses and succulents. I intersperse color, and I really do like the shapes of plants. It’s a sculptural thing. The decisions I make in the garden are very close to the decisions I make in my installations.”

Rather than the artistic wasteland that her colleague predicted she’d find, Connie believes “it’s been a very positive move for me.” In a profile in the art magazine Sculpture (Nov-Dec. 2022), Joyce Beckenstein writes that “Zehr has spent six decades making work from a deeply personal perspective, gently shaping the experience of feeling empowered and humbled in nature’s presence, while celebrating art as akin to life—a transient moment in time.” Connie’s art installations have been mounted at the Whitney Museum of Art (NYC), Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Taipai Fine Art Museum in Taiwan, and at a host of other museums and galleries around the world. Local residents or visitors, if they were fortunate, might have seen Echo or The Place Between at State of the Art Gallery where she is a member of the collective. The Smithsonian Archives of American Art invited Connie to submit her art-related documents—twenty boxes of materials—into their research collections. Now an emerita professor of art at Claremont Graduate University in California, she began teaching art at the university in 1982, continuing until her retirement in 2008.

Fans can also visit conniezehr.com, where the beauty and range of her work from the 1970s to the present is showcased.

Janet McCue is the author of “Back of Beyond: a Horace Kephart Biography” (2019), winner of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award.

Zehr continued from page 28

Heavy Metal

Artists Tony Moretti and Gwen Quigley Make Masterpieces Together

By Karey Solomon

Just as clever crows use found materials to build their nests—sometimes in unexpected configurations—metal sculptors Tony Moretti and Gwen Quigley bring their creations to life using ingenuity, found materials, and their own unique way of looking at the world. Known together as the “Crow’s Nest artists,” not because they resemble raucous black birds but because their family’s nest is near Crow’s Nest Road in Steuben County, they will be featured artists at the 2023 GlassFest in Corning, May 25 to 28, and are inviting participation.

Like glass, metal may be fabricated, shaped, and fused to other metals via heat and flame. On the last two days of the fourday arts festival in Corning’s Gaffer District, attendees will have a chance to watch Tony and Gwen’s artistic process in progress, even to collaborate with suggestions on the use or placement of an item in the three-part decorative screen they’ll be creating. They’ll

arrive with the basic framework constructed, then will ornament it using metal objects dropped off at the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes at 79 West Market Street, augmented with materials they’ve been collecting in their studio. Does that old wrench resemble a stoop-shouldered teacher you remember—or would it with the addition of some arms? Does that open-jawed rusty pair of pliers held sideways look a little like a fish? Or do you see it upright, like a ballerina en pointe? Here’s your chance to assist in the artistic process. Tony and Gwen are good listeners.

“They are true artists,” says Dr. Connie Sullivan-Blum, executive director of the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes. “They approach every situation with an eye toward how to make it more beautiful, more impressive, and more expressive of something in the human spirit.”

The two met in Mendocino, California,

where Tony was running an educational program expanding on basic blacksmithing skills. He’d previously worked in other aspects of sculptural metalworking, from casting bronze bells to architectural welding and lost-wax casting. His father, the late Michael Moretti, taught art in Hammondsport, where he was one of the founders of what is now known as the Keuka Arts Festival (this year it’s June 10 to 11 in Hammondsport). Gwen learned metalworking from the ground up at her family’s metal fabrication shop in Michigan.

“I grew up with the smell and feel of metal,” Gwen says. “My family are supercreative in a practical way, so I knew how to problem solve and make things mechanically work. But it took meeting Tony for me to start making things creatively out of metal.”

Long connected to the late Walter Taylor, founder of Bully Hill Vineyards, three of the pair’s collaborations may be seen there: the

Sean Kin

G.O.A.T.s in their field: The Crows Nest Artists are some of the greatest of all time in narrative metal sculptures.

tall, graceful metal sunflowers at one entrance, an intricate railing around a memorial overlook, and one of their most recent public sculptures: an iconic larger-than-life bronze and copper goat set in a niche beneath the overlook. Love My Goat is also the first piece they’ve actually signed.

All three are complex, with intricate detailing, but it’s the fencing around the overlook that might take the longest to visually unpack. More than twenty years old, made as a memorial to Walter Taylor, it’s the first large work they did together. Antique bits of crockery found in Keuka Lake pave the terrace, surrounded by a railing forged from old railroad spikes, farm implements, tools, and wire, all creating a bucolic scene they believe Walter would have recognized and enjoyed. Tony says it was particularly wonderful to work with antique iron, which retains a texture unlike anything more recently made.

