Swedish Pancake Breakfast

No problem, Tim

Crackerjacks, Rockport, Mass., Oct. 2022

November Rocks

White light, pink light, yellow light, sky. Big rock moods Nov. 14-16, 2020

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A smile path helps wildlife.

Walk around or pause if you can. We’re lucky to have tiny shorebirds visit beaches during fall migration.

Deborah Cramer describes impact of shorebird disturbances (specifically to red knots)

(Red knots) “feed amid congestion, constantly interrupted by the commotion of off-road vehicles, dogs and people. Forced to take flight repeatedly, they lose precious refueling time. Minutes lost during one ebb tide on one day accumulate into hour upon hour as the season continues. So many times I’d walk the beaches at home, unconsciously flushing flocks of sandpipers at the tide line, taking pleasure as they circled out over the water and then landed farther down the beach, never thinking that disturbing them might make a difference.” 

Deborah Cramer The Narrow Edge

photo below: Sanderlings, semipalmated plovers and semipalmated sandpipers dashing along Long Beach 9/22/2020. Dogs rushing at the birds flush them 100%. Wider smile path with your pet can really help. Ditto looking ahead before tossing a ball inadvertently in the direction of a flock. They’re hard to see. If you spot them and have time, pause to enjoy the tiny touch down marvels. The increase August-October is migration.

Long Beach | August sunrise

 

 

Signs of the times: Blume coffee and bakery clever design tweaks for customer and staff safety during Covid-19 #RockportMA

Rockport, Mass.

Clever reopening design at Blume. Customers step up to a custom order booth tucked into the door frame; the pick up window was moved to the right. Bakery goods are displayed in the windows. The signature pink floor shines through.

 

I hope they add pink lanterns to the tree 🙂

NEW Business in a business: Ken and Regina Lane Raise the Bar at Seaview Farm Wine Room curated by Paige Farrell #CapeAnnEats #RockportMA

Raising the Bar!

Explore a great and diverse wine list expertly built out for a specialty farm stand amid the natural beauty of Cape Ann.

Seaview Farm NEW wine (and craft beer)  room will open to the public Wednesday, August 5th, 2020, and along with the farmstand, will be open seven days a week from 11-6. The farmstand opens at 10am.

Learn more about the  selection  from Ken and Regina Lane, Seaview Farm owners (first photo), and Paige Farrell, Wine Curator (second photo) below:

 

About the wines at Seaview Farm

Bringing wine and craft beer to the Seaview Farm Store provides a wonderful opportunity to further enhance the selection of our own grass-fed beef, specialty foods, and other farm products. As owners of Seaview Farm, we worked closely with wine curator Paige Farrell as she carefully selected wines, which would resonate with the space itself — a room in the farmhouse that has been in our family for nearly 200 years.

Paige took a classic approach, setting the wines of France and Italy as the foundation; and then sourcing synonym wines from alternate European countries, as well as from the Finger Lakes in New York State, and the vineyards of California, Oregon and Washington. – Ken and Regina Lane

The selection of wines on offer is just a taste for all that is to come, as the Seaview Farm Store continues to develop as one of Cape Ann’s local culinary treasures. We are delighted that the combination of our farmhouse setting and Paige Farrell’s experience and passion for wines of the world means that our customers will have a selection of wines worthy of this beautiful region.”

– Ken & Regina Lane, owners, Seaview Farm, and Paige Farrell, wine curator for Seaview Farm, Freelance Writer, Fine Wine and Hospitality Consultant, WSET Advanced Certification, Wine and Spirits; Diploma, 2020

 

About Paige Farrell

Paige Farrell has worked with fine wine for over twenty years, including at two Relais & Chateau properties. She has collaborated with Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand at the renowned Tru in Chicago, and with Barbara Lynch at Menton in Boston. In addition, she works with major corporate clients as the public relations, marketing and event manager for the Boston wine trade. For individual clients, she curates wine selections for private wine cellars. As a wine writer, Paige writes regularly for Northshore Magazine, and has written for The SOMM Journal, ELYSIAN Magazine, and several other publications. She has taught extensively about wine.

