My approach to this project has been influenced by two perspectives: my experience as a farmer and my work as a printmaker.
Exploring the Renaissance Center’s rare book collection of agrarian theory and practical manuals resulted in a search for shared experiences with the farmers of the early modern period. What were the motions and moments that defined a culture of growing? More importantly, what were the relationships between human, animal, plant, and place the relationships that I believe create terroir? I hoped to reconstruct a personal agrarian narrative based on the books’ contents.
Terroir is defined as ‘expression of place ’ Often used to describe wine, terroir is a reflection of how region, climate, soil, and annual growing conditions translate to the final product in the taster’s glass It is the nuanced understanding that place, soil amendments, and cultivation practices create distinct character in flavor. This is not only recognized in wine, but in other agricultural products such as cheese, coffee, tea, and vegetables
This expression of place is not only encapsulated within the landscape’s material conditions, but also in the relationships that define tangible interactions with place. There exists a story narrated through a collection of moments and imagination which informs our relationship with food and taste. These are the quiet moments where the human experience and nature collide and produce flavor. These eight prints are an exploration of how terroir exists not only in the topography of place, but also in the geography of memory and stories
The work itself includes printed images created from hand-carved linoleum blocks. These images are reflections of the moments I have experienced in the cultivation of food, as well as the shared connections I imagine to have with those English farmers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Perhaps this is where myth comes into play I can only guess what hidden stories defined their memory of farming based on the practical knowledge printed in their books. I’m not interested in knowing how they used a plow, or what grafting techniques were common, I want to know how it all made them feel, their impressions, their relationships with animals, land, and plants. (When you’re a humanist artist-farmer, that’s the kind of stuff you’re interested in )
These prints are an attempt to capture a feeling that exists somewhere between memory and myth, that creates a sense of place, that in effect, goes beyond the borders of terroir in mapping out the flavors of our relationship with the personal moments that define taste, past and present.
5 limited edition prints are editions of 50, signed and embossed. Other prints are unlimited edition, signed and embossed
I notice, looking at John Worlidge's Systema Agricultura (1681), that his chapter on animal species provides a small explanation of how each animal gives back to the farm’s household economy Cheese, wool, honey, transport. Each creature has a purpose. While Worlidge is fairly practical about this point, his tone is one of acknowledgement In reading his straightforward detail of farm animal work, I imagine all the
ploughmen and horses, goats and dairy women, beekeepers, and orchardists. Did they value those quiet mornings in the milking parlor, harnessing the plough horse in the barn, or the turning of milk into cheese at the hearth? I don’t know for certain, but from the practical knowledge Worlidge provides, I ask myself: what moments lay beneath the surface in the production of food that shape our relationships with animal, plant, and home?
& PORTRAIT OF WORKING HORSE OF HORSES: OLD PARTNERS
Prior to mechanized equipment, teams of horses and oxen allowed for expanded tilling, manuring, and cultivating crops. The farmer and the team were inseparable partners in agricultural endeavors.
At our small farm I work with a miniature horse for draft power. With less than an acre to cultivate, a 300lb horse provides plenty of strength to till, manure, and move objects. A good farm horse walks at a slow pace, listens well, and practices patience. In return for good care and kindness, the draft horse or pony gives back to the land through a strong work ethic, composted manure, gentleness on the soil, and a rewarding partnership.
Worlidge writes: “The horse has preheminence above all others being the noblest, strongest, swiftest and most necessary of all the beasts used in this country for the saddle, for the plough and cart, and for the pack” (X4v) This definition of the horse not only mentions its physical capability, but also its character “being the noblest ” Likewise In the Dictionarium Rusticum (1717), the author’s description of the horse emphasizes his character: “valiant…he is most gentle and loving to man” (BB8v)
Working alongside horses in the field creates a distinct bond The print Of Horses: Old Partners, embodies the story between the old hands that carried the lines and their memory of the horse that gave their strength and heart in the furrow. The two wooden pieces you see are old hames part of the horse’s harness that fit over the collar and allows for the point of draft The horse’s working farm harness has not changed for centuries It is an elegant, simple design that accommodates their ability to pull efficiently. Horsepower is inextricably tied to the cultivation of food whether it’s mules, donkeys, or draft horses, these creatures are a part of our global agricultural history and its flavor. I often wonder about all the people and horses that developed working relationships and grew food for their communities and homes How their sweat dripped into the soil, and their deep sighs in the barn now echo empty in forgotten memories I taste those moments in our food, the times when I pull the cultivator with my horse. Our friendship grows with the seeds we plant together.
