A 19th century landscape by Thomas Cole of a view of the Connecticut River from the top of Mt. Holyoke was the inspiration for a group art show the last weekend of August and the first weekend of September.
The Summit Show is installed along connecting hiking trails.
Along an increasingly steep walk, 40 paintings, sculptures and built objects were put in place astride several trails, leading up to the mountain's summit, with more art inside an historic building at top.
Numerically, the show begins at the base of Mt. Holyoke in Skinner State Park. Each work of art is briefly described in a printed guide.
'The Snail' up on a tree
The first piece hikers see, if starting at the base, is a painting in green hues of a large face filling the canvas, looking at a snail shell. It's hung about ten feet up on a tree.
The painter, western Massachusetts artist Hannah Rust, happened to be hiking on the Summit Show's opening day, along with her mother.
“I usually work in oil and I paint a lot of portraits of the unseen and portraits of landscapes,” Rust said, standing at almost the halfway point of the show.
Coincidentally she said, long before she heard about the Summit Show, she painted “Snail,” imagining it hanging on a tree, though this is Rust's first showing of her art placed outdoors she said.
“There's something about the white wall of a gallery where your attention is so directed at that one piece,” Rust said. “Art is speaking to things that we can't always see, and I think that conversation can happen more with the environment – and more with people in the woods,” she added.
'The actual landscape is ...part of this art show'
Higher up on the trail, Julia van Ijken and Lena McCarthy were making their way down from the summit.
McCarthy was wearing sandals, van Ijken was wearing Crocs
“I’m actually really not a very good hiker,” van Ijken said. “So there's been a lot of panting and swearing internally,” she joked, defending her shoes.
While van Ijken may not be a good hiker, as she claimed, she is an artist and she said she appreciated where and how pieces were installed.
“Did you see that little spot down there where there was a tiny little painting in this field of flowers? And then there was a house in the distance. It was kind of a similar shape to the painting,” van Ijken said adding, “the actual landscape is kind of becoming a part of this art show.”
That insight is in step with Charlotte Kohlmann’s vision of the Summit Show.
She conceived and designed the installation, hoping people will be prompted to think about the landscape Thomas Cole painted in 1836 and how that landscape has changed — and will continue to change.
Full circle, first the Swamp Show
In her work as a book and ephemera printer and in her other shows, Kohlmann has spent several years referring to Cole’s painting as a way to consider the history of place and how that history is relayed.
Four years ago Cole's "Oxbow” inspired her to create a group art show, in and along a cove in the Connecticut River.
“The idea for the Swamp Show in 2021 was to have an art show inside of the painting,” Kohlmann said.
The Summit Show is a complement to that.
“If you fast forward a couple of years to present day, the idea for the Summit Show is to have an exhibition from the point of view of [Thomas Cole’s] lookout, and to get people to come to the perspective of where [he] painted,” Kohlmann said.
The Hudson River School of painting, then and now
Earlier this week, Selby Nimrod wrote in the Boston Art Review, that she found herself grappling with the Summit Show's "seemingly un-problematized relationship to history."
Nimrod said while viewing the Summit Show, "I found myself grappling with the presentation’s relationship to [the historical trappings of Cole's time].
That "[t]he contemporary reception of this era of landscape painting acknowledges how these images inspired nationalism and employed visual conventions of domination (aerial views, for example) to fix the landscape in a settler-colonial gaze," Nimrod wrote.
The Center for Public Art History uses Cole's "Oxbow" as a way to illustrate American expansionism.
"At first glance this painting may seem to be nothing more than an interesting view of a recognizable bend in the Connecticut River. But when viewed through the lens of nineteenth-century political ideology, this painting eloquently speaks about the widely discussed topic of westward expansion," Bryan J. Zygmont wrote.
As an art history student, Kohlmann has also "grappled" with the era in which Cole painted.
She and her sister (artist Emma Kohlmann) live near the Connecticut River oxbow. They've hiked the multiple trails up to the Mt. Holyoke summit many times — seeing the allure and complexity of what Cole saw, almost 200 years later built up with an interstate, industry and tall buildings.
'Kind of a scavenger hunt'
Last weekend, on the first day of the the Summit Show, some hikers were unaware of the painting or even the event underway, though they were enjoying the unexpected art along the trails.
Others knew about the show and several people said the Summit Show and map were motivating – like a game.
“Kind of like a scavenger hunt,” said hiker Jenny Olins. “You're looking forward to the next one.”
The art show brought something new to a walk in the woods she said.
Stumps were used for placement of sculptures and several ceramic woodland creatures. Really large art pieces made of pine, metal and other materials were suspended from nearly invisible nylon wire or sometimes very obvious roping (no nails were put through tree trunks).
Some art, depending on its structure, was on the ground; pieces stood on their own alongside saplings and whatever else was growing in a chosen location.
Each piece was given a name and listed on the map, but its meaning was up for interpretation, like the landscape itself.
Photographer Lele Saveri and a group of friends were standing for a few moments near an enormous glacial rock, as big as a small house, known as the Devil’s Football.
The group drove up for the show from New York City. Saveri has a piece installed on a tree, which he hadn't yet seen.
“It’s a photograph of four people hugging. I wanted to do something that kind of felt like it was hugging nature or a tree,” Saveri said.
The image is black and white and printed on canvas. It’s hanging from a thick braided rope – wrapped around a tree.
It was so enjoyable to see art in nature, Saveri and others said, as opposed to a museum or gallery.
Shoes matter and accessibility
Saveri's only regret he said was how he and his friends dressed for the day.
“The hike is not easy. We should have been wearing hiking boots, but we didn’t, thinking that it was going to make us look too from out of town,” Saveri said and adding “we actually look more from out of town for not wearing hiking boots”
The Summit Show is on display along the trails of Mt. Holyoke again, tomorrow and Sunday.
Kohlmann said she was concerned about accessibility to the show.
In a social media post she wrote, "this hike may not be suitable for all levels of mobility but there is something for everyone. Visitors can skip the hike and drive directly up to the summit. There is a wheelchair accessible ramp and you can enjoy artwork surrounding the summit and inside the summit house."
Still, if you're taking the trails, some hikers from last weekend might recommend choosing the right shoes.