” Wine is more than a beverage to me. It’s a gentle chameleon; a muse connecting food to drink to family to friends to places to times; a portal to a slower pace and  — perhaps most especially — a poetic pause.” – Paige Farrell

Paige will be available to hire for private events, tastings, and personalized wine selections from the farm shop. She can be contacted at farrellpaige@gmail.com. Her website is www.paigemckeonfarrell.com.

Paige Farrell holds a BA in French from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with studies at Paris-Sorbonne University, Paris, France and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Presently, she is a Diploma Candidate with the prestigious Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET). She is also a photographer, and has exhibited at Jane Deering Gallery and Flatrocks Gallery, both in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

 

Long Beach Cape Hedge Twin Lights

Beach Day! New safety signs at Long Beach #RockportMA. Residents only at Good Harbor Beach #GloucesterMA

Scenes from Long Beach

views from both the Rockport and Gloucester ends at about high noon (tide heading out)

Cape Ann SUP is set up renting paddle boards and lessons at Long Beach by the Cape Ann Motor Inn, and the Cow Mobile Ice Cream Truck. Dominic is too modest to mention but we know that he keeps an eye out there beyond his clients and has rescued swimmers. The rip tide sign reflects the corner of the cove. There was a rescue covered in the Gloucester Daily Times this week, “Friends pull 5 from riptide“. Afterwards a lifeguard chair has been relocated closer to this side and a new sign added at the entrance.

 

Scenes from Good Harbor Beach

about 11 and again at 4pm

Happy Fourth! Flags and porches along the Long Beach boardwalk ‘Little Boulevard’

A ‘little boulevard’ – flags and porches, front cottages, Long Beach summer

and bonus red,white,blue thanks to glass fishing floats 

signs of the times: Long Beach 2020 boardwalk staircases going up!

Installation views this morning

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“They stay in for 10 minutes,” in April snow showers this morning! Long Beach #GloucesterMA #RockportMA ❄️🌅

 

Snowing at sunrise for about an hour 4/16/2020

#snowrise

Long Beach a daylight savings sunrise worth every…

Gloucester edge of Long beach

Betty Allenbrook Wiberg is the Cape Ann Reads Invited Artist #RockportMA | Pine needles, foam, playhouses and gnomes – custom toys, miniatures and games spanning 1969-2019

Presented by the four libraries of Cape Ann, the group exhibit, Once Upon a Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads, featuring original children’s picture books, is on display at the Rockport Public Library until February 29, 2020. Rockport is the 5th and final stop and hosting a reception on February 29th at 11am. At each venue, a Cape Ann Reads participating artist was invited to create a special temporary installation. Betty Allenbrook Wiberg is the Cape Ann Reads Invited Artist for Rockport. The show is made possible with support including the Bruce J. Anderson Foundation.

BETTY ALLENBROOK WIBERG

Pine needles, foam, playhouses and gnomes – custom family toys, miniatures and games from the artist’s archives and attic spanning 1969-2019

The Invited Artist for the Rockport stop of the travel show Once Upon a Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads is Betty Allenbrook Wiberg, a long-time Rockport artist and resident and former Bearskin Neck gallery owner. Wiberg has installed original toys she’s made over 50 years inside a display case and Children’s Room at the Rockport Public Library. Made by hand with love out of common materials found at home and in nature– like paper, foam core, seeds and acorn caps– these personalized toys were inspired by her children and grandchildren’s favorite books, hobbies and changing interests. In particular she chose examples of characters and worlds brought to life from the pages of books. Wiberg hopes the menagerie of custom toys for those dear to her will engage young and old alike and inspire ideas to try at home with any ready materials at hand.

As Wiberg placed acorn cap people within the display case, she explained how she was aiming for fanciful “haphazard