MICHAEL COBB

PHOTO BY LISA VOLLMER

TOM ZETTERSTROM

PHOTOGRAPHY

by Mike Cobb Photograph of Tom by Lisa Vollmer

Tom Zetterstrom is a fine arts photographer from Canaan, Connecticut. His work has been acquired by 43 museums nationally including the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Library of Congress and numerous private collections. Zetterstrom’s life as an artist and environmentalist has roots as deep as the trees he photographs. He grew up in Canaan helping his family manage their wooded property. His parents were immigrants from Sweden, his father a forester. Cutting, pruning, and caring for trees instilled a deep appreciation for nature from an early age. “My fascination and concern for trees emerged while working with my arborist father during the period of extensive loss of the American elm due to the local invasion of Dutch elm disease in the 1960’s,” Zetterstrom says. After graduating from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, Zetterstrom earned a BA in sculpture from Colorado College and pursued graduate studies in photography at Pratt Institute in the late 1960’s. As alternative service to going to Vietnam, he taught photography in the inner city of Washington DC from 1968-1970. The emergence of Earth Day and the environmental movement were inspirational, but it was the proposal to expand Route 44 and Route 7 into four lane super highways cutting across Western New England and through his family’s property that kickstarted his activism and helped spur his photographic technique. Determined to protect his family’s land and realizing the potential impact of highway encroachment on the Litchfield and Berkshire hills, Zetterstrom set out with his camera to document the impact of over-reliance on automobiles. Armed with slideshows showing the threat to local landscapes, Zetterstrom lectured from Connecticut to Vermont in concert with numerous environmental organizations and played a key

Tom Zetterstrom Four Maples 1977 Version 2

role in helping halt the highway project. Coincidentally, he also developed a novel style of shooting from behind the wheel. Subsequently, using longer shutter speeds and black and white film, he produced images abstracted by kinetic energy, with an almost ominous feel which he named the Moving Point of View. Zetterstrom declared, “These are not blurry photographs, but combine a sweep of cinematic motion balanced against a resolve to stillness.” “Elm Street, 1978” exemplified this emerging style. Zetterstrom’s windshield frames an open road lined with elms silhouetted against a rainy sky. Here, the viewer experiences the beauty of trees animated with motion as an interaction of humanity and nature, a theme central to Zetterstrom’s work. In a similar fashion, “Four Maples 1977” typifies the Moving Point of View. An almost ghostly landscape is seen through the passenger’s window. It is both an abstraction and a documentation of the beauty and balance of nature that is increasingly rare to find. “These vintage photographs printed 30-50 years ago have a distinctive appeal from a collectors point of view,” he commented. In contrast to Moving Point of View, Zetterstrom’s other major portfolio, Portraits of American Trees, focuses on memorable trees standing still before the camera and rendered as portraits. “It all started while I was living in my cabin in the 70’s, observing the forests around me. I had begun to extract my vision out of the chaos and order of nature. Trial and error and observation oftrees became my art instructor. That was a very personal evolution of the artistic vision that emerged,” he says. Zetterstrom’s photographs show extraordinary trees distinguished by stillness and with a focus on their balance and beauty in functioning ecosystems. Continued on next page...

Tom Zetterstrom Coast Oak CA, 1991

Tom Zetterstrom Black Spruce 1992 Wyoming Tom Zetterstrom Elm Street, 1978

Tom Zetterstrom Main Woods, 1983

In this portfolio, Zetterstrom tends to print in lighter, warm tones and often uses the atmosphere of fog or snow to achieve subtle effect as seen in “Coast Oak, 1991, California.” “My treatment of black and white sometimes achieves the softness of a graphite drawing but in other prints matches the rich blacks and intense details of an Ansel Adams. Black and white, by its nature, flirts with abstraction as it deselects the distraction of color. It can also be used to amplify the architectural and structural components of trees,” he says. “Baldwin Hill Elm, 2002” in Egremont, is vignetted to lend a timeless quality. As the state tree of Massachusetts, elms were once dominant in the northeast until the arrival of Dutch elm disease. Tom’s photographs of American Elm in 4 Seasons were acquired by the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library. Those photographs helped inspire the formation of Elm Watch by Zetterstrom and Tim Abbott of The Nature Conservancy in 1999. Together they launched an effort to protect specimen elms throughout the tri-state region. For his photographic work and as a tree preservationist, Zetterstrom later received the 2011 National Arbor Day Foundation’s Public