“Little kids end up going up there and intuitively touching it,” says Gregg Learned, Bully Hill’s winemaker. “It’s fascinating to watch. Adults spend time figuring it out. But to see kids in this day and age see art and respect it restores my faith in humanity!”

Most of Tony and Gwen’s art energy is channeled into commission work, which has taken them across the country as well as to England. At home, they live off-grid and put their work on Instagram, but they don’t have a website and they don’t advertise. Work finds them via word of mouth.

“Anyone we’ve done work for will send someone our way afterwards,” Gwen says.

Often they’re asked to create gates or railings, sometimes smaller pieces for indoors. “We have to try to find out what their vision is, what’s their emotional attachment,” Gwen explains. “Then ask a lot of questions.” For instance, if a client asks them to create a gate, they first need to know how the owners feel about their home. Do they want it represented as an open, welcoming place, or do they prefer to feel enclosed and protected once they cross the threshold? They always welcome what they call the “third voice” in the collaboration.

Gwen says the longevity of metal “is something I struggle with. It’s going to be around forever. It gives me a deep sense of responsibility when I make something.”

The pair also collaborate on another long-lasting art legacy: working together to teach hands-on workshops for adults and children in schools, libraries, and outdoor venues.

In their shared studio space beneath their house, in addition to a forge, a massive anvil, a work bench, and an assortment of hand-held tools, are other commissioned works-in-progress. Some pieces take more time than others, and Tony says it helps to have a piece present in their work space where they’re continually moving around it, often sensing where another piece needs to be added, a modification made, an existing aspect adjusted.

Their work during GlassFest will be both planned in advance and on-the-ground spontaneous. “We’re coming in with a thematic idea [based on an advance look at metal donations] but once we’re there, we’re going to try to move quickly,” Tony says, even though welding metal pieces together is not an instant process. He smiles. “It’s magical that way.”

Karey Solomon is the author of a poetry chapbook,Voices Like the Sound of Water, a book on frugal living (now out of print), and more than thirty needlework books.  Her work has also appeared in several fiction and nonfiction anthologies.

Relishing the Game Pickleball

Is on a Roll in Corning

By Carolyn Straniere

Pickleball has become a big dill lately, with more and more people joining the ranks of play. Contrary to its name, it is in no way related to pickles of any kind, which, for this lover of a crunchy half-sour, was a bit jarring. Pickleball is more of a cousin to ping-pong, badminton, volleyball, and tennis, than to dill, bread and butter, or gherkins—the name is derived from leftover rowers, but I’m getting ahead of myself—and has been around for almost sixty years.

The brainchild of two dads from Seattle, Washington, pickleball was created to help relieve the boredom of their families in the summer of 1965. The often-unused badminton court at the Bainbridge Island summer home of Joel Pritchard, a congressman in Washington, became the desired field on which to play. Unable to find the complete badminton set, Joel and his friend Bill Bell

scrounged up a whiffle ball, along with a couple of ping-pong paddles, and made up some rules for an as-of-yet unnamed game.

Joel’s wife, Joan, a native of Marietta, Ohio, is credited with coming up with the game’s official name. A fan of Marietta’s college crew team, Joan attended many of the regattas while enrolled at the school. The very best varsity crew teams compete against each other, while the non-starters participate in their own, separate competition. It is these “leftover” rowers who are then engaged in what is known as a “pickle boat” race, an event that’s done just for fun. Joan realized the similarity between these thrown-together oarsmen and their new game, which consisted of thrown-together pieces from various other games, and concluded that “Pickleball” was the perfect name for their new venture.

The game gained in popularity over

the next few years, and in 1972 Joel and Bill formed a corporation to protect their new sport. By 1984, the U.S. Amateur Pickleball Association was organized, as the game continued to catch on throughout the country. In 2010, the International Federation of Pickleball was formed, helping to spread the fun of pickleball to the world. (You can also find the official rules and regulations at ifpickleball.org.)

“It’s a game the entire family can play, regardless of age, fitness level, or experience,” says Alex Hamilton, head of Parks and Recreation in Corning. “Last year we turned the Nasser Civic Center ice rink into pickleball courts for those who wanted to play, and we offered a seasonal membership as well as drop-in play. The playing season lasts until mid-to-late October, when we have to start preparing the Center for the winter season

Someone's in the kitchen: The pickleball craze is sweeping through towns, attracting players of all types eager to learn the rules and have fun.

Don

and hockey and ice skating.”

