Art Drop #18: Golden Hill

Acknowledge the struggle and just keep noticing.

Come along with me to Golden Hill, and let’s just linger here for a few paragraphs and enjoy the view. It reminds me of Northumberland, the part of England where Tom is from. Often there are cows in this pasture, mist in the valley and birdsong in the air.

I find this place to be peaceful, and I’m not the only one. On each visit I pass people out on their morning walk or run who stop and pause periodically to take their phones out of their pockets and capture a photograph. They too have found a place that is special to them and we nod and smile to each other in acknowledgement of this shared fact.

The cows that graze this pasture are sometimes distant, dotting the landscape, and sometimes close by the road. They look on with curiosity at the human covering her face with her camera and the click click click of each press of the shutter. These cows have no understanding of the political dread, tension and fear swirling through this country and how it all hinders the creative output of this photographer. They soon lose interest in me and go back to their forage.

On another morning while I was crouching awkwardly at a low angle capturing some details as photographers will often do, a kestrel flew impossibly close by and I stood up and watched as it made its way across the pasture. That kestrel couldn’t care less about the lurking feelings of grief that have imbued my Octobers for some twelve years (and counting) since my Dad died and for a moment the kestrel took the awareness of my grief on its wing.

To Golden Hill I would come with anxiety, glumness and angst, and from Golden Hill I would leave with less of it. I brought my camera to it again and again because I had a suspicion that I could also come away with something special if the light was right, if the subject was ripe and if my creative eye could see through the murk I was mired in.

Art Drop #18

All the photographs in today’s newsletter were taken in this one specific spot in Lee, Massachusetts but only one was worthy of being our 18th art drop, a photograph I made with stirrings of joy and astonishment that I had happened upon this maple tree right at its peak of gold on Golden Hill.

Golden Tree on Golden Hill
Lee, MA, USA
by Diana Pappas

Prints of this photograph are only available through November 7, 2024, with no further production of this work for at least a year. To learn more about the paper, sizes, and pricing click the button below to visit the art drop page on our website.

Thanks for accompanying me to Golden Hill today. I hope you will leave it with a little less of that which doesn’t serve you. Tomorrow (November 2nd, 2024) Tom and I will be in Great Barrington at BSRCC for their annual Fall Arts & Crafts Fair from 11am-3pm with a table full of prints available. We’re looking forward to introducing our work to our new community!

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