Tom Zetterstrom Ridge 1984 West Virginia

Tom Zetterstrom American Elm

Tom Zetterstrom Yellow Willow 1992 Oregon

Awareness of Trees Award. “We protected about 100 Elms and planted about 200 disease resistant elms. Historically, New Englanders embraced the elm with great symbolism all the way back to the American Revolution. It was known as the ‘Liberty Tree’ and was even grander than the English elm,” he states. From September 17-October 31, Zetterstrom will exhibit selections from his Portraits of American Trees portfolio at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, Leonhardt Galleries, with an opening reception Friday, September 17, 5-7 pm. He will also offer Gallery Talks on the art of tree photography, including horticultural and habitat information, on three Sundays: September 18, 1:00 PM and on October 10 and 24 at 11:00AM. “Toward the end of the show, on October 30th, I’m going to be giving an Elm lecture on disease resistant cultivars followed by an outdoor workshop with Kieran Yaple pruning the Berkshire Botanical Garden Elm that was planted with the help of Elm Watch in 2003. So, once again, we are connecting art to environmentalism and public education about trees,” he says. For more information on Zetterstrom’s Whose Woods These Are talks during the run of the show, please visit--https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/portraits-american-trees While climate change, invasive plants and pests and numerous other insults threaten forest health, Zetterstrom’s photographs both capture their beauty and increase awareness of their vital importance. For more information see: http://tomzetterstrom.com

-Mike Cobb

GOLGOTHA. ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 20 X 20" 2021 MARK MELLINGER

ABSURDIST ARTIST STATEMENT My work explores the interconnectedness of Bauhausian sensibilities and Trobriand Island chants. With influences as diverse as Noble Sissle and Shemp Howard, new insights are created from both mundane and transcendant dialogues. Ever since I was a child I have been disturbed by the essential ephemarality of space/time. What starts out as circumlocutory vision soon becomes corrupted into a hegemony of greed, leaving only a sense of ennui and little chance of a new paradigm. As spatial miasmas become transformed through emergent Unabhängigkeitserklärungen, the viewer is left with a catafalque for the prognostication of our future. www.markmellingerart.com markmellinger680@gmail.com

A STUDY IN SILENCE WATERCOLOR AND CHARCOAL CAROLYN NEWBERGER

Carolyn Newberger is an award-winning artist and writer whose love of the figure is a natural extension of a career in psychology. Her concern for people and their challenges informs her art, whether it be in the studio with a model or in the concert hall capturing a musician or dancer in performance. Her drawings express the essence of her subjects, with their rhythm, flow, character and intensity. Carolyn Newberger www.carolynnewberger.com

FRONT ST. GALLERY

MARSH MARIGOLDS, 14 X 11” KATE KNAPP

Painting classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings 10-1pm at the studio in Housatonic and Thursday mornings 10am - 1pm out in the field. Also available for private critiques. Open to all. Please come paint with us!

Gallery hours: Open by chance and by appointment anytime 413. 274. 6607 (gallery) 413. 429. 7141 (cell) 413. 528. 9546 (home) www.kateknappartist.com Front Street, Housatonic, MA

JOINT OPEN STUDIO

Virginia Bradley, Lynn Wadsworth, Chris Malcomson and William Casper are participating in Art Week Berkshires with an Open Studio, Gallery Talk, and Artists Reception on Saturday, September 25 from 12pm-6pm at Virginia’s studio on 234 Long Pond Rd, Great Barrington Massachusetts (following Covid guidelines). Guest Artist Lynn Wadsworth (www.lynnwadsworth.com) is from St. Paul, Minnesota and will present a Gallery Talk at 4 pm discussing the collages, artist book and ceramic sculptures she is exhibiting. Lynn recently received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Fellowship to produce the book “Salvages” a book about her collage work. A thread of surrealism wends through all of Lynn’s practice. Lynn draws from several magazines that were big during her childhood: McCall’s, Better Home and Gardens for their aspirational domesticity while considering Look and Life for their penetrating photography. Virginia Bradley (www.virginiabradley.com) is an abstract painter who explores the alchemical and physical processes of painting as she transforms materials into paintings. Virginia will be presenting new work from her Catena Series. Virginia had been contemplating how the pace of life had changed during the Covid Pandemic. At moments time seemed to stand still and other times it seemed to race by. She came upon the word Catena, which means related moments or an inter-locking chain. The word Catena spoke to her about her search to find meaning and beauty through the painting process. Chris Malcomson (www.chrismalcomson.com) is both an abstract oil painter and watercolorist. Chris’s latest paintings bring together all that he has learned through a lifetime searching for meaning. He has been influenced by poets such as Rumi, Mary Oliver and Kabir as well as Transpersonal and Jungian psychology. Chris’s painting now takes three forms. He always carries a small notebook, which he uses to “catch the Muse”. Lastly are larger abstracts on canvas which go up to about five-foot square. For many of these utilize a fixed form, which allows him to concentration on color. William Casper (www.williamcaspersculptures.com) is a figurative sculptor whose goal is to capture movement, emotion and intimacy through textured surfaces and torso angles. He has recently been inspired by the strength, balance, and contemplation of yoga poses: no ornamentation, only coiled energy while maintaining meditative stillness.

