Beginning February 2nd and running all month, the Conservancy invites you to our annual Heart Hike where we hike hearts on the Gramwick Trail, part of the Mountain Brook Reservoir property in Jaffrey. This year we added a little twist by commissioning local artists to design the hearts. We had six artists participate this year, and we wanted to give you a little more information about these talented folks who lent their time and talent to make the Heart Hike extra special.
Jeanne Thieme - fine artist
Born in Oak Park, Illinois with a family of eight, we migrated to Stamford, Connecticut where I spent most of my childhood years. My home away from home became Southern Connecticut State University where I received my Bachelor of Science in Art Education. Upon graduation my art career began in illustration and design in a Connecticut art studio. Always yearning for a more rural, quiet life I soon found myself in New Hampshire where I freelanced with local art studios, then eventually began teaching Art at the local high school. After rewarding years teaching and administering as Fine Art Department Chair, I left teaching to pursue a career of a full time artist in my own studio/gallery on Pipe Dream Farm in Swanzey, New Hampshire. My energy ever since has been devoted to my passion of painting.
Debra Stevens - fine artist
My interest in Art is one of my earliest memories. I was fascinated by my Mother's ability to magically create an owl or flower with just a few simple lines.
The natural world continues to captivate and stir my soul - the endless variety of tinted skies and cloud formations, trees, flowers, animals, as well as the beauty of the human face and figure. I am challenged to show how I am moved by that scene, the light, that expression, through detailed realism, and I love doing commissioned portraits of people and pets for that reason.
As a departure from this way of working, I also paint introspective "landscapes". These are intuitive pieces, often based on an emotion or life experience. They are personal and immersive, a deep dive that connects me to a larger creative consciousness.
Preferred mediums: Pastel, watercolor, colored pencil
BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio
Conducted drawing and painting workshops for adults and children and have shown work in Ohio and New Hampshire.
Mary Iselin - fine artist
“The longer I paint, the more I feel that the point is to just keep painting. Techniques can be learned, but it is my job as an artist to be standing there with a paint brush in my hand when Inspiration comes through. And painting is all I really want to do.” Mary Iselin’s paintings are luminous and filled with light. She paints draft horses, sheep, cattle and landscapes the way some artists would paint a bowl of fruit: to explore light, color, and atmosphere—especially spiritual atmosphere.
Alicia K. Drakiotes - fine artist
I Paint – because my spirit calls me – to capture the site and senses that surround me.
Paint is the material that represents the world outside myself. In my efforts to capture the likeness, I am trying to find a way to reconcile the physical struggle with paint to a narrative impulse to represent the personal. Through working with observed imagery, all of my senses, and some other mysterious element, I am trying to create believable worlds on the canvas or surface. The culmination – I try to relay to the viewer the joy, wonder, color and force of nature which surrounds us in each of my art works. Utilizing color, painterly techniques and sensitivity to the subject matter allows me to portray the “sense of place” and emotions that I interpret from my subjects.
Ben Cosgrove - musician
Ben Cosgrove is a traveling composer, pianist, and multi-instrumentalist based in northern New England. He performs regularly all over the country, presenting a unique variety of original instrumental music that explores themes of landscape, geography, and environment while straddling a line between the folk and classical genres. “Geography is Cosgrove’s muse,” writes the Boston Globe. “Like a sonic plein-air painter, [he] uses his piano as a paintbrush — and he’s made a name for himself doing it.” Ben’s “electric and exhilarating” solo piano performances are at once dazzling and intimate: music that has been described as “stunning” and “compelling and powerful,” — Red Line Roots has called him “stupidly talented” — all presented with “warmth, humor, honesty, and the easy familiarity of a troubadour.” Sound of Boston described him as "an expert at painting sonic portraits of curious, unexpected places."
Julie Waltrip - poet
Julie is a poet from the Monadnock region who writes beautiful expositions on the nature of love and life. Enjoy her poem in three parts!