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| Volume 2, Number 2 |
February 2009 |
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| This month The News from New England Modern is good: spring is coming. Here in the Berkshires, sometime in the middle of February, it finally registers that the daylight is longer, the sun is higher, and a warmer season approaches--in just the same way that, sometime about mid-August, the distant canopy suddenly looks a little threadbare, perhaps dry, and an autumnal frisson hits all at once. At this turn, now, we're thinking ahead to spring, and woodwork in the garden, outdoors. |
 Flowergate
We built this garden gate last summer for a show at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts (www.nrm.org).
The photo to the right shows the new gate installed, with iron hinges and ring latch forged by our frequent collaborator Will Trowbridge, of Sharon, Connecticut (phone 860-364-5973). It spent the summer there on the museum grounds above the Housatonic River, basking in the sun and soaking up the rain. The wood is black locust throughout, a naturally durable native species long used for the posts and rails of fences around New England farms and gardens. The gate has no finish or preservative, and the surface of this wood, with time, will weather to a uniform grey. The flowers and their stems are colored with milk paint. As expected, they wilted some over the long summer season, and when we brought the gate into our showroom at 70 Railroad Street in Great Barrington last fall, for a winter rest, the blossoms were looking decidedly peaked.
This week, anticipating spring, we gave the flowers a fresh coat of paint. Faded (left) and refreshed (right), they looked like this:
The repainted gate, not yet a year into its long life (and available for sale at our Great Barrington showroom), stands here outside the shop, anchored in the snow against a seasonal background:
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Over the years, New England Modern gates have taken their places in a variety of Berkshire landscapes. As seen in these photos, a dragon guards the entry to a kitchen garden surrounded by a low stone wall, while an image of the  Buddha contemplates the scene from the far end. In an open meadow, next to a dwelling that was once a barn (and is just beyond the frame of the picture here), the line of a dooryard gate rises and falls in a reflection of the hills beyond. The wide opening in a stone wall built by our colleague Mark Mendel (www.montereymasonry.com) was designed for occasional vehicular traffic, and is closed by an arched double-leaf gate with hewn pickets. It latches to the ground in the center.
Some who own our outdoor woodwork are quite meticulous about maintenance, and renew a finish so faithfully that the bright color of freshly hewn locust hardly ever fades. In the case of a small garden gate, it may be lifted off its hinges as the growing season ends, to spend the winter indoors and emerge in spring refinished and ready again to face the elements. The owners of some gates with no finish at all just leave the work alone, and as lichen grows on the greyed surface of this naturally durable wood, it can be surprising how sound the locust remains underneath.
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Hard Thinking
So we anticipate spring, and contemplate the changes wrought by passing time. We're only human--and only humans seem to do this, so we might as well embrace it. Of course, then we turn right around and make our best effort to stay focused, to live in the present. That's all there really is, right?
Well, if we're going to spend time on The Big Questions in the midst of global crisis, my suggestion is, Get comfortable first. Pull up a pair of New England Modern Berkchairs (to be featured in a future newsletter), and open a bottle of good wine in the company of your favorite companion. Then you might be ready.
That has to be what Marita and David Glodt had in mind when they sent me this photo, taken early last fall at their home here in the Berkshires on Onota Lake.
From the depths of winter, best always,
PS Remember, at New England Modern we produce furniture, architectural woodwork, landscape woodwork, and accessories. Commissions are always welcome, and we will ship anything anywhere. Visit our website www.newenglandmodern.com to see the full range of what we make. And stop by our showroom! It's at 70 Railroad Street in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and although we spend most of our time making things, we're there every Saturday 11 - 4, and are happy to meet you there any time by appointment. Call the showroom Saturdays at 413-717-2530, or call us at the shop, 413-528-9937. | |
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