HAYMAKER'S BOUQUET
Whenever I bite into a beautifully crafted goat cheese, I often wonder what the animal was eating or foraging: Did they graze on a hillside? Eat brush by the field’s edge?
Even if animals don’t have the opportunity to be guided by their herdsman out in the open, a meadow’s grasses can be cut and cured in the form of hay I am fascinated by the different grasses and flowers that comprise the fodder we call hay Cutting and curing a field’s plants is noted even in many early modern agricultural manuals. All winter long, when nothing grows in abundance, the summer’s field is preserved for animals to eat until the crop returns again in the spring The memories of cutting grass with scythes and harnessing horses to pitch the hay all become a part of the food that goes to the goats and eventually into the cheese
This print examines hay not for its nutritional value, but for the individual beauty of each plant: vetch, timothy, clover, fescue, and orchard grass to name a few It is in honor of those who make and made hay people and horses and the hours spent in the summer sun preserving the season’s nutrition for the colder days ahead.
Looking through the agricultural manuals in the Center’s rare book collection, I found many references to similar plants, such as clover and vetch, discussed as being excellent fodder for livestock Although hay is no longer cut and cured the same way as it was in the 17th century, its value in food cultivation was understood as a key part of agrarian life
O F G O A T S : N O U R I S H M E N T
According to Worlidge, goat milk is considered one of the most nourishing liquids.
We now know goat milk has a different protein structure to cow milk, rendering it more digestible and gentle on the stomach. I would take this a step further and say goats not only provide nourishment in the form of milk, cheese, and yogurt, but also their personality is so gregarious and lighthearted you can’t help but feel nourished by their joyful character. One of the first domesticated animals in agriculture, goats are easy to care for and enjoy human companionship.
At our farm, we raise French Alpine dairy goats and milk one doe for cheese every year Rather than separate the goat kids, we let the young caprines nurse from their mother and take what is left for us Caring for these animals is a year-round job I have shared the last five years of my life raising two goats that I purchased at seven weeks old.
The first image, Of Goats: Nourishment, is from a photograph I took last Spring after my goat gave birth It was a beautiful late spring morning, with sun steaming through the window. I came in to feed breakfast and one of the goat kids started nursing while her mother ate.
I felt gratitude for these creatures, who nourish me and their young, who often remind me to stay present and joyful. Whenever I make cheese from their milk, the flavor feels full of moments just like this one: the morning light, the symphony of chewing, the wagging of little goat tails, the negative degree temperatures, and breaking up ice in water buckets in the winter. I can’t help but think my cheese is the best tasting because it’s born from these memories.
Goats are the ultimate small farm animal and I think even Worlidge agrees with this description However, they are mischievous and Worlidge advises to not keep them by young trees. This mention inspired the second image: Capricious: Mischief & Play In an orchard of young apple trees, your goat will destroy them Apt at climbing, and eager to explore and eat, they will girdle the tree and eat the foliage I have found, they
often leave apples, particularly those of the cider variety, given they are bitter and not sweet. But there is something so playful about goats, even when they get into something they shouldn’t. Goats are a reminder that we, too, should play. Goats follow joy and curiosity, wherever that may lead them I imagine that’s where the word "capricious" comes from: a little bit of mischief, a little bit of play. Each bite of my cheese gives me a taste of that
C A P R I C I O U S : M I S C H I E F & P L A Y
OF PLANTS (AND MAGIC): LOVAGE
I first toured the Renaissance Center’s kitchen garden in the early fall of 2021 and was delighted to find an abundant amount of lovage growing in the garden Lovage is no longer a common plant, but it is a wonderful culinary herb that provides a delicious celery-like flavor to soups, stews, and roasted meats It is very hardy I have transplanted a single plant grown from seed three times and it has thrived. Looking it up in John Gerard’s Herbal (1633), I was pleased to see the plant mentioned alongside a handsome woodcut Gerard only refers to lovage as a culinary herb once. The 17th-century mindset knows that herbs are categorized for characteristics that go beyond a supermarket approach of ‘plant-food-flavor ’ Their 'virtues,' include a dynamic range of health remedies, thereby giving the plant a more substantial and personal character. In herbalist circles, I have found plants to be described as having human-like vitality and presence The herb has a personality and individual story defined by how it nourishes and heals.
