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‘So Little to Do,’ so much to discover at James Barron Art
Natalia Zukerman
Aug 06, 2026
Curator Deborah Goodman Davis reads the Emily Dickinson poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do.” Spencer Finch’s “Following Three Bees (Zinnias)” buzzes in the background.
Photo by Natalia Zukerman
“The Grass Has So Little to Do,” on view at James Barron Art in Kent, takes its title from Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do,” written in 1862:
“The Grass so little has to do—
A Sphere of simple Green—
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain—”
Curated by Deborah Goodman Davis, the exhibition borrows Dickinson’s meditation on the natural world as both its title — with a subtle shift — and guiding principle. The exhibition gathers more than 30 contemporary artists whose work examines flowers, leaves, insects, landscapes and changing light — not through scientific observation, but through memory, imagination and deep attention.
“I started spending so much time in the country that I began seeing things differently,” said Davis, a Montreal native. “I became drawn to artists who were also looking at nature.”
Davis has spent decades working in museums, galleries and as an art advisor, including positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Art Gallery and with influential dealer Jeffrey Deitch, before returning to curatorial work in recent years. This is her third exhibition with James Barron Art, following last year’s “Boundless Color.”
The exhibition’s emotional anchor is Dickinson’s poem, which marvels at grass, butterflies, bees and sunlight while imagining a life devoted simply to existing in the natural world. The poem, and its simple and reverent message, echoes throughout the exhibition.
Spencer Finch’s drawing titled “Following Three Bees (Zinnias)” tracks the movement of three bees as they moved from flower to flower in the artist’s garden. Standing on a ladder, Finch patiently followed their movements, recording each insect’s path with a different line.
Montreal-based painter Veronika Pausova’s luminous moth paintings next to Finch’s work carry a thread — literally. Whether Pausova was familiar with Finch’s drawings before creating her painting “Cabin’s Moon,” commissioned by Davis for this show, is unknown, but the placement is certainly intentional. Davis’ thoughtful curatorial approach creates conversations, quiet whispers and surprisingly funny moments throughout the space.
Toba Khedoori, an Australian-born artist of Iraqi-Jewish heritage, contributes exquisitely detailed mezzotints that transform ordinary grasses into monumental landscapes. “Imagine rolling in the grass before ticks,” Davis said with a laugh. One is left longing for such a simple pleasure, the work inviting viewers to imagine a connection to the natural world that feels both familiar and increasingly distant.
One of Wassaic Project co-founder Eve Biddle’s ceramic snakes slithers up a nearby side wall, while internationally recognized artists including Ellsworth Kelly, Alex Katz, Lois Dodd, Kiki Smith and Charles Gaines offer their own interpretations of leaves, flowers, trees and changing seasons.
The exhibition also highlights several artists with local ties. Yale Norfolk School of Art co-director Byron Kim contributes one of his contemplative “Sunday Paintings,” documenting the sky over Norfolk alongside personal diary-like observations.
One of the show’s most unexpected works isn’t visual at all.
Inspired by Dickinson’s line, “And even when it dies to pass / In odors so divine,” Davis commissioned Brian Goeltzenleuchter, an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of olfactory art, social engagement, and image making to create a scent for the exhibition. “The grass so little has to do, I wish I were the hay!” wrote Dickinson, so Goeltzenleuchter created the scent of fresh hay specifically for the exhibition. Fragile glass vials sit in a bed of marble, waiting to be broken to release the scent, which also lives under a glass enclosure dewy with its fragrance. The faint odor permeates the gallery, adding an immersive sensory layer that extends the show’s meditation beyond sight alone.
There are quieter surprises throughout: concrete casts preserving cherry blossoms that will slowly fade over time by Japanese artist Motohiro Takeda; carvings of owls in Arctic marble by Sam Akesuk, an Indigenous artist from Kinngait (Cape Dorset); paintings of moonlight; the intricacy of spider webs placed next to a graph-like drawing of a tree; and Kiki Smith’s shadow of birds by the windows overlooking the majestic scenery of Barron’s property.
For Davis, the idea for this show has been growing since she began spending more time in the Northwest Corner.
“It’s been percolating for six years,” she said.
The resulting exhibition rewards viewers willing to do the same.
“The Grass Has So Little to Do” is on view at James Barron Art in Kent through Sept.12. By appointment only. Email maria@jamesbarronart.com or call (917) 514-3762. For a catalog of the exhibition, visit jamesbarronart.com.
