Welcome to my "A" entry in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.
My theme this year is Gardens, History, Art and The Unexpected.
One of the pleasures of travel, even travel an hour or two outside your home area, is finding the unexpected.
For example, who would expect to find art in the bathroom of a library
in rural Andes, New York? But that's exactly what I found last summer. This
mural was created by artist Diane Lockspeiser of Long Island. She worked on the mural in May and early June of last year.
One of the beautiful details of this mural. I blogged more about the mural here.
So, how did I make my way to Andes?
Years back, the grandfather and uncle of my then best friend lived in
the Catskills mountains outside of a hamlet in Delaware County, New
York. My friend and her siblings and mother would spend summers up
there, escaping New York City for the rural life. Her father would join
them on weekends.
In the early 70's, I was invited twice to
visit the family for a week up in Delaware County. I was back a handful
of times to that house in the years since (after her parents moved up there), but
never to other nearby villages I had remembered from those visits when I
was younger. The last time I was at the house was after the funeral of my friend's father in the early 2000's.
One of these hamlets (it was a
village when I visited, but they dissolved the village in 2002) is
Andes, population approximately 1,000. Andes is located in a setting
of hills, winding roads, and farmland and was the center of the Anti-Rent War of 1839-1845. Some called that uprising the Second American Revolution.
Much
of Andes' downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places. I
don't know if the library building is that old but the library itself
celebrated its 100th birthday last year. Some renovation work was done
in 2020 during its pandemic closure.
Art pops up in other unexpected places, such as this signage in Ahwaga Park, in Owego, New York.
Or, in poet Robert Frost's former home in South Shaftsbury, Vermont. Notice who signed the painting.
Or, finding art near ruins of an old historic mill next to an operating motel in Arkansas. (Would you like to learn more about the Johnson's Water Mill? If so I'll include that in an A to Z post).
I can't promise that each post will feature the unexpected, but I hope you will join me for more of my journeys through my photos.