I can’t help but think of Giambattisa Basile’s fairy tale 'La Gatta Cenerentola,' written in the 1600’s, in which a date tree acts as the fairy godmother in the classic children’s tale, 'Cinderella'. Even earlier in the 1300’s, Boccaccio’s Decameron includes a novella of a young woman who plants the head of her murdered lover in the vase of a basil plant. She tends to it and cares for it as if it were her betrothed himself There exists a tradition and cultural knowledge of plants possessing hidden magic or human virtue. Myth and memory conflate in this print of lovage. Following the drawing detail in Gerard's Herbal, I added more movement and drama with a strong play between negative and positive space. The herb comes forward as lively and present, with movement and magic. This is to remind the viewer not only is this plant edible, but it is also something otherworldly, powerful, and alive. In charting an understanding of terroir and relationship, stories of plants go hand-in-hand with their remedies and sometimes superstitions, myths and magic. How does this translate to our palate? Does our perception of plants affect how we taste them?
SUGARING MOON
I can easily recall my first season making maple syrup. I tapped four sugar maples and produced one quart of syrup on a crude set-up of lasagna trays and an open fire.
Four years later, we now put in forty taps and make syrup on a hobby-sized evaporator, making five gallons of syrup in a season It’s a laborious process that places the farmer somewhere in between winter and spring, occupying that transitional time of year when the snow still lingers but crocuses and snowdrops are blossoming From the transition comes the sweetness: maple sugar. Before the boiling begins, the sugarmaker must go out into the woods and find a maple grove Drill holes into the tree and tap spouts into the wood Buckets hang below to collect the sap as it drips steadily once the temperatures rise during the day and cool back down below freezing at night.
For me, it’s the moments in the woods that always leave an impression. You recognize the trees’ presence as unique beings and witness their vitality through the flow of sap Shortly after the maple season is the birch season While it takes larger quantities of birch sap to make syrup, it can be done and some farmers are experimenting with it Sweet birch and sugar maple are often found growing together in North American forests.
Maple syrup is a great example of our region’s terroir. It is a tree that only grows in this part of the world and further north. I even think the syrup I make in a small batch on my tiny evaporator tastes better than syrup I have made on a larger rig. Why is that? The process is the same, except that when I’m boiling outside, sometimes it’s snowing, sometimes it’s warm. Every so often friends stop by to talk and share the labor Maple syrup has a way of bringing people together after a bitter season I often wonder if my homemade syrup is infused with that sense of togetherness…those shared experiences that define its character, its terroir.
OF TREES: SWEETNESS
Given that sugar maples don’t grow in England, I was not looking for examples of tree tapping or syrup making in the Center’s collection. However, when I looked through the sections on trees in various books I became intrigued by the mention of sap collection from birch trees. The method employed by farmers of the past were ones I'd never heard of before. They would cut small branches and tie bottles to collect the running sap Can you imagine such a sight, glistening in the sun?