Last year Corning offered a Wednesday night league, with tournaments throughout the season. “We had about 250 registered members. And we had twenty- and thirtyyear-olds playing right along with sixty- and seventy-year-olds,” Alex says. “Golf has been replaced by pickleball in many senior communities as the game of choice. It’s a great game for the older generation, people with disabilities or even in wheelchairs, because it doesn’t require a lot of movement like tennis.”

Pickleball has many of the same elements as tennis, such as serving (underhand only), and volleying, and can be played either singles or doubles. Cheering is encouraged in pickleball, with shouts of “opa” occurring after a rally of continuous play has started. Scoring is also slightly different, with pickleball scored one point at a time. When you reach eleven points, you’ve won the game! What you don’t want to do is be pickled, which means your team has failed to score a single point.

Slightly smaller than a tennis court, the twenty-by-forty-four-foot pickleball court also has a seven-foot non-volley zone on either side of the thirty-six-inch net (for a total of fourteen feet) called the “kitchen.” According

to the official rules, it is illegal to be in or make contact with the kitchen zone or its line while volleying. Good advice on and off the court!

Part of the appeal of pickleball is its affordability for families, as there’s nothing more than a paddle and a ball required. “You can get a good paddle for less than twenty dollars,” Alex notes. The pickleball paddle, though larger and heavier, was modeled after a ping-pong paddle, and is usually made of a lightweight composite material such as graphite or aluminum.

The game is played with a hard plastic ball, about three inches in size, similar to a whiffle ball in appearance, with perforated holes, but slightly heavier. (An indoor ball typically has twenty-six larger holes while an outdoor ball has approximately forty smaller holes). And while tennis balls are yellow, there are no rules on what color a pickleball needs to be, as long as it is uniform in color.

Today, pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America, nearly doubling in size over the last few years. The National Championship, an annual event, showcases professional players competing for $150,000. Last year’s event saw almost 2,300 participants vying for the prize money.

With the warmer weather approaching, Corning’s pickleball courts will be busy once again.

“We’re putting the finishing touches on our schedule this year,” Alex says. Upgrading the Civic Center is something he would like to see happen. “Right now, they’re playing pickleball on the cement, which isn’t exactly ideal, but it doesn’t stop them from coming out and having fun.”

If pickleball sounds like a dill-lightful game, why not join the almost nine million picklers across the United States who relish the opportunity to play?

For more information, contact Alex at (607) 962-0340, or cityofcorning.com/ parksrecreation.

Born in the Bronx, Carolyn Straniere grew up in northern New Jersey, and has called Wellsboro home for over twenty-four years, where she enjoys spending time with her grandkids and traveling. Carolyn lives with her four-legged wild child, Jersey, and daydreams of living on the beach in her old age.

The Many Susquehannys

The East Coast’s Longest River Is Perfect for Paddling

By Lilace Mellin Guignard

No river belongs to just one place, and many people who know a river well know only one part of it. When it comes to the Susquehanna, the longest river on the East Coast and one of the oldest river systems in the world, there are many personalities. There’s the one that’s nearly a mile wide at Harrisburg; the petroglyph islands at Conestoga; the wild stretch with elk grazing its banks above Renovo; the section with remnants of a boom used for log drives at Williamsport; and the headwaters in Cooperstown, New York, where, in 1779, General James Clinton dammed it to raise the level enough so that—after destroying the dam and flooding the river for miles downstream—his troops could raft down to join General John Sullivan at Tioga, New York.

This river is not just historic, it’s prehistoric—older than the Nile and pre-

dating the Appalachians. Flowing 444 miles through New York and Pennsylvania to empty into the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, the Susquehanna is the longest commercially non-navigable river in North America. Add in the 228 additional miles of the West Branch that flows from Cherry Tree to join the North Branch at Sunbury, and you have 672 miles of paddling fun without worrying about barges or significant rapids. Slide your canoe, kayak, or stand up paddleboard in at one of the public access points. Listen to the sound of your paddle pulling water. Watch for the osprey, herons, and bald eagles who all remind you that more than just humans rely on the river’s bounty.

As a backyard river with a history of flooding, a lot of people still see it as a risk rather than a recreational resource. Several Pennsylvania organizations are working

to change that perception, and this year it’s easier than it’s ever been to get on your Susquehanna in your way. West and North Branch Water Trails have been developed with maps, guides, and safety information to help people put their fannies in the Susquehanny.

