CONNECTICUT RIVER, EARLY JUNE, watercolor on paper, 10×14
MY LOVE AFFAIR with the Connecticut River goes back more than 40 years, when I was founding editor of Momentum, a weekly features magazine of the daily Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire (I later became the daily’s features editor).
My magazine, New England Watershed, was organized around the Connecticut River, from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound. The magazine, “A Journal of Culture, Arts, and Ideas,” was named best new publication of 2006 by Utne Reader.
I have lived within the Connecticut’s watershed since 1980, in Plainfield, New Hampshire, and Amherst, Massachusetts, and worked at numerous stops along the way.
For the past 20-plus years, I lived within a mile of the river in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and in 2018 I gave a Brook Hollow Arts presentation, “What Does it Mean to Live Near a River?”
The river runs deep. For several summers I rowed a crew shell on the river, and I have made the pilgrimage to its shores hundreds of times. I photograph and paint the river while standing on it shore, and also in my studio, its impression indelible.
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BROOK HOLLOW PRESS will have books, DVDs, and watercolors by Russell Steven Powell, many of them begun on the shores of the Connecticut River, at the 𝗥𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝘇𝗮𝗮𝗿, 92 Race Street, Holyoke, Sunday, February 19, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Among the works by Brook Hollow authors will be Christine Copeland’s children’s books, Seasons in the Forest and Have You Seen the Ghost of John? (a Readers’ Choice award winner), and signed copies of the poetry volumes After the Rain and Season of Dreams, by Jonathan A. Wright, and his book, Living Building Makers, which tells the story of the R. W. Kern Center, the revolutionary green building on the Hampshire College campus.
Powell, whose books include America’s Apple, Apples of New England, My Interview with James Baldwin, and Molly’s 17 Rules for Living, will also have DVDs of Shack Time, his award-winning documentary about the artist shacks in the dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
His watercolors range in size from 9×12 to 12×16, and are available both framed and unframed.
Credit cards, PayPal, and Venmo accepted.
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THE RACE STREET BAZAAR features a variety of artwork, vinyl, clothing, and more, Sundays through February in the large music hall at Gateway City Arts.
Judd’s Restaurant is open for Sunday brunch next door, also from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Gateway City’s Bistro is open for coffee, tea, soda, snacks, and pastries.
To get to Gateway City Arts, take Exit 15 on I-91 and head straight down the hill on Route 141 East for 2.5 miles. Gateway City Arts is just beyond the Children’s Museum, in the heart of Holyoke’s historic canal district, within walking distance of Holyoke’s Train Station. There is free on-street parking.
Visit gatewaycityarts.com for more information and a schedule of events.
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A collaborative publisher of fine books for curious minds
on the environment, the arts, and the Connecticut River watershed.
Learn more at brookhollowpress.org