Vinetum Britannicum: or, a Treatise of Cider (1676) refers to the sap as ‘Blood of Trees.’ At first I found it morbid, but is it really? Sap is the tree’s way of sending food to its branches, to its buds, to its future leaves and future seeds It’s a lifegiving force. Sap and its sweetness are a reminder of new life, and the incredible vitality present in trees. I even found the mention of flavor as being important In some ways, the passage "of birch-wine" is a wonderful example of how we think of terroir. Where is the tree located? What parts of Europe have birch? The sap extracted from the branches is in the tree longer, and therefore creates a more distinguished, birch-like flavor, as opposed to extracting from the trunk (as we do with sugar maple) I found it fascinating to see an example of food cultivation not just for sustenance but also for pleasing the palate Cultivating flavor and taste requires the presence of human collaboration. So I return again to my original curiosity about the moments and the stories that define our relationship with food and how it tastes.
This print was designed with the birch tree’s bark in mind as well as the feeling one gets walking in the woods, coming face-to-face with different leaves, branches, and bark The bark’s knots in this image suggest the appearance of an eye looking back at you It’s a reverent acknowledgement of the working relationship between trees and humans; a gratitude for how the birch and the maple offer sweetness at a time when it’s appreciated and needed The production of maple syrup begins in the woods with the trees. All of the moments in the cold, placing our hands on the bark, drilling holes, hammering spouts, sometimes in unison with the male woodpecker, create a symphony of experiences that eventually find their way into the syrup.
Of Process
Printmaking lends itself well to the discussion of growing food. I often liken the tactile carving process as being similar to working soil with your hands In both instances, I approach my blank surfaces the same way: I want to carve out something beautiful, something that speaks to others and that moves my viewer I portray memories and recollections from my immediate environment and daily life
The contrasts between positive and negative space help recreate the drama and intensity that occupy even the small moments in my life. In our micro-farming at home to feed ourselves, it is very much the same intensity I seek out in the plainest of vegetables, the quietest of flowers, the simplest of cheeses. I use older methods, like a horse, because a tractor seems impractical and I love a working relationship with animals. It’s slower, but so is printmaking. Line by line, slow and steady, just like cultivating a small plot, just like seeding by hand.
As a printmaker, I value working in contrasts of light and dark. It makes sense to me. Most of my images are like weathered photographs in my mind. Stills I have kept and then translate to a block Terroir is like that. It captures everything that went into that bite, that initial taste, like a photograph What was the first piece of art that kept you staring? What was that first bite of something that made you actually think about and savor the flavor? I would guess that ineffable feeling comes from the same place.
RENAISSANCE OF THE EARTH
The Renaissance of the Earth is a series of interdisciplinary research collaborations, undergraduate and graduate courses, hands-on workshops, conferences, and arts programming that consider how the early modern past helps us reshape our environmental future. Historians and agricultural students work hand-in-hand with geoscientists and arts and literature students to transform a kitchen garden into a template for research and a rare book library into an archive for the imagination
Foraged: Kitchen Garden Herbaria
A R T I S T ' S S T A T E M E N T
My art highlights interdependent relationships across species.
Mushrooms are neither plants nor animals, confounding our most basic taxonomies. They pop up where we don't expect them. As Agricola wrote in 1726, mushrooms thrive in rotten places: "Mushrooms which have their roots in rotten ground spread very far " I have created herbaria that honor the wild life of mushrooms
Traditionally, an herbarium is a collection of pressed plant specimens, mounted on paper, and described in keen detail for farmers and gardeners Although my prints also use pressed plants, my technique departs from the herbarium when I place a mushroom, that I foraged from the Center's grounds, gill-side down, on top of herbs gathered from the nearby kitchen garden. The mushrooms release their tiny powdery spores, leaving an
impression of leaves and flowers. Once removed, the plant's silhouette is exposed with abstract patterns Each spore print is unique, rendering visible mycorrhizae, the intimate collaboration between plant roots and fungal hyphae which modern author Merlin Sheldrake describes in Entangled Life (2020) as “a collective flourishing that underpins our past, present, and future.”
The Kinney Center’s collection of botany books, herbals, and gardening manuals, reveals evidence of the human desire to use, cure, correct, or control nature. I notice, looking at John Gerard’s Herbal (1633), that he classifies “the nature of all plants from the highest Cedar to the lowest Moss” in relation to their “use” for humans Gerard catalogs the visual beauty of a plant’s form, but he was also concerned with their “virtues” or medicinal properties. For example, he suggests that wormwood cures ailments such as “a weak stomack.”