The North Branch, which runs from Cooperstown to Sunbury, was designated the 2023 Pennsylvania River of the Year, coinciding nicely with the Endless Mountain Heritage Region’s twenty-fifth anniversary. EMHR administers the upper 146 river miles in Pennsylvania, managing the water trail, improving public access, and leading environmental stewardship efforts. Cain Chamberlin, EMHR executive director, is using the $10,000 grant that comes with the 2023 designation to host even more events and conservation programming than usual.

See Many on page 38

Courtesy Susquehanna Greenways Partnership

A double-edged blade: The Susquehanna is both an industrial linchpin and paddlers' paradise.

“Compare water quality from the sixties and seventies to now, and it’s thankfully much cleaner,” says Cain. “We’d like it to be even cleaner, of course, but we are working with many agencies to keep improving the water quality.” Spring cleanups are a great way for the public to meet other paddlers and anglers.

Summer warmth brings EMHR multi-day guided paddles called Sojourns—including one just for youth. And this fall they’ll host their first Endless Mountains Outdoor Heritage Expo, September 29 to 30 at the Wyoming County Fairgrounds in Meshoppen. Expect vendors, speakers, activities, and educational programming, as well as opportunities to get on the river. EMHR also administers the 444 Club, which recognizes those who have paddled all sections from Cooperstown to Havre de Grace.

The lower thirty-six miles of the North Branch in Pennsylvania and the entire West Branch Water Trail are managed by the Susquehanna Greenway Partnership, which works to create a fully connected corridor of parks, trails, conserved lands, and river towns. “The pieces are already there,” says Alana Jajko, SGP director of communications and outreach. “SGP works on connecting them so you can walk, bike, or paddle from town to town along the river.” For the second year they’ll offer an Outdoor Expo on June 3 at Shikellamy State Park in Northumberland County, where you can start summer off with fifty-plus exhibitors, storytelling, wildlife, live music, food trucks, a beer garden, and more. If you want to learn the skills to confidently and safely plan your own paddle trips, SGP is offering several Paddler’s Toolkit Workshops.

For beginners, the best way to get your first taste of the river (that’s a figure of speech—please do not taste the river) is to go with an outfitter. Try a Wine & Cheese paddle with Endless Mountain Outfitters. You’ll meet at their shop in Sugar Run for gear and a five-mile upriver shuttle. Then you’ll paddle leisurely along between Bradford County’s green hills, sidling up to the tasting canoe for snacks and wee drinks. At the end, everyone heads to a local winery, cidery, or restaurant for more fun. Most outfitters also offer shuttle services for those with their own boats and agendas.

The West Branch is home to river towns like Lock Haven, Jersey Shore, and Williamsport, where you can grab food and drink to fill your caloric deficit after a day of paddling. It also has one of the wilder sections, a thirty-four-mile stretch from Karthaus to Renovo that’s best suited for experienced paddlers who love solitude and adventure. No breweries right off the river here, but the wildlife will make up for it. SGP hosts the West Branch Paddle Club, which offers discounts on maps and events for members, as well as patches for those who complete any of the four segments. Currently there are no outfitters on the West Branch, but David Decoteau, of Riverside Adventure Company in Danville, will guide trips if they’re planned in advance, though his main focus is outings on the lower North Branch.

David, who has paddled many miles on the river and hopes to do them all, says many folks still see the Susquehanna as an industrial dumping ground. But to him it’s “dynamic, enticing, and sometimes dangerous. It’s big and small. It gives life…and can take it. To clear your inner noise and let yourself truly experience it is an unequalled opportunity for inspiration, understanding, and joy.”

Join him and others on the river this summer.

Featuring one of the largest collections of Gliders and Sailplanes in the world.

River Rat Resources

For information on the water trails, such as descriptions of river segments, ways to check water levels, safety guides, links to purchase the maps, and registration links for 2023 events, check out: Endless Mountain Heritage Region—emheritage. org; Susquehanna Greenway Partnership— susquehannagreenway.org.

2023 EVENTS

Find registration and rental fees online.

May 20: SGP Paddler’s Toolkit Workshop in Tunkhannock —Novices and veterans get information and resources for planning trips on the Susquehanna, then in the afternoon get on the water.

May 21: SGP’s Intro to Kayak Fishing at Montour Preserve—FREE program at Lake Chillisquaque introduce participants to the equipment needed to kayak fish, basic paddling skills and safety, and provide an opportunity for participants to test out their skills on the water. All paddling equipment and fishing equipment will be provided. Please pre-register.

June 2-10: EMHR’s 25th Anniversary and River of the Year Sojourn—A weeklong paddle covering nearly 120 miles from Sayre to Shickshinny, including daily entertainment and activities as well as meals from local restaurants and caterers. You can choose to so a single-day, three-day, or full-week paddle.

