the River Art Project

So little fresh water on our planet is available to use yet everything we do in our watershed can impact our waterbodies.

The River Art Project at Stockbridge Station 2 Depot Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts 01262 Tel: 413-298-5163 www.riverartproject.com

Cover image: Stephen Hannock, Flooded River at Dawn (detail)

The river has taught me to listen; you will learn from it, too.

The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it.

— Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

The River Art Project Many of us experience nature as a peripheral facet of life—often inattentive to its constant ebb and flow and unmindful of our relationship to it. Others are more deeply in tune with their environment and, therefore, fiercely protective of her resources. One challenge for preservationists is to inspire their community to defend and preserve our delicate and threatened ecosystem. Artists are uniquely situated to arouse public interest through the visual expression of nature’s beauty. The River Art Project does precisely that—harnessing the allure of the river as a catalyst for advocacy. Among them, the five participating artists evoke diverse landscape art traditions to create both exquisite works of art and inspiring agents of change.

Bart Elsbach modernizes the Italianate landscape paintings of the 17th century Dutch masters by deft control of light, deliberate and dynamic structure, and sumptuous depth of color. Through the minimalism and stillness of winter the permanence of the river is laid bare. We are reminded of Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote “the trees reflected in the river—they are unconscious of the spiritual world so near to them. So are we.” Elsbach gives us the opportunity to awaken our consciousness to things we often neglect. Transcendentalists such as Nathaniel Hawthorne were the backbone of many early reform movements such as women’s and civil rights and can be viewed as a precursor to artists who today use their platform for social change.

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Mary Sipp Green also perpetually returns to the Housatonic River as her muse, continuously renewed by the seemingly infinite views it offers as the day progress and the calendar changes. As Paul Cezanne wrote, “here on the river, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to the right or left.” In Sipp Green’s ethereal landscapes, a delicate gossamer veil has been draped across the earth so even the mundane is beautiful and suffused with emotion. The river becomes a meditative device upon which we contemplate our deeper truths and seek a more profound understanding of ourselves and our relationship with nature.

In Stephen Hannock’s polished incandescent canvases, the river vibrates with emotional and physical intensity.

Light emerges from within layers of paint, perspectives shift to offer dynamic if slightly unnatural vistas, mood is masterfully conveyed. From the enigmatic darkness of a night punctuated by mystical pinpoints, to the liquefying ascension of the sun at dawn, luminosity reigns in Hannock’s work. We are drawn in by their inescapable radiance and beauty, all the while pleasantly uneasy with their restiveness and whimsy, searching for deeper meaning in their masterful profundity. Hannock is a thoroughly modern bridge between the great 19th century landscape art traditions and the genre of landscape art today.

Nature as allegory is exquisitely achieved in the work of Scott Prior, where sumptuously painted details and richly hued forms act as an Arcadian veneer to deeper introspection. Human presence is diminished by the expansive river and dramatic focal light, drawing the viewers gaze beyond the surface narrative and into the metaphysical dimension. Just as the campers in Moonrise on the River quietly absorb nature, we are reminded of environmentalist

John Muir when he wrote that it is “wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.”

Jim Schantz’s painting career spans nearly forty years, throughout which the river has been a constant source of inspiration. His work evokes the landscapes of late-18th century Romanticism, an awe of the sublime found in the Hudson River School, and the light of the Luminists. His river reflections draw the viewer effortlessly in to plumb the depths of the nature’s divinity. Schantz exalts in the subtle shifts of time and season to create grandeur in every moment, evoking Ralph Waldo Emerson when he said that “to the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty … it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before and shall never be seen again.”

Through the imagination and creativity of artists, ordinary people are given new eyes to see what is around them, given new ears to hear what the river can teach them, as Herman Hesse exhorted in Siddhartha. Through the art of the five painters in The River Art Project, we become viscerally aware of the importance of the river environment and are compelled to think outside the business and exigencies of our daily lives and do our part to preserve it. As Ansel Adams once spoke, “let us have a splendid legacy for our children … let us turn to them and say ‘this you inherit and guard it well, for it is far more precious than money … and once it is destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.”

Jeanne Koles is an independent museum professional with a focus on cultural communications.

Bart Elsbach Bart Elsbach is one of America’s premiere landscapists. Influenced by the Hudson River School and Dutch Golden Age painting, Elsbach’s beautifully lit works innovate on the Dutch Masters’ romantic Italianate landscape – revealing New England locales in new light. Born in 1961 and raised in Manhattan, Elsbach graduated from The Dalton School and went on to earn his Bachelors degree from Hamilton College. After attending the Art Students’ League of NY, he completed his MFA at New York University. Over the years Elsbach has shown in solo and group exhibitions nationally, and frequently in New England galleries. He also teaches, both through private instruction and at institutions such as the Berkshire School in Sheffield MA and at The Interlaken School of Art in Stockbridge.

