Art Social

 During the first three weeks of October, our general area runs several "art trails" on weekends.  On each of these, you can visit the studios where the artists work, meet them, and ask them questions.  Spouse and I have been going to these events for several years, but this was the first time since the pandemic we participated in so many.

In our county in New York State, the art trail was mainly displays in museums or historic houses, but the artists were still there.  This event is where I took this short class in flower arranging.

This past weekend (and yesterday) we went to two more art trails: one in and around Ithaca, New York (home of Cornell and Ithaca College), and one in rural Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. 

All three art trails had one thing in common.

Almost everyone was eager to meet and talk.  Of course, they were ready to talk about their art, but there was more to it than that.

Several, almost a little shyly, showed art influenced by the pandemic.

Others just wanted to talk.  The hunger for human contact is still there, and I think that is what made these events so special this year.

It was so much more than staring at paintings, which one might think is what these trails consist of.

There was the older woman who had grown up in the British Isles, who talked about how different their clouds looked from ours.

There was the mother and daughter artists and how they interacted with each other.

The artist who made beautiful wall art from stones, driftwood, and other found objects.

The woman who showed me her large garden.  She could no longer work it all herself, so had given some of it over to a local CSA (community supported agriculture) organization.  She wanted to know if my area had CSA's and we had a nice discussion about gardening.

But some discussions were serious.  There was the man who made birdhouses that were works of art, while his wife and I discussed hunger in their rural area.

At that stop, we purchased a raffle ticket to support a local food bank where we would have won one of those birdhouses, but we didn't win.  Alas.

Another man talked about his neighbor, a guitar maker.  That led to a string of discovery that I want to blog about another time.

Of course, there was autumn foliage to look at.

The historic state park and its demonstration gardens.

Taken from the car - sorry for the blurriness

The barn that reminded us about ETERNITY.

We remember that we have these pockets of peace in a world that sometimes feels full of war and violence.

Sometimes you just need to stop, take a deep breath, and appreciate what is around you.