Like Gerard, William Lawson, in A New Orchard and Garden (1648), demonstrates the human desire for control of earthly matter when he asks, “What is Art more than a provident and skilful Correctrix of the faults of Nature in particular works?” For Lawson, garden design is the art of land management Land management corrects nature a logic laid bare in the title of another agricultural manual, The English Improver Improved, by Walter Blithe (1653), which details how to “cure” landscapes such as fens, moors, and forests for maximized agricultural production.
A B O U T T H E A R T I S T
Madge Evers is an educator, gardener, and visual artist whose work celebrates decomposition and regeneration Referencing photosynthesis and the collaboration in mycorrhiza, her practice involves foraging for mushrooms and plants in the forests and hills of Western Massachusetts. In 2021, she was a Mass Cultural Council fellowship finalist in photography. After teaching for twenty-five years in Rhode Island and Massachusetts public schools, Evers now works as a full-time artist. When the sun shines, she facilitates cyanotype workshops for people of all ages.
RENAISSANCE OF THE EARTH
The Renaissance of the Earth is a series of interdisciplinary research collaborations, undergraduate and graduate courses, hands-on workshops, conferences, and arts programming that consider how the early modern past helps us reshape our environmental future. Historians and agricultural students work hand-in-hand with geoscientists and arts and literature students to transform a kitchen garden into a template for research and a rare book library into an archive for the imagination
APOCALYPSE: SCIENCE & MYTH
A R T I S T ' S S T A T E M E N T
In Apocalypse: Science & Myth, painter Suzette Martin offers viewers an allegory of consequences for industrialized humanity’s cumulative, destructive behaviors, by layering data from climate and environmental research with the Biblical tale of banishment from paradise. This exhibit returns to past stories of apocalypse to highlight our current eco-anxieties. Positioned in gestures of anguish, Adam and Eve struggle within landscapes overlaid with partially legible scientific diagrams and data that document anthropogenic causes of ecological crises. Passages from Genesis 3 in the 1495 Vulgate Bible in the Center's collection evoke an ancient story of divine punishment for humanity’s forbidden knowledge of good and evil.
Myths about a lost golden age, apocalypse, or the cyclical destruction of the world appear across multiple cultures worldwide. This exhibit focuses on the Genesis myth of humanity’s banishment from paradise as a backdrop to industrialized western civilization, where the development of fossil-fueled industrialization, settler colonialism, and an extractive, commodity-based relationship to nature have led to escalating environmental disasters across the globe.
Martin’s figurative works employ two key components of Renaissance art and philosophy: the embodiment of myth through classical nude figures and the objective observation of natural phenomena. The Mannerist body language of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, as well as Masaccio’s fresco “The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden” in the Brancacci Chapel, are reference points for figures in these large scale figurative works that embody contemporary eco-anxiety. The American Psychological Association describes eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations.” Martin’s imagery of contemporary
"data overload,” use of theatrical gesture, expressionistic mark-making, and scientific data bear witness to the psychological consequences of environmental collapse.
The non-figurative works in this exhibit are inspired by the notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci. Martin’s deployment of handwritten script focuses on scientific inquiry, while the merger of observation and imagination across the same image explores the interplay between science and myth. Martin combines 21st century environmental science graphics and reports with illustrations and texts from the Kinney Center's rare book library in a visual exploration of the evolution of humanist approaches to knowledge, from theological speculations on the nature of the universe to early scientific methodologies grounded in both observed and measurable data.
A B O U T T H E A R T I S T
Suzette Marie Martin is a figurative painter based in New England. She uses allusions to mythology and the narrative potential of body language, combined with data, symbols and text, to confront the existential trauma of ecological decline and intensifying climate crises. Martin’s archetypal figures, enmeshed within layers of scientific documentation, embody gestures of emotional and physical distress, and acknowledge the cognitive anxiety of information overload. Martin's practice, rooted in drawing and developed in series, is informed by topical research, observational studies and art historical reference. Layers of gestural marks, opaque passages and translucent washes reveal Martin’s working process of describing and obscuring elements of figuration, text and abstraction.