HAT SERIES #36 ACRYLIC MARY DAVIDSON

Mary Davidson has been painting on a regular basis for the last 16 years. Davidson’s paintings are a two-dimensional decorative visualization of line, color, design, shape, patterns, and stamping. As you begin to study the paintings, you will find the foreground and background tend to merge, with overlaid patterns. “I love the intense complexity and ambiguity of space and dimension.”. The effect can be startling: the longer you look at the piece, the more you see. With style more design than literal, she hopes to convey lightheartedness, playfulness and whimsey. “One of my favorite art teachers along the way used to say, ‘It is only a piece of paper and/or canvas. NO RULES’. Painting is a way to express my creativity. I always work in a series, which keeps me focused. I work with acrylic paint because it is so forgiving.” Davidson’s New Hat series consist of 70 paintings. “I start with a basic drawing, building with color and shape, coming to life with gesture and flow. As the title suggests, the hats are important, and the millinery designs emerge. There is much joy in their creation and my passion for playful designs is reinforced by their bright colors, linear rhythms and patterns leading our eyes around and through the painting. My newest series is even more abstract, with an even stronger emphasis on design. I do like to use stamping, along with painting, because I love the result. When I finish with a painting, I adhere the canvas with mat gel to gator board, creating a nice tight surface. My paintings are always framed.” In addition to an Associate Degree in Fashion Design from Newbury College in Boston, Davidson has taken many classes in drawing and painting, and participated in many art workshops. “I feel as though I have developed my own unique style at this point. I am a member of three local art clubs, along with two other clubs not so close to home.” Davidson’s biggest accomplishment was to become a juried member of the National Association of Women Artists, NAWA, New York, NY. She has also been juried into many art shows in New England, since 2007 and in some of the shows has won awards. Mary Davidson - PO Box 697, South Egremont, Massachusetts; 413-528-6945, Cell 1-413717-2332; mdavidsongio@aol.com, marydavidson83155@gmail.com, www.davidsondesigncompany.net.

TERREL BROUSSARD

FOOD AS MEDICINE

In June and July, I talked about herbal remedies, how they play a part in our lives, and where we might find them. This month I would like to touch on the way humans play a part in nature…the interconnectedness or relationship between ourselves and that which feeds us. I created my original bodywork practice, Whole Being Therapy, in 1997 out of the recognition that we are intrinsically linked to our planet. It was a massage practice that used yoga and herbs in combination with mindful eating practices as well as cleansing routines. Along with the body/mind connection, I believe that our interconnectedness with the planet is just as strong in my practice today as it was in 1997. This link to everything around us means that we can affect it just as it can affect us. The earth’s effect on us is pretty obvious, however, our effect on it is a contentious point these days. Some seem to believe that we can put endless amounts of waste into and around the planet without concern. The way I see it, there’s a reason that we put our septic systems as far away from our water well as possible…because we can contaminate the groundwater, in effect, contaminating our bodies. This is a simplistic, but everyday example of cause and effect. For every action, there is a reaction. Accumulation is a gradual process, whether it be planetary or microscopic. Just as we can gradually reach capacity in home septic systems, landfills, and atmospheric conditions, the human body can do the same. Our lymphatic system is responsible for maintaining fluid levels, absorbing fats, and eliminating wastes, among other things. If we apply the idea of accumulation to the daily nourishment of our bodies, it is easy to see how unconscious food decisions can lead to dis-ease in the body. The human body is resilient, as is the planet. If given a chance, the body can reset itself. Cells are constantly being regenerated. The “trick” is that in order to grow a healthy cell, we must continuously feed it proper nutrition. Proper nutrition consists of uncontaminated and unprocessed foods, grown in healthy soils and fed uncontaminated water and sunlight. A tall order to fill in this day and age. Another key point is that while we feed the body properly, we are halting the contamination of it. This allows a cleansing process to happen simultaneously, as long as the digestive and lymphatic systems are working properly. The beauty of our interconnectedness with nature that surrounds us, is that we are mirrors of one another. As we have the ability to cleanse and heal, so can the planet. Our concern should be about time. The planet can filter out its pollutants, similar to our body’s ability. The questions are: Can we as humans wait that long for the Earth’s cleansing and resetting process? And will we be one of the pollutants it filters out? Be well and heal thyself! Terrel Broussard - Ayurvedic Practitioner, Herbalist, Bodyworker; 413-329-5440