ONE RIVER, MANY VIEWS
The Saint-Gaudens Memorial • Cornish, NH • saint-gaudens.org • July 23–October 30, 2022
What does the Connecticut River look like to you? It probably depends on the time of day, your vantage point, your culture, even your past experience. In One River, Many Views, three artists respond to the river’s beauty, power, and cultural history, at times using the river water, its soil, and its flora as part of their artmaking process. The exhibit is on view at the Saint-Gaudens Memorial, founded in 1919 to preserve and exhibit the home, studios, collection, and gardens of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
When you enter the Picture Gallery, the first objects that strike your eye are two up-ended, 9-foot tall, boat-like structures created by Massachusetts artist Nancy Diessner. The translucent paper shapes of the boats are cast from an old rowing scull, and contain landscape images made by dipping sheets of Japanese paper into the pollen floating on the river. Diessner also displays photography etchings which “go beyond the surface to see the river in a completely un-riverlike way. It’s not about one spot on the river,” she says, “but about the river’s movement and energy.”
Dartmouth professor Brenda Garand’s series, Deluge, is drawn from her experience of Tropical Storm Irene, which flooded her studio in 2011. She compares a visual recording with oral history: “Both are interpretations of events. Each place on the river is unique and contains the feeling and history of that place,” she says.
Janet Pritchard, a landscape photographer who teaches at the University of Connecticut, documents the river using a method she calls historical empathy, focusing on the intersection of nature and culture and drawing on research and archival materials to guide her process.
The exhibit also features wall texts by Upper Connecticut River Valley residents, including members of the Indigenous, agricultural, and recreational communities. Concerns about the changing environment are present in the works, says trustee Inez McDermott, with each artist expressing their ideas in vastly different ways and with different materials.
There is much to see, including sculpture-filled gardens and glimpses into the life of Saint-Gaudens and the Cornish Art Colony. And of course,
you may enjoy many Connecticut River views of your own.
—Laurie D. Morrissey