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A legacy of giving at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
D.H. Callahan
Aug 06, 2026
One hundred and twenty years ago, Carl and Ellen Stoeckel commissioned New York architect E.K. Rossiter to design The Music Shed in Norfolk, Connecticut. After nearly a decade of entertaining their friends and neighbors with the finest music of the day, they built a permanent home for their beloved Litchfield County Choral Union.
The commission and full funding of the construction was not unheard of in an era when great fortunes led to public enrichment. Railroad tycoon John D. Rockefeller was instrumental in funding institutes of higher education. Steel baron Andrew Carnegie was building libraries all over the country, and famously said that a man who dies rich is a disgrace, challenging his peers to give their fortunes back to the people.
But the Stoeckels went even further. They took it upon themselves to pay for everything from trains and coaches for American musicians to trans-Atlantic crossings for European composers, and even rented instruments when needed. They never told anyone what it all cost and worked hard to keep their names off the buildings and mastheads, instead directing all credit to the Litchfield County Choral Union.
Upon her death in 1939, widowed Ellen Battell Stoeckel bequeathed the entire operation to the Yale School of Music. Since then, Yale has operated the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival at the iconic property, with only modest renovations made in 2024.
This year, the Festival is looking to the past for inspiration as it presents its “Anniversaries” program, featuring performances dedicated to celebrating history. On Saturday, Aug. 1, the Festival looked back 200 years with pieces written in 1826 by Schubert, Beethoven and a 17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. The previous evening focused on the Music Shed itself, with repeat performances of works by Sibelius, Coleridge-Taylor and even Rachmaninoff, all of whom graced the shed with their presence.
On Aug. 8, the festival will celebrate its final anniversary of the season: America’s 250th. The program will feature a world premier by Juilliard-trained composer and pianist Nahre Sol. The piece is part of the Festival’s Musical Bridges project, which commissions music inspired by the American West.
Apart from the anniversaries, there’s still more music to come. Friday, Aug. 7 will feature pieces by Haydn, Holcomb, Schoenberg and Shostakovich. On Aug. 14, works by Beach, Childs and a little more Haydn will be performed with Melvin Chen on piano. Oboeist Stephen Taylor will join William Purvis and the Norfolk Fellows for an evening of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos on Saturday, Aug. 15. The culmination of the season happens on Saturday, Aug. 22 with a musical tour of choral masterworks from the Renaissance through today, featuring the Norfolk Festival Chamber Choir and Orchestra.
Of note is the Festival’s new collaboration with locally based fashion brand BODE. While no robber barons — or even modern-day rocketship billionaires — it’s nice to know the spirit of musical altruism lives on in Norfolk.
To learn more, head to norfolkmusic.org.
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Two unique exhibitions at Geary Gallery
D.H. Callahan
Aug 06, 2026
Henry Klimowicz with his sculpture, “Partial Pillar 1”
Photo by D.H. Callahan
On Saturday, Aug. 1, Geary Gallery opened its doors in Salisbury for two unique shows in its first- and second-floor gallery spaces. Art lovers flooded both floors over the course of the afternoon, giving the events a vibrant feeling that enhanced the importance of the art.
On the first floor is a show by Chicago-born, Colorado-based photographer Summers Moore, titled “Lobitos: Pueblo Fantasma,” or “Lobitos: Ghost Town.” The work centers around her daughter’s current hometown in Peru. Moore herself found a home away from home in Colorado in the mid-1980s and encouraged her children to seek out new places outside of their comfort zones.
Her daughter found Lobitos, a small surfing village on Peru’s coast that has taken on multiple identities throughout its history, including a booming era as an oil town in the 1800s and later as a military outpost before becoming the small fishing and surfing community it is today.
While visiting her daughter, Moore befriended a local artist named Inti. The bulk of the photos on display are of murals Inti painted on Lobitos’ crumbling infrastructure, as well as the horses who live at the equine therapy retreat where Moore’s daughter works and lives.
Directly above Moore’s photography exhibition is “Methods of Proceeding,” a show by local multi-disciplinary artist and curator, Henry Klimowicz. Coming from a room full of photographs of easily decipherable places, people and animals, Klimowicz’s work is anything but obvious.