Artist Statement: “Although we seem desperate to distinguish ourselves from nature and hold ourselves removed, we cannot escape the deeper reality that we are a product of nature and tied to her inextricably. The river, as both a physical realty and powerful metaphor, is a limitless source of inspiration and solace. Despite our disrespect and disregard for her, she flows on patiently and powerfully.”

—Bart Elsbach

Bart Elsbach Turning 2017, Oil on canvas 24 x 36"

Bart Elsbach Breaking Before the Bend 2017, Oil on linen 12 x 16"

Bart Elsbach Cold Bands Warm Art 2017, Oil on linen 18 x 14"

Mary Sipp Green Mary Sipp Green has been a landscape painter for more than twenty years. For Sipp Green, her art is not so much a career as a way of life. She sees beauty in the everyday, and it is her ability to render her visions through oil and linen that draws the viewer in. Sipp Green captures the emotion or atmosphere of a scene, giving the opportunity for an understanding of feeling, of a truth that resonates as more true than the factual pictures Realism offers. The artist’s landscapes sometimes hint at her admiration of Rothko’s spirituality and reveal an appreciation for the work of the Luminist painters. Reluctant to label her style, the artist describes her work as having varying degrees of Romanticism, Impressionism and Abstraction.

Sipp Green began drawing and painting as she grew up at her father’s studio in Manhattan. She went on to earn a degree at FIT where she studied apparel design before moving to the Berkshires with her family. Here, inspired by the local landscape, she returned to her love of painting. Sipp Green’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in both galleries and museums throughout the United States.

Artist Statement: "I live along the banks of the Housatonic River, an ever-changing yet gentle force of nature. From my windows, I can see how the swift-moving water catches the colors of the sunrise, the afterglow of early evening, and the silver-gold shimmer of the moonlight.

Each day on the river is different from the last, and like the unexpected turns of life itself, the coursing waters always bring fascinating and sometimes breathtaking experiences into view: The migration of birds traveling over this liquid highway; the arcing fish that break up the ice in early spring, when thousands of shards flow down the river in lily-like clusters. This life force, a gift from nature, deserves to be restored and protected for all time and shared with the generations to come.

—Mary Sipp Green

Mary Sipp Green The River, Afterglow 2017, Oil on linen 46 x 48"

Mary Sipp Green Twilight 2017, Oil on panel 8.5 x 12.75"

Mary Sipp Green Evening 2017, Oil on panel 12 x 14"

At Riverkeeper, we patrol the Hudson River every day. We test the river and its tributaries for pollution, protect some of America’s most famous vistas and assure that thousands of river folk have safe places to play, across a watershed nearly 14,000 square miles across.

There isn’t a day that goes by that the Hudson doesn’t take our breath away, with its ever-changing surfaces and endless capacity to inspire. Yet, here, a new development proposal threatens a cherished view. There, a previously undiscovered toxic site spews contamination into seemingly tranquil waters.

Rivers can die from neglect or, just as easily, from the attentions of too large a crowd.

Rivers require room to breathe, which can be hard to come by, especially in urban settings. Still, most rivers are healing. Some even teem with life, as they did in the era of the great Hudson River School painters. Others struggle to recover from the staggering damage done to them since the era of Thomas Cole and Frederic Church gave way to the era of industry.

Would Church and Cole be moved to paint today’s Hudson River? Confronted by a Hudson dotted with high-rises and rimmed by highways, perhaps they’d pack their brushes and retreat to some other, less trammeled river. We at Riverkeeper prefer to imagine they would always be drawn to the enduring beauty of the Hudson Highlands, the Tappan Zee’s grandeur or the fall of Adirondack headwaters.

Last year, Riverkeeper began its second half century as New York’s clean water advocate. Over those first fifty years, new industries came and went. Power plants decimated the Hudson’s rich and diverse fish populations, which once made the river “run silver” with their sheer number. But, at the same time, the Hudson also became the cradle of the modern environmental movement, and gave us many of the bedrock legal protections that rivers everywhere now depend on for protection.

Riverkeeper was one of the founders of this modern environmental movement. We made our name as the group that went to court to fight polluters and we’re still that group. But, we hope that there’s an art to our work as well. Part of our job is to give the river a recognizable voice, one the public can hear and appreciate. We also work to give those who love the Hudson a stage upon which they can act on that devotion, through citizen science and public advocacy.

