![Bunny Williams's
‘Life in the Garden’](https://lakevillejournal.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=51727153&width=1200&height=694)
Rizzoli
In 1979, interior decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, had a fateful meeting with a poorly cared for — in Williams’s words, “unspoiled” — 18th-century white clapboard home.
“I am not sure if I believe in destiny, but I do know that after years of looking for a house, my palms began to perspire when I turned onto a tree-lined driveway in a small New England village,” Williams wrote in her 2005 book, “An Affair with a House.” The Federal manor high on a hill, along with several later additions that included a converted carriage shed and an 1840-built barn, were constructed on what had been the homestead property of Falls Village’s Brewster family, descendants of Mayflower passenger William Brewster, an English Separatist and Protestant leader in Plymouth Colony.
Williams has written extensively about the renovation of the Falls Village home where she and Rosselli still reside, but in a new book published Tuesday, March 5, from Rizzoli, Williams takes readers to the great, green outdoors. “Life in the Garden,” featuring principal photography by Annie Schlechter and additional photography by James Gillispie, combines matte and glossy paper, color and black and white imagery, as well as essays, seasonal maintenance steps and plant guides to chaperone readers through spring, summer, fall and winter on the Falls Village land. It’s an intimate tour of the gardening efforts that dwell beyond the white border fence on Point of Rocks Road.
“Life in the Garden,” however, is a slightly deceptive misnomer, for there is not one but many unique gardens to discover on Williams’s property, each with their own character.
Rizzoli
For the lovers of planting composition as a form of botanical embroidery, outside of the conservatory is the parterre garden, a formal garden that takes its name from the French for “on the ground.” This style came into English fashion in the 17th century after Claude Mollet, “premier jardinier” for the kings, first introduced the design for French royal gardens at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. In Williams’s parterre, a pergola covered by the growth of a vigorous William Baffin climbing rose that produces deep strawberry pink semi-double cluster blooms overlooks a rippling sea of blush and berry petals belonging to tall, late-blooming tulips framed in neat patterned squares of boxwood hedges.
Offering appeal for the more rustic and adventurous, hidden beyond the trees is a secret garden found by following a dirt path trail where woodland peonies and Japanese wood poppies will lead you to a cast iron bench overlooking a small pond graced by the extending white flowering branches of dogwood trees.
There are many more spots to discover, each a little world of its own, whether it’s the clucks emanating from the lively chicken coup, the twisting branches of the apple trees, the columns of arborvitae, the Guy Wolff handcrafted clay pottery or the greenhouse where Williams inhales “the delicious scents of jasmine and citrus.”
For the book, Williams and Rizzoli publisher Charles Miers have thrown out strict organization — Claude Mollet be damned — in favor of surprising juxtapositions that place candid family portraits next to quiet snapshots of life on the New England land: a lone limestone chicken sculpture blanketed in snow; a table springing to life with floral arrangements set for guests; a congregation of old watering cans. Per Williams, this anti-organization of photos is for readers to get lost in as they discover contemplation, inspiration and a new visual experience each time the book is opened with fresh eyes.
Whether Bunny Williams’s many Falls Village gardens are set in stone or will continue to evolve, destined to be updated in a future volume, is not for us to know. But if there’s any hint, Williams has included a quote from the late Gertrude Jekyll, the famed British horticulturist and garden designer closely tied to the Arts and Crafts decorative movement of the late 19th century. Perhaps best known for her designs for Munstead Wood, a Grade 1 house in Surrey, Jekyll, an author herself and Country Life columnist, wrote: “In garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone.”
Rizzoli
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.