The room is carefully populated with amorphous structures made from shreds of cardboard and hot glue. The cardboard was sourced from a furniture shop in Millerton, just down the road from Klimowicz’s own art space, the Re Institute.
The Re Institute is known for making the inaccessible accessible. Its “gift shop” features a wide variety of artworks, all priced under $750. “Methods of Proceeding” seems to do the opposite — taking one of the most common materials available in our modern era of online shopping, and the shipping waste that comes with it, and making it less accessible by forming it into curious structures that can resemble a panoply of ideas depending on the viewing angle.
Larger structures are mostly called “Partial Pillars,” with smaller “Truffles” and “Pebbles” scattered around the ledges and corners of the room. Alongside the cardboard and glue sculptures is a series of colorful monoprints that mirror the wild patterns of the sculptures.
Both shows will remain on view at the gallery until Sept. 27, when Moore will return for a discussion about her work. For more information about the artists and the gallery, visit geary.nyc.
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From Cornwall to Rome, Adam Van Doren at Berkshire Botanical Garden
Natalia Zukerman
Aug 06, 2026
Artist Adam Van Doren and curator Donna Hassler talk to a group of visitors at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. A Stephen Proctor vessel sits to their left.
Photo by Natalia Zukerman
This summer, the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge has hosted “Grounded in Nature: Paintings by Adam Van Doren,” an exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between architecture and the natural world.
On view for only a few more weeks in the Leonhardt Galleries, the exhibition features more than 35 watercolor and oil paintings by the New York-based artist, architect, author and Yale professor, curated by art historian Donna Hassler, director emerita of Chesterwood. The works span three distinct places that have shaped Van Doren’s artistic practice: New York City, Cornwall, Connecticut, and his travels throughout Europe.
Hassler first encountered Van Doren’s work years ago, when they crossed paths through their shared connection to the American Academy in Rome. Years later, when she was considering artists whose work would complement Berkshire Botanical Garden’s focus on art and nature, his paintings immediately came to mind.
“When I heard about Steve Proctor’s show, I immediately thought about Adam’s work,” Hassler said, referring to the ceramic artist whose monumental vessels and sculptures are also on view at the Garden. “Everything that is on exhibit here has some aspect of nature in it. And thinking about the built environment — buildings are not built in a vacuum. The landscape is important to the overall impression of the building in a particular setting.”
After visiting Van Doren’s New York studio and reviewing hundreds of works, Hassler decided to organize the show geographically, allowing viewers to trace how different landscapes have influenced the artist.
The first gallery focuses on Van Doren’s life in New York City, where he has maintained a studio on West 57th Street, near Central Park. His watercolors capture architectural details and urban landscapes, from Central Park bridges and fountains to Greenwich Village townhouses and the former Carnegie Mansion, now home to the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
“He has a studio on West 57th Street, right down the block from Carnegie Hall,” Hassler said. “Within a couple of blocks of Central Park, you see a number of watercolors — a fountain, details of the balustrade, bridges in Central Park, cityscapes.”
The exhibition then moves to Cornwall, where Van Doren has spent summers throughout his life on a family farm originally purchased by his grandparents, writers Mark and Dorothy Van Doren. Surrounded by fields, streams and historic buildings, this landscape, which will be familiar to many, has become one of his most enduring subjects.
The Cornwall gallery is housed in Berkshire Botanical Garden’s historic Center House, an 18th-century building whose preserved character echoes the themes of Van Doren’s work.
“I like that they’re in here,” Hassler said. “It’s not a white gallery space. The raw material of this older building is still here.”
Many of Van Doren’s Cornwall paintings explore the interplay of architecture, land and light, including views of the Bradford homestead, an 18th-century farmhouse surrounded by weathered barns and stone walls.
The final section of the exhibition follows Van Doren’s travels abroad, particularly in Italy, France and England. Influenced by his architectural training at Columbia University and the classical watercolor techniques of the École des Beaux-Arts, Van Doren has long used watercolor to capture historic buildings within their landscapes.
“He paints mainly outdoors,” Hassler said. Working en plein air, the artist often paints with a portable stool, watercolor paper and palette, capturing changing light and atmosphere in real time.
Hassler noted the difference between Van Doren’s watercolor and oil paintings, a few of which are displayed side by side in the exhibition.
“He uses pure color,” she said of his watercolor technique. “It’s your eye that then fills in the form that he’s creating.”