RENAISSANCE OF THE EARTH
The Renaissance of the Earth revolutionizes what it means to think with the early modern past about our environmental future. Through a range of crossdisciplinary collaborative models, it puts students, artists, and scholars at the center of an interdisciplinary research mandate with the goal of discovering diverse avenues for creating sustainable and equitable life.
ELUSIVE PRIZE: WONDER, WING & TRANSMUTATION
B Y
B R A N D O N
G R A V I N G
A R T I S T ' S S T A T E M E N T
In Elusive Prize: Wonder, Wing & Transmutation, I explore themes of alchemy, science, and the human pursuit of an elusive prize in the name of immortality Inspired by the texts and materials from the Kinney Center’s rare book collection, I use iron gall inks, vellum, and other historically specific pigments in both sculpture and monoprints to persue ideas of ambition taking wing in the early modern world and our own.
A permeating and iconic representation of human aspiration across time is the wing. From acclaimed paintings of angels who guard or hover over us, to winged figureheads who protect sailors, and cherubs who peek from the edges of early printed maps, we celebrate and admire wings. As early modern literature and emblem books caution, the mythical Icarus soars too close to the heat of the sun and his man-made wings, waxed to his body, fail as he plummets into the waves below. The abstracted wing shape you see here at times also references flames or waves that gesture toward the shifting forms of human ambition from Prometheus stealing fire from the Gods to merchants crossing stormy seas This shape invites us to reflect on the wonder and recklessness of our own hubris.
Early modern alchemists also sought an “elusive prize” an elixir for eternal life or a method to turn base metals to precious ones. One aspect of alchemy is learning the subtle properties of a substance in order to manipulate it Similarly, I researched the distinct material elements of ink, animal skin, pigment, and paper in the Kinney Center’s collection to study and manipulate some of these same substances in the works presented here. Knowledge of the component parts of a given ink or paper is a vital aspect of my work. By fabricating historical substances, I explore intimate connections between past and present.
M A T E R I A L S G L O S S A R Y
Abaca: A fast growing plant like banana or hemp with long fibers make this a very strong paper even when used in only a gossamer thinness.
Cam Wood: A substance I collected while living in Cameron. It is commonly used in rituals prior to a young girl’s marriage. I love its various rich red tones and I have been using it in my prints for years. It is in all of the “Vows Towards Peace” monoprints.
Dahlia flowers: Pigmented and ground flowers were used in “Transmutation #9”.
Honey and Black Locust wood: Burned this winter in our wood stove, sifted, ground, and fabricated into an oil-based ink used in all of the “Vows Towards Peace” monoprints.
Iron Gall Ink: Loved during the Renaissance for its dark richness, I used this material in all the “Vows Towards Peace” monoprints to recall the 17th-century sheets of music on linen paper I studied at the Kinney Center which employ this ink.
Lapis Lazuli: Ground stone was used in “Transmutation #4”.
Sheepskin: One of many animal skins used in the Renaissance (along with calf and goat skins) for vellum paper as well as book binding.
A B O U T T H E A R T I S T
Brandon Graving is a sculptor and printmaker who often works on a very large scale in mediums that include bronze, neon, paper, resins, steel, and wood. She is the owner and master printmaker at Gravity Press Experimental Print Shop which holds one of the largest platen presses in the world. Her work has been exhibited widely in museums, as well as public and private collections.
Learn more about her work: www.brandongraving.com
REN
OF T
The Renaissanc means to think environmental disciplinary coll artists, and sch research mand avenues for cre
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R T I S T ' S S T A T E M E N T
N a v i g a t i n g t h e l i n e b e t w e e n m e d i c i n e a n d p o i s o n
h a s a l w a y s b e e n t r i c k y . H i s t o r i c a l l y , w o m e n h a v e
t r a n s f o r m e d h o u s e h o l d b o t a n i c a l s i n t o v i t a l r e m e d i e s
a n d f a t a l t o x i c s t o s h a p e t h e f a t e o f t h e i r o w n l i v e s .
