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Peter Gerakaris
A piece on display in Gerakaris' new exhibit.Provided
As an art student in Rome, he had learned the traditional technique, using egg tempera and gold leaf to paint a Madonna and Child icon, which his Greek grandmother later had consecrated. In 2017, he had recently begun to work with depictions of endangered species, he said, “and I thought of this crazy parallel—these ancient art forms of iconography are almost as endangered as these animals. What better way to reinforce the contemporary scarcity of these creatures than by using this very rare, sacred, time-honored but kind of endangered process?” The resulting paintings reframe these animals and their endangered habitats as windows into the sacred, and demand that we look these rare beings in the eyes.
“There’s a pygmy owl painting in the show. Pygmy owls are endangered and threatened in American southwest because their habitats are being destroyed, due to many reasons but mostly because of brush fires. The figure of the owl is a static silhouette, but in patterning the internal plumage, I allow myself to just kind of cut loose. I found myself painting—and this just kind of came out—if you were to crop that and forget about the rest of the painting, it could be an abstraction of fire and smoke,” Gerakaris said. “I’m deeply humbled by the natural world. For me personally, walking in the forest is my own version of going to a cathedral. I experience a sense of wonder that makes me realize there is some power out there far greater and transcendent than us mere mortals. For me painting is a matter of evoking that feeling.”
Mike Barker provided a couple of well-crafted crawfish imitations.
So I figured I would prowl Sandy Brook beforehand.
Sandy Brook in Colebrook is a secondary tributary of the West Branch of the Farmington. I know this because I am a highly trained observer, and because I found a United States Geological Survey map that says so.
I am happy to report that getting the map from the USGS website was simple. Go to usgs.gov and look for The National Map, which is exactly what it says it is.
The state stocks Sandy Brook, twice this spring. With what exactly I do not know.
I’ve fooled around in this stream a couple times before, with minimal results. But I always came at it moving upstream, off Route 8.
This time, coming downstream on Sandy Brook Road (another triumph of clarity in labeling) I saw the stream and a couple of pull-offs with DEEP signs regarding creel limits and so on.
So I pulled off and suited up.
Water temperature at 8 a.m. was 63 in a shallow spot next to the bank. Not ideal, perhaps, but not terrible either.
I noticed the stream running roughly north-south, was almost completely shaded over at that hour, with the sun just starting to get through the canopy from the east.
This is good. Streams that have an east-west flow get the full brunt of the sun during the course of the day. In the summer, this means warmer water.
The first thing I noticed was this bucolic, babbling brook is misnamed. It should be called “Super Slippery Brook.” It’s a lot of rock shelf and getting around is like the proverbial tap-dancing on ball bearings dipped in motor oil. Some actual sand would have been nice.
Next time I will wear felt soled boots with studs.
Mike Barker provided a couple of well-crafted crawfish imitations.Patrick L. Sullivan
I deployed an eight-foot nine-inch four weight rod. There was plenty of room for casting and the four weight allowed for turning over a dry-dropper rig while not making a huge splash.
The rig was a Chubby Chernobyl on top and a size 16 Zug Bug, tied on a jig hook and with a heavy tungsten beadhead, on what started as two feet of 4X fluoro tippet tied to the hook of the Chubby with an improved clinch knot. (And don’t ask what an unimproved clinch knot is because I have no idea.)
This produced an immediate hangup and I lost the Zug. So I shortened the dropper to about 14 inches and put on another Zug.
This produced two immediate hookups of brook trout in the eight-to-10-inch range.
So far, so good.
I clambered downstream, because it looked slightly less slippery than upstream.
It wasn’t.
I found one cleft running into a deep, wide slot that just had to have fish in it. I worked it hard for 30 minutes, abandoning the dry-dropper and chucking the heavy artillery into the depths: Big Bread and Butter nymph, a Walt’s Worm, which has more lead than a .22 short, and Joe’s Weenie.
Bupkis. Infuriating.