The exhibition also includes works from Van Doren’s time as a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, where he painted ancient ruins, gardens and architectural views. His Rome paintings later inspired the poet John Tagliabue’s collection “An Artist in Rome.”
“Grounded in Nature: Paintings by Adam Van Doren” is on view through Aug. 23 at Berkshire Botanical Garden. For more information, visit berkshirebotanical.org
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An evening of wine pairings worth singing about
D.H. Callahan
Aug 06, 2026
Emily Gallagher, soprano, is one of the performers pairing wine with opera at Stissing Center.
Photo Provided
When old-world elegance calls to mind both opera and fine wine, “Opera Uncorked” answers with both. On Saturday, Aug. 8, at Stissing Center in Pine Plains, carefully curated wines from Fulton and Forbes Wine and Spirits in Ancram will be paired with classical arias from beloved operas.
The wines will mostly be drawn from the regions where many famous operas were born.
Both Germany and Austria share a claim to one of the most formidable opera composers of all time. In 1791, at Schikaneder’s theatre in Vienna, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” first graced the ears of music enthusiasts. Since then, Germany has produced countless additional operatic masterpieces, including Carl Maria von Weber’s romantic “Der Freischütz,” and Richard Wagner’s epic “The Ring Cycle.”
During his lifetime, Wagner dominated the opera scene. His prolific work is known to have inspired French composer Claude Debussy to write his only opera, “Pelléas et Mélisande.” But Debussy’s work is overshadowed by the crown jewel of French opera: Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.”
Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer and vocalist working in the late 16th century, during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. In 1597, his opera “Dafne” premiered in Florence. It is widely recognized as the first opera ever created and performed. Since then, composers such as Puccini and Rossini have kept Italy at the forefront of opera with works like “La Bohème” and “The Barber of Seville,” respectively.
The fourth wine region is home to a majority of the performers at “Opera Uncorked”: California. Emily Gallagher, of Los Angeles, is a soprano whose work has been described as “harmonically appealing and splendiferous.” Devony Smith is a California-born, Grammy-nominated mezzo-soprano whose voice has been called “sensual” and “strong” by The New York Times.
Rounding out the performers are award-winning Puerto Rican-American baritone Brian James Myer, who has worked with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and Peter Lake, who recently wrapped up a tour as Old Deuteronomy in the hit Broadway classic, “Cats.”
The program will be led by accompanist and conductor Caleb Yanez Glickman, also of Los Angeles, alongside Fulton and Forbes’ Rachelle Merriam, who has carefully selected the wines.
With wine and opera paired so expertly together, there seems to be only one thing missing. But fear not: cheese and crackers will be provided by local favorite Chaseholm Farm, bringing this international evening right back to its center in Dutchess County.
For tickets, visit thestissingcenter.org
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Paul Lewis brings Mozart’s final piano concerto to life at Tanglewood
Thomas Jensen
Aug 06, 2026
Saturday, July 25, in the Shed at Tanglewood, the BSO took the stage with pianist Paul Lewis for Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major” (K. 595). This was Mozart’s final piano concerto, completed in January 1791. Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791.
Premiered by Mozart himself on March 4, 1791, it was his final public appearance as a soloist.
Unlike Mozart’s fiery or dramatic minor-key concertos, this concerto features a transparent, sparse texture, quiet lyricism and a calm, resigned, autumnal mood. It has three movements: Allegro, Larghetto and Allegro.
In the first movement, Allegro, Mozart is in no hurry to introduce the piano; his introduction is as long and lavish as can be. This gentle, graceful orchestral introduction presents four main themes, beautifully played by the BSO musicians.
Lewis waited, and then his time arrived with a quiet (sotto voce) entrance by the solo piano, followed by a rich, chromatic development section with frequent key changes.
The second movement, a Larghetto in E-flat major, provided a serene, calm and deeply lyrical contrast to the opening movement. In his element, Lewis carried on with fine playing while the orchestra supports this gentle movement. We all need soothing, gentle music from time to time, and this section is a tonic.
The third movement, an Allegro, takes the form of a cheerful, playful and dancing rondo. Lewis delivered the principal theme, famously derived from Mozart’s own song “Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling” (“Longing for Spring”), K. 596, with elegance.
There was no encore by Lewis, which one must consider in good taste and a sign of respect for Mozart. It was truly quite enough to satisfy all.
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