A college class on the American Landscape inspires a visit to Acadia National Park more than 10 years later.
View of Acadia's "Fiard" from Flying Mountain (May 2023)
Acadia National Park
Paul and I made the trip to Acadia during Memorial Day weekend, spending two nights at the Bay Meadows Cottages on Salisbury Cove. The cove had a grassy area to sit and was a great place for stand-up paddle boarding. (The fridge with purchase as you go ice cream and blueberry pie was a lovely touch.)
Salisbury Cove (May 2023) Finally visiting a national park I had first learned about in college felt surreal. Although only an 8 hour drive away from my NY hometown, Acadia always looked worlds away on a map.
Like many other visitors who visit Acadia, we started off a few well known hikes such as a rock climb/scramble up the Beehive. Although it was a Sunday of the long weekend, the trail was not as busy when we started around 5:30 pm.
First Overlook from the Beehive Trail (May 2023) With only a few hours until the sun set, the landscape took on that golden hour glow. Climbing up exposed rocks under a less intense sun was also a plus.
Beehive Summit (May 2023)
Despite my fear of heights, I did relatively well on the rock scrambles. Although I technically did not heed the sign's warning that shows up prominently at the bottom of the trail: "SMALL CHILDREN AND PEOPLE WITH A FEAR OF HEIGHTS SHOULD NOT USE THIS TRAIL."
BeeHive Trail Warning Sign (May 2023)
There were a few sections of the trail I will admit where I felt paralyzed and had to force myself to continue. This happened during one particular section that did not include much room for multiple people to pass.
If you are afraid of heights, you can empathize with the irrational (maybe not quite irrational) fear, where your stomach feels like it is on a rollercoaster. You realize that you cannot look anywhere else except where you are climbing for fear of that feeling in your stomach rising again. Funny enough, I even experienced a brief feeling of claustrophobia, despite the too many open spaces where you could actually fall.
The American Landscape Class I originally signed up for a class titled "The American Landscape" back at Elmira College because I had then planned to major in environmental studies; this would count as an elective. (I changed around my majors and minors at least four times.)
There was one problem, though. I was a freshman and the class was only available to juniors and seniors. I had to prove why I should join the class.
I will never forget wandering Elmira's to Dr. Mitchell's office. (I could have chosen another word besides wandering as this makes my campus seem much larger than it actually is.) When I walked in to his office, I remembered saying something to the effect of, "I'm Kathleen and I am here to explain why you should admit me to your upper level class." His response was something to the effect of, "You're in the wrong place." Oddly determined (or stubborn) that day, or more likely very confused, I sat down in the chair and said I was in the right place. It was then I realized the professor was only joking and potentially testing me. I was allowed to take the class.
National Park Poster (Link) The class focused on the landscape painters from the Hudson River School, starting with Thomas Cole (1801-1848) a Scottish emigrant through Frederick Church (1826-1900) and other peers. A few lessons went into detail on the planning and building of great parks, such as Central Park. Other sections depicted the role of artists in promoting tourism and the development of National Parks, including Acadia.
Frederic Edwin Church, Newport Mountain, Mount Desert, 1851. Oil on canvas, 21¼ x 31¼ inches. Private collection, promised gift. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Link)
Olana (Hudson, NY)
I was already familiar with the Hudson River School, including Church. My family had visited Church's home in Hudson, NY, a beautiful estate called Olana. Church chose the location for his Moorish and Italianate-style home because the view was essentially a landscape painting: the expanding Hudson River in front of the sometimes sharp Catskill Mountains.
View from Olana's Front Porch of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains (September 2022)
My family and I first visited Olana on a warm summer day in the mid-to-late 2000s. I remember sitting on a sunny bench, on a swirling path that traced its way from the highest point of the property down towards the old carriage roads. Church designed the carriage roads to ensure that his guests had a stunning first view of the property and home.
While on that bench, I thought back to something my grandpa's cousin had said to my sister and I when she stopped by after a family reunion.
Virginia, then in her late 80s, was a straight-to-the-point person. In elementary school, my only memory of that interaction was her saying definitively, "You girls should paint." (Virginia herself was an accomplished painter and was almost certainly insinuating that the Kopaskie genes included some natural artistic ability.)
Years later I thought of this interaction as I daydreamed about how nice it would be to set up an easel and paint on the grounds. When Dr Mitchell asked the class if anyone had ever visited Olana, I was the sole person to raise their hand.
Front Facade of Olana (September 2022)
Frederick Church in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
Fast forward years later to visiting the Detroit Institute of Art, or the DIA, and seeing Church's paintings. One was of Syria, albeit a landscape that does not quite exist but using Roman ruins and the Syrian landscape as inspiration. The other painting was of Cotopaxi, the Ecuadorian volcano not far from Quito.
Frederick Church's "Cotopaxi"; A Copy on Display at the Evans Terminal at DTW (June 2023)
I now had a personal connection to Church's Cotopaxi painting as I had spent a month working in the U.S. Embassy in Quito back in the mid-2010s.
While in Ecuador, I saw Cotopaxi from a distance whenever I was on higher ground in Quito. A colleague and I also hiked to base camp, at a low elevation of 15,748 feet above sea level.
The volcano itself was shrouded in fog during our hike, but I remember the quickening heart rate as I sang U2's "Elevation" to myself and the reward of locro de papa, an Ecuadorian potato soup, at the high elevation cafe.
As a keepsake, I bought a small painting of Cotopaxi at a weekly Saturday art market in El Ejido. I haggled in Spanish for any paintings I thought I could easily bring back on my return flight (which was not many). This small painting has since hung in a Baltimore apartment and a 1930s Tudor home in Detroit.
Small Oil Painting of Cotopaxi (2017) From seeing landscapes painted by Frederick Church of Acadia to volcanos in Ecuador, to seeing those paintings in my then adopted city of Detroit, things feel as though they are connected by an invisible string.
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