Calendars Still Available
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The artwork for the 2023 annual Woodward calendar to benefit the Buckland Historical Society has been selected and calendars are now available! While there was no specific theme intended for this year's calendar. One revealed itself after it was assembled.
Twelve never-before-used and new paintings will be featured, encompassing a full range of Woodward's work. The chosen title for the calendar will be...
"Everlasting New England"
The name has two inspirations. The first is the title of the exhibit that was previously featured at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, "The Living Landscape"- a descriptive phrase illustrating Woodward's use of poetic effect in all of his work. The second inspiration is the philosophical principle behind Woodward's objective to portray things as they are without any embellishment.
Woodward held a fascination with evolution, particularly the principles of Darwin's natural selection. So much so, that Woodward once named a mare he owned during his Hiram Woodward years, "Tsune". Tsune (soo-ney) is an ancient Japanese Kanji character meaning, "always" in everyday usage. But in a strict philosophical sense, it means, "everlasting" in a specifically sempiternal and temporal sense. That is, being faithful to time alone.
For the sake of brevity, it means that while a leopard may evolve and change its spots, it is still at its essence a leopard. The same can be said of New England. As much as things appear to change, they also unequivocally stay the same! In assembling the paintings for this year's calendars we realized that each scene is one, which on any given day driving through Western Massachusetts, can be found seemingly unchanged from Woodward's time.
This is critically important to understanding Woodward. Audiences in his time, as we still do to this day, look at his work through the eye of sentimentality. We view his work as "pastoral", a time gone by and passed. Woodward was actually capturing New England, as it is and always will be... The everlasting and constant present moment. The now and future that endures because New England can't be anything else than what it is. No more than Woodward can be anything other than the artist he became.
Brian Charles Miller, Robert Strong Woodward Website Developer
Twelve never-before-used and new paintings will be featured, encompassing a full range of Woodward's work. The chosen title for the calendar will be...
"Everlasting New England"
The name has two inspirations. The first is the title of the exhibit that was previously featured at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, "The Living Landscape"- a descriptive phrase illustrating Woodward's use of poetic effect in all of his work. The second inspiration is the philosophical principle behind Woodward's objective to portray things as they are without any embellishment.
Woodward held a fascination with evolution, particularly the principles of Darwin's natural selection. So much so, that Woodward once named a mare he owned during his Hiram Woodward years, "Tsune". Tsune (soo-ney) is an ancient Japanese Kanji character meaning, "always" in everyday usage. But in a strict philosophical sense, it means, "everlasting" in a specifically sempiternal and temporal sense. That is, being faithful to time alone.
For the sake of brevity, it means that while a leopard may evolve and change its spots, it is still at its essence a leopard. The same can be said of New England. As much as things appear to change, they also unequivocally stay the same! In assembling the paintings for this year's calendars we realized that each scene is one, which on any given day driving through Western Massachusetts, can be found seemingly unchanged from Woodward's time.
This is critically important to understanding Woodward. Audiences in his time, as we still do to this day, look at his work through the eye of sentimentality. We view his work as "pastoral", a time gone by and passed. Woodward was actually capturing New England, as it is and always will be... The everlasting and constant present moment. The now and future that endures because New England can't be anything else than what it is. No more than Woodward can be anything other than the artist he became.
Brian Charles Miller, Robert Strong Woodward Website Developer
Pick up your copies at the following locations:
Boswell's Books, 10 Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls, MA
Buckland Public Library, 30 Upper Street, Buckland, MA
Nancy L. Dole Used Books & Ephemera, 20 State Street, Shelburne Falls, MA
Andy's and the Oak Shop, 352 Deerfield Street, Greenfield, MA
Order online HERE!