Riverkeeper got its start years before the Clean Water Act -- arguably, America’s most successful environmental law. Now, despite the success of the Clean Water Act in restoring the greatness of many of America’s rivers, we find ourselves fighting not only pollution, but also politicians who would flush away the Clean Water Act and give our rivers back to the polluters. Preserving our victories has never required more vigilance; Riverkeeper is called upon to help new local advocacy groups, nearly every day.

Riverkeeper is honored to be part of the River Art Project. Each of these artists has captured the lasting, ineffable beauty of our rivers, reminding us why our waterways, whether modest or majestic, inspire us to hand them down, better than we found them, to the generations of great artists and activists still to come.

Paul Gallay, President and Hudson Riverkeeper

Stephen Hannock Berkshire-based Stephen Hannock was an avid hockey player, a great student athlete, before he transitioned to life as a working artist. He has espoused that, contrary to how disparate these two occupations and passions may seem, “art has a lot in common with athletics – you practice, honing skills, and then you respond spontaneously to events.” In his dedicated practice, Hannock discovered techniques of his own invention. He layers each piece, sometimes including personal photographs or letters, and not infrequently subtle text, giving each painting an emotional intensity and veracity that resonates with viewers. Hannock also polishes his canvases, or as he has said, “I rip into my compositions with power tools.” Hannock’s gift for unconventionally pairing approaches and perspectives results in his profound, atmospheric neo-Luminist masterpieces. When asked about the influence of the Hudson River School on his works, Hannock explains that the “missing link” between the 19th Century Luminists and his oeuvre is actually closer to the lengthy establishing shots of vistas that directors like Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean use to suggest mood, foreshadow future events, and set the scene. Hannock, through the combination of innovative technique and integrative artistic philosophy, renders cinematography through painting – capturing both the light and emotional atmosphere of a scene in ways that the cold technology of a camera never could.

During a post-grad year at Deerfield Academy, Hannock took his first art class since grade school. He continued his exploration upon his arrival at Bowdoin, and through the Twelve College Exchange program, went on to take more art classes at Smith. In Northampton Hannock apprenticed with renowned sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin.

In 1976 he graduated with a BA from nearby Hampshire. Hannock’s work premiered first at the Smith College Museum of Art, where he was the youngest artist to have a solo exhibition, and the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts. His work now hangs in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Stephen Hannock Surface Fog for the River Keeper 2017, Polished oil on canvas 30 x 24"

Stephen Hannock Flooded River at Dawn 2016-17, Polished oil on canvas 30 x 60"

Stephen Hannock Nocturne for the River Keeper 2017, Acrylic on paper 16 x 13"

The Housatonic River Valley is our home and our heritage, and the waters that flow through it have always been the essence of our region. From the earliest human settlements to the industrial mills to today, we owe the simple fact of our “being here� to the river, its usefulness, and its beauty.

All at once, the mighty river has the power to create communities, to turn heavy machinery, to shelter and nourish wildlife and to inspire visitors in quiet reflection. Despite its power however, the river and its waters are also fragile and delicate. And we, who are so shaped by living in its presence, also play an vital role in shaping its future. Risks of pollution and thoughtless development persist. Just as the river’s strength is the sum of countless springs, creeks and rivulets merging together, we must all join together in its preservation and defense.

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To the many individuals and organizations working to protect our river, HVA owes our unending thanks. To the artists represented in this exceptional presentation, we owe our respect and admiration. To the future, we each owe our resolve to be protectors and stewards of this incredible resource, this inspiring river, this treasured jewel, the Housatonic.

Clean waters, for life!

Lynn Werner, Executive Director & Dennis Regan, Berkshire Director Housatonic Valley Association

Scott Prior Train by the River 2017, Oil on panel 18 x 30"

Scott Prior Scott Prior has lived as a working artist in the Northampton area since 1971, the year of his graduation from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a BFA in printmaking. A founding member of a small cohort of painters known as the “Valley Realists,” Prior is a Contemporary Realist who paints “contemporary Americana” (Ann Wilson Lloyd, Art in America, July 2002) with a style and finesse informed by his admiration for the Flemish and Dutch Masters. One of the many remarkable facets of the artist’s work is the way in which, in the spirit of Luminist influence, Prior casts the emotional tones of each of his scenes with beautiful variations on light. His paintings are not simply reproductions of what he views, but rather each is a vision – a landscape of sentiment with intricate details that beckon contemplation. Scott Prior has shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. His artwork hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the DeCordova Museum, the Danforth Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Rose Art Museum, and other major public and private collections.

