Fairyland Here on Earth

The garden in the mind of photographer and artist Anastasia Traina is alive with curious characters — fairy folk congregate with beetle and butterfly in a secret world of what Shakespeare might have called "the merry wanderers of the night." Based in Chatham, N.Y., with her husband, actor Scott Cohen, known for his roles on "Gilmore Girls," and, fittingly, the fairytale cult-classic miniseries "The 10th Kingdom," Traina spoke with me ahead of her solo art exhibit, "Alchemy and Innocent," which will open at The Berkshire Botanical Gardens in Stockbridge, Mass., on Friday, May 5. 

Alexander Wilburn: Previously you were living in New York City, has living upstate had an effect on your art?

Anastasia Traina: It’s here that I discovered a new language to tell my stories. Previously I was a playwright and a screenwriter, but I found myself at a crossroads. I wanted to tell stories in a different way. I found myself at Berkshire Botanical Garden one day and found out they had classes for botanical art. I slowly became enchanted with visual storytelling, and I ventured down to the New York Botanical Garden’s program for art and illustration. From there I developed the technical ability to tell my stories about the natural world.

AW: I didn’t know the Botanical Gardens in New York had an art program.

AT: It’s actually a very prestigious program and it really is like going to art school, you learn from the very best. They take you through every single medium, watercolor, colored pencil, silverpoint…it’s a very classical education.

AW: We see a lot of floral paintings here in the country, but yours are decidedly different. How would you describe your approach?

AT: I find a floral specimen that I love, in the forest or in a garden — recently I ventured to Emily Dickinson’s garden. The house was closed and in the garden, which was being very well taken care of, was a tulip that was half alive, but it was so vibrant still, and it had this little dozing bumble bee on it. I thought this is where Emily got her inspiration. The garden was so small, and her literary world is so huge in its depth. I sat there and sketched the tulip and the bumble bee, and later at home started researching Emily’s poems on tulips and what the colors of different tulips mean. I feel like a flower’s life reflects ours in a way. They’re beautiful living creatures, their lives are so brief, but they’re so full of lessons and poetry.

AW: When I was looking at your work I was thinking about the Victorian illustrator Richard Dadd who was known for his supernatural illustrations of fairies.

AT: I love him, his paintings are so beautiful and intense, and so intricate in their details.

AW: The similarities I see are that your fairies and little creatures are so well blended into nature, you have to take a second or third look to find all the little details in your work.

AT: A lot of the time in my work I’m inspired not just by the single flower but by all the dirt and little microbes and fungi around it. You can find so many things that are alive in a handful of terra. It’s magical to see what’s alive in the soil. Everything is so interconnected. In my art, I take a little patch of soil with mushrooms and little creatures on it, and it’s my way of making it important and saying you should take care of the Earth.

Onna-Bug-eisha and Her Leaf Cutting Factory by Anastasia Traina Photo courtesy the artist

Wait For Me Photo courtesy the artist

Onna-Bug-eisha and Her Leaf Cutting Factory by Anastasia Traina Photo courtesy the artist

Latest News

Club baseball at Fuessenich Park

Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.

 

  Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein 

 
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

Keep ReadingShow less
Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit lakevillejournal.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

Keep ReadingShow less