F a t a l F l o r a : P o i s o n o u s R e v e n g e N a r r a t i v e s a s k s h o w ,
i n t h e h a n d s o f k n o w l e d g e a b l e w o m e n , t h e n a t u r a l
w o r l d c a n b e t r a n s f o r m e d f r o m m e d i c i n a l t o
m u r d e r o u s i n a p i n c h , d a s h , o r s p l a s h o f i n g r e d i e n t s .
A r t i s t i n R e s i d e n c e , S u s a n M o n t g o m e r y , b l e n d s
h i s t o r y , m e m o r y , a n d t h e i m a g i n a t i o n o n h e r
c a n v a s e s t o r e c a l l r e a l a n d m y t h i c a l w o m e n w h o
c h a n g e t h e i r l i v e s b y h a r n e s s i n g t h e p o w e r s o f t h e
n a t u r a l w o r l d .
A B O U T T H E A R T I S T
S u s a n M o n t g o m e r y t e a c h e s d r a w i n g i n t h e S m i t h
C o l l e g e D e p a r t m e n t o f A r t . S h e i s a r e c i p i e n t o f t h e
B l a n c h E . C o l e m a n A w a r d , M e l l o n F o u n d a t i o n G r a n t ,
a n d a S u s t a i n a b l e A r t i s t F o u n d a t i o n G r a n t . S h e h a s
e x h i b i t e d a t v e n u e s i n c l u d i n g t h e F u l l e r A r t a n d C r a f t
M u s e u m , L y m a n M u s e u m o f S p r i n g f i e l d H i s t o r y a t
t h e S p r i n g f i e l d Q u a d r a n g l e M u s e u m s , F i v e C o l l e g e
W o m e n ’ s R e s o u r c e C e n t e r a t M o u n t H o l y o k e C o l l e g e ,
H i s t o r i c N o r t h a m p t o n M u s e u m , A . P . E . L t d . G a l l e r y
a n d t h e T r u s t m a n G a l l e r y a t S i m m o n s U n i v e r s i t y .
L e a r n m o r e a b o u t h e r w o r k :
w w w . s u s a n m o n t g o m e r y a r t . c o m
RENAISSAN OF THE EAR
The Renaissance of the Earth rev to engage the early modern pas environmental future. Through a collaborative models, it puts stud the center of an interdisciplinary r goal of discovering diverse avenu and equitable life. Learn more about www.renaissanceof
S O
A N E X C E R P T
June
Not ever y thing can open. Look at the peas. Or the berries, red-thumbed. The roses, pale green, tight in their buds. This is a season of small things. Bees (fewer and fewer) slip under the floorboards. Fireflies fade in the night. Look at these soft spinning things, unmoored f rom themselves, made bright and mor tal.
A B O U T T H E C O L L E C T I O N
What form should the seasonal poem take during a time of seasonal instability? And what do the individual months mean and evoke in our culture now?
Created in conversation with the Kinney Center’s early modern almanacs, husbandry guides, and botanicals, this collection of original poems explores enduring themes of seasonal instability that link our current climate crisis to early modernity’s little ice age.
A B O U T T H E A R T I S T
Felicity Sheehy is a poet and early modern scholar from the Hudson Valley of New York. In 2019 and 2020, she was named one of Narrative Magazine's 30 below 30 emerging writers. In 2021, her debut chapbook Losing the Farm won first place in the Munster Literature Centre's international chapbook competition. Sheehy is a poet and a PhD candidate in Renaissance Literature at Princeton University. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Republic, The Southern Review, The Irish Times, The Yale Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, P.N. Review. Her work has received an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Jane Martin Prize, and the Charlotte Wise Memorial Prize. Her work has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Community of Writers, the Fine Arts Work Center, the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Narrative Magazine, Smartish Pace, the Banff Centre, the York Poetry Prize, and the Ledbury Poetry Festival