June 3: SGP Outdoor Expo at Shikellamy State Park—From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. enjoy fifty booths of outdoor gear and information, as well as handson clinics and demos. Food trucks and live music. Free admission.

June 15-16: EMHR’s Youth Heritage Sojourn—A three-day journey from Laceyville to West Falls (33.5 river miles) for students grades six through twelve that teaches kayaking safety, Susquehanna history, and environmental stewardship. The group will stay at Camp Lackawanna each night.

June 24: SGP’s Paddlers Toolkit Workshop at Montour Preserve —Novices and veterans get information and resources for planning trips on the Susquehanna, then in the afternoon get on the water.

July 8: SGP’s Paddlers Toolkit Workshop at Columbia Crossing River Trails Center—Novices and veterans get information and resources for planning trips on the Susquehanna, then in the afternoon get on the water.

July 15: EMHR’s Summer Heritage Benefit Paddle—Paddle eleven miles from Mehoopany Boat Launch to Riverside Park in Tunkhannock, and cap it off with a history presentation, catered dinner, and wine tasting. A fundraiser for the Wyoming County Historical Society.

Sept. 29-30: EMHR’s Outdoor Heritage Expo, Wyoming County Fairgrounds—From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, visit booths of heritage organizations, conservation

agencies, and outdoor gear vendors. There’ll be guest speakers, raffles, and sways to get on the trails and river. Free admission.

Oct. 7: EMHR’s Fall Heritage Benefit Paddle Paddle ten miles from the Bradford County Outboard Motor Club to Endless Mountain Outfitters, where there will be live music, a catered dinner, cider and wine tasting, and more. A fundraiser for Bradford County Parks.

OUTFITTERS

Check out what services and special paddles these Susquehanna River outfitters offer.

Endless Mountain Outfitters

emo444.com

(570) 746-9140

7474 Rt. 187, Sugar Run, PA 18846

Susquehanna Kayak and Canoe Rentals

kayaktheriver.com

(570) 388-6107

2374 Sullivans Trail, Falls, PA 18615

Five Mountain Outfitters

fivemountainoutfittersco.com

(570) 885-0081

95 Main Street, Shickshinny, PA 18655

Riverside Adventure Company

david-decoteau.squarespace.com/rac

(570) 854-2437

476 D & H Ave, Riverside, PA 17868

Courtesy Susquehanna Greenways

Summer on the Susquehanna: Participants in a Youth Sojourn offered by the Endless Mountain Heritage Region get an up close look at the Standing Stone landmark in Bradford County, so named by the Native Americans.

Studio’s reach to an ever-greater audience has been guided by this principal: show, don’t tell. The StudioNext campaign is one more crucial move toward furthering the facility’s leadership in the global glass community, and securing its reputation for providing comprehensive, accessible, and technologically advanced resources dedicated to glass artistry and innovation. For Amy and Bill, who are intimately engaged with this undertaking, the StudioNext campaign is another (giant) step on a journey that started long ago.

When Anton Chekhov wrote, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass,” it was a reminder to aspiring writers that drawing a reader into a story is best accomplished through offering sensory details and actions, rather than exposition. It’s a technique that primes the reader’s imagination allowing them to “see” the story as if they were in it along with the characters. This is the literary equivalent of the guiding philosophy Amy and Bill share when it comes to the Studio—glass is a sensory experience that can inspire the hidden artist lurking in every soul.

The expansion of the Studio is also an expansion of their legacy. “In the end,” says Amy, “we hope we will have contributed to and grown the wonderful glass community.”

At the conclusion of a short video on the CMoG website, Bill states that working with glass is “exotic and difficult. It challenges people. It brings the best out in people…It brings all socio-economic classes together. It brings all ages together…and that’s a wonderful thing to see.” Amy adds that people who come to the Studio “never stop talking about glass. I mean, we hang out at night and what we talk about is glass and people are very excited to do that and it, it becomes a life. And that’s really what glass is.”

Jan Bridgeford-Smith, a freelance writer from Ithaca, New York, has written for numerous national and regional publications including Smithsonian Air&Space, History Magazine, and Life in the Finger Lakes

BACK OF THE MOUNTAIN

Put Your Hiney in the Piney

By Wade Spencer

This is a GoPro capture from the middle of the Kenshire wave just west of Gaines on upper Pine Creek. Springtime provides the best water conditions for paddling but requires more preparation to stay warm and safe due to the cold water and air temperatures. The extra layers are worth it!