ARTIST STATEMENT:

Just when director Carolyn Thow was organizing the Tewksbury estate into a community center, I chanced upon Whittmore. I was hunting for a local site where I might get almost lost observing nature. I'm a photographer, and I love making landscape images in newly discovered locations. 

 

In this slightly sequestered, woodsy acreage, I found a little haven where I could spend time exploring for the unusual and the natural, looking for the light and the dark, focusing on the clear and the foggy. Outside. In all kinds of weather and in all four seasons. Alas, there were trails and clearings, and a variety of terrains and trees, and snags, and understory, and wildlife and birds, and random hikers - and a place to use the bathroom. 

 

After an engaging conversation with the then-new director, Carolyn, who elaborated on some additional attribute, I was hooked. She described the music and dining events, art shows and classes, orienteering, yoga sessions, etc. We quickly determined that we shared mission values, particularly those in the motto, Community, Culture and Conservation - and that I might make a good in-house photographer! Since that happenstance 5 years ago, I have seen Whittemore grow into a unique center, providing fun, thoughtful activities, and a locale for this evolving center. Happily, we have been unfolding and flourishing together; I plan to continue documenting WCCC and enjoying its gifts into the next 5 years!