Artist Statement: “In New England we live in a world of changing seasons, which, I think, invites an almost sensual awareness of time and its effects. The New England landscape is small and intimate and directs our attention to things close at hand…I learned about making art by studying these things and capturing their surfaces, but always with an awareness that there was something hidden underneath. Although I have never been much of a celebrant of the unconscious I am grateful for the Surrealists’ reminder of the disconnect between objects and their meaning… I have always been fairly comfortable with the isolation and solitude of being an artist. At times I have been described as being detached, but with a sense of humor, of the mordant sort. Like a scientist, I have been an observer, striving to understand things. For many years my paintings were of unpeopled landscapes, tourist places off-season, empty rooms, and still lifes of discordant subject matter. It wasn’t until I saw a lot of Edward Hopper’s paintings in one place that I recognized the significance and emotional power of light. That was thirty years ago, and I am still fascinated by the varied and countless effects of light on the tangible world of my experience.”

Scott Prior Moonrise on the River 2012, Oil on panel 24 x 36"

The Housatonic River Initiative (HRI), a non-profit coalition of Berkshire County residents, was formed in 1992 to work to reclaim the Housatonic River system from years of neglect and decades of toxic PCB contamination.

We are conservationists, sportsmen and women, scientists, and homeowners whose land has been polluted. The more we have learned, the more we have realized what a large task we have set for ourselves, and the wider our scope of activities has become. HRI is working to restore the Housatonic River and its floodplain as a major community asset, a river safe to fish and swim.

HRI wants to reintroduce the residents of Berkshire County to the actual and potential beauty of the Housatonic River by promoting environmental education about the river in area schools and colleges as well as keep our local political leaders, and members of local Boards of Selectmen, Health, and Conservation Commissions aware of the many complicated issues involved in the cleanup process.

HRI has been an advocate with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the United States Environmental Protection Agency for a timely and effective and comprehensive PCB cleanup, with strong public participation in all aspects of the negotiating and decision-making process.

Tim Gray HRI’s Executive Director and the Housatonic Riverkeeper

Jim Schantz Winter Housatonic Sunset 2016, Oil on canvas 14 x 18"

Jim Schantz Jim Schantz has been painting the Western Mass landscape since he moved to the area in 1982. Schantz is best known for his staggering land, sea, and skyscapes that frame and share emotion as well as outdoor scenes. His work confronts the viewer with the sublimity of nature. Sometimes subtle and tranquil, sometimes tempestuous, Schantz’s paintings ponder through the depths of human feeling, each eliciting an immediate, almost primal reaction. Although influenced by a Romanticist appreciation for the greatness of nature, and a hint of Fauvist color-boldness, Schantz’s art never capitulates to gloom or agitation. Portraying mood with variations in light, he renders strong emotion, concealing and revealing in turn through careful layers of oil paint, through the coloration of each cloud and the twist of each rivulet. Schantz’s work imparts his vision, instilling in any observer the admiration and reverence for nature that he so tangibly experiences.

Schantz studied at the Hornsey School of Art at the Middlesex Polytechnic Institute in London and Syracuse University in New York, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BFA in painting (1977). After attending the Brooklyn Museum School and then the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Schantz went on to attain his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of California – Davis (1981). He has exhibited internationally and throughout the United States. His works can be found in many public collections, including the Berkshire Museum, Center for Spiritual Life at Emerson College, Lowe Art Museum, Syracuse University, the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Massachusetts, Nelson Museum, U.C. Davis, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Skidmore College, Simon’s Rock of Bard College, and University of Massachusetts. Schantz’s paintings have been featured in exhibitions at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, the Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, the Albany Institute of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum and the Berkshire Museum.

Jim Schantz Summer Housatonic Reflection 2017, Oil on canvas 48 x 48"

Jim Schantz Crescent River Twilight 2017, Oil on canvas 24 x 24"

The central mission of this exhibition project is to continue to raise awareness of the beauty and importance of the river environment and offer opportunities to educate on how we can protect this valuable resource. The three month exhibition will include an educational component to present programs with environmentalists who can speak about protecting our water and air, and offer ways to be proactive in this regard.

Additionally, half of the net proceeds of the sale of each painting will be donated equally to the Housatonic Valley Association and Riverkeeper. These organizations are both actively working to protect and preserve the Housatonic and Hudson Rivers.

Credits: Published 2017 by Silver City Design and Publication Layout: Rose Tannenbaum Essay: Jeanne Koles All images are copyrighted to the artist and used here with permission.

In Association with The Housatonic River Initiative The Housatonic Valley Association and Riverkeeper

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The River Art Project at Stockbridge Station 2 Depot Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts 01262 Tel: 413-298-5163 www.riverartproject.com