Visit the studios and gardens of Shawn Farley, Robin Freedenfeld, Nancy Goldstein, Jim Hankins at Park Hill Orchards, Betsy Stone, Chuck Stern,
and Nanny Vonnegut. Join the Center’s director, Penny Burke, for refreshments in the garden of University Gallery curator Eva Fierst.

Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 on the day. Reserve by calling the Center at 413.584.7327, 17 New South Street at Old School Commons, Third Floor, or purchase at State Street Fruit Store and Cooper’s Corner.

The artists/gardeners comment:
Robin Freedenfeld writes: “This year as I walked around my garden, I tried to remember the dense woods it once was. The transformation took over 20 years, little by little, clearing a small section of woods and planting trees, perennials and shrubs. Many of the perennials were propagated from the plants in my first gardens and trades with fellow gardeners. Others were purchased from local garden centers, mail order and plant sales. I am always dividing and moving plants around as well as trying new species that I have read about. The maintenance of my gardens takes a few hours a day that I can barely keep up with. I try to have something in bloom for the entire season and think about how things die back. My garden and my artwork take up most of my time. Inside my studio I am focused and still, and outside I am getting fresh air and exercise while being creative. When I tire of one activity, I move to the other.”

Nancy Goldstein believes that “gardening may be the ultimate— albeit illusive and transitory—art form. At its best, it combines artistic skill, scientific knowledge, spiritual enhancement and physical discipline—all in the glorious outdoors. Gardening is how I do art for half of the year.” Her garden is really several integrated yet distinct areas: a welcome garden, the Provencal parterre vegetable garden, the summer herb and pool garden, the rose garden, the meadow garden, the meditation garden and the shrub walkway.

Nanny Vonnegut writes about “Nanny’s Studio and Scott’s Garden.” She tells us: “This year Scott is happy to show off his garden but not his studio. Over the past 20 years, mildew and creatures have found ways to live in the walls of his studio so as to make it necessary to build a new one. Scott’s garden is in no way formal and requires little upkeep. This backyard garden is where Scott takes breaks from his painting and from the creatures living in his walls. Nanny takes no part in gardening life, feeling only slightly abashed about that. She loves her ‘interior’ places and that includes her studio. This is her sanctuary, the place she can lock the door and forget about telemarketers, laundry, the husband and general intrusions on the concentration it takes to come up with new ideas. Her studio space is a very private place; usually she keeps the door locked, even when she is in it. Enjoy!”

“My life as both a gardener and as an artist revolves around a complicated relationship with nature,” says Jim Hankins. “Like many complicated relationships it is richly rewarding as well as being very demanding at times. I constantly marvel at the endless beauty in the world and as a means of fully experiencing that beauty feel compelled everyday to play with it, explore that wonderment and share it at the same time. I cannot create the beauty of a flower, the rich flavor of a sugar snap pea or the amazing variety and complexity of wood grains in the world, but I can work toward that shared experience with another human being. That place where we get to remind ourselves that there can be beauty everywhere and that life can be good.”

As an artist, Shawn Farley makes sculptural assemblages from found material, objects reclaimed from obscurity and given new meaning. “When the seasons turn to digging spade into the soil,” she says, “I tend to turn my creative energy to the outdoors, to my garden. Perhaps it’s because living in New England you enjoy the short seasons of spring and summer as much as you can by being outside the very moment you can. My garden are at the most four seasons old and the woodland garden, only one to two seasons. I try to work with the natural bones of the landscape and let it inform me. And just as with my art, I recycle/reclaim gnarly, rotten tree trunks, mossy stones and other detritus and work them into the landscape. My goal is to actually make the woodland garden an installation of sorts, a magical, calming place where every turn offers a new surprise. I am truly fortunate to have a sun garden, a sun/shade garden and the woods as my canvases.” Although her primary studio is not at her home, Shawn plans to install her artwork within the woods and around the property.

Chuck Stern describes his garden as “humble but proud.” It sits “between the studio and the kiln and provides the peaceful place where I often read, sketch, and eat dinner with my lovely wife. It’s a tough, self-reliant, ‘country’ garden that learned early in life that I would love it immensely but would interfere in its decisions only when absolutely necessary.” Speaking of his work, Chuck notes that Sadashi Inazuka, a teacher and mentor, once told him that “the clay is 10,000 years old. It knows more than you do. And while it may seem a quaint homily, it turns out that my ceramic sculptural work is at its most satisfying when I’m quiet enough to catch the directional hints the clay is giving.”

Groves of trees and design elements borrowed from regional architecture make the four-year-old Arts & Crafts style home of Betsy Stone and Marc Berman look as if it has always been on Beacon Street in Florence. You will feel an Asian influence in the massing of plants with an emphasis on leaf color and texture, the ginko and Japanese maple trees, water flowing over rock. “My favorite complementary colors of red and green echo through the garden, the house and my paintings,” says Betsy. “I paint people and still life in oils and pastels in my second floor studio. The north light of the studio is an advantage in my preference for painting from life. It is a pleasure to take a break from painting and come downstairs to tend the garden or to sit in the serenity of our patio enjoying the fragrance of flowers and sounds of the fountain.” Betsy has also enhanced the “tour” by creating a path through the woods so visitors can walk to or from the garden/studio of neighbor Chuck Stern.

Twenty years ago, the garden of Eva Fierst “consisted of a swing set and a patch of dirt where an above-ground circular pool once stood. It has been an organic evolution of learning and growing that makes this land what it is today,” she says. “The garden can be divided into a shady, southern side and a sunny, northern side each with its own specific requirements. The water garden has been an element for a long time. It started as a container, reached its final shape five years ago, and has matured into an integrated part of the garden. The garden ebbs and flows according to the work and devotion I give it. It moves from groomed and manicured to unkempt and wild. This forgiving, elastic response adds to my pleasure of flower gardening. The most rewarding part about gardening is the intimate relationship to the plants and the complex balance of location, micro-climate, light, and composition. I like to see gardening as I see cooking: a limited amount of ingredients that can be combined in unique, almost unlimited ways. And like cooking, gardening is hands-on and engages all the senses.”