Then I went back to the Chubby-Zug Bug rig and proceeded to catch a dozen more fish, including some browns and one lone rainbow.
I have no idea of the proportion of wild to stocked here. I can’t believe the state stocks eight-inch brookies, but maybe there’s some deep fish reason I don’t comprehend.
Around 11 a.m. I packed it in and went down to the flea market, which was in the little public space across the street from the post office.
A modest number of vendors were there, including Harold MacMillan who still runs Housatonic River Outfitters in Cornwall, albeit without the brick-and-mortar shop.
We exchanged fishing gossip, and he sold me a grab bag of bass poppers for an eminently reasonable 10 bucks.
Most of the vendors were selling conventional gear, which doesn’t interest me, but I did spot Mike Barker of Ansonia.
Barker is a garage door installer in real life, and ties flies as a side gig. He said it “calms the nerves” after a busy week driving all over the state installing garage doors.
He’s been tying and selling for about three years.
He had a couple of poppers the approximate size of Oklahoma, which he said were for getting the attention of big fish. Like the star of “Jaws.”
I picked up a couple of beautifully crafted crawfish imitations. I generally make do with a Wooly Bugger for this, but I like to encourage the up-and-comers.
So the Research & Development ratio was nice and balanced. I established that Sandy Brook is not very sandy but has a lot of hungry fish in it, and it probably stays cool enough to be plausible most of the time.
I found a cost-effective way to replenish the bass bug box.
And I contributed in a small way to a young fly tier’s craft.
Campers stay hydrated on a hot day at Veterans Field.
The camp has been run for the past decade by James Smith, who has coached baseball for around 20 years and who teaches physical education at Sharon Center School. He was joined by two coaches from other schools in the area.
The activities occurred during last week’s heat wave. “It’s a little steamy,” remarked Smith while campers worked their way through a challenging drill, “but the heat hasn’t really affected anything.”
Smith worked to give the kids “more information than less,” knowing that most of it would stick for the older kids and hoping that the younger campers would leave with at least some of it.
The campers ended their final day with a home run derby, using many of the skills that they had focused on. Another coach, Deron Bayer, looked on at the kids and said, “We’re working hard and having fun.”
Coaches James Smith (red hat) and Deron Bayer share baseball tips with campers while cooling off in the shade.Copey Rollins
Jacob Marcus splits the defense for a layup.
The boys team from HVRHS played the season opening game against Nonnewaug June 21 with an 8:30 p.m. tip off. Varsity Coach Kurt Johnson was calling the shots courtside for HVRHS.
In years past, varsity coaches were not permitted to coach their team in the summer league, but Johnson said, “they changed the rules this year so we can get in there.”
There was another highly anticipated change that did not come to fruition for the 2024 season: air conditioning. Fortunately, the week-long heatwave had broken by game time after a series of thunderstorms late Friday. While the temperature dropped to about 70 degrees outside, the thermostat within the Armory read 84 at tip off.
All TSBL games consist of two 20-minute halves with a running clock, meaning each game is less than an hour of real time. The fast-paced nature of the league allows for four to five games to be played in the Armory every night.
Coach Kurt Johnson shares words of encouragement to the team Friday, June 21Riley Klein
HVRHS’s lineup appeared to have put in some work since the most recent varsity season ended. Smooth footwork under the basket created strong scoring opportunities, but their shots just weren’t falling.
Despite commendable hustle on defense and good ball movement on offense, Nonnewaug continued to pull ahead and build a lead. Nonnewaug shot at a high percentage both from the field and the stripe.
Nonnewaug won the game 54-32 to start the summer season. The effort of the HVRHS squad offered reason for optimism on the court this summer.
TSBL games will continue every weeknight beginning at 5:30 p.m. through the first week of August. Saturday games will be played in the mornings starting at 8:30 a.m.
The HVRHS girls began their summer season Tuesday, June 25, against Torrington Gold.
Results and schedules can be found at www.quickscores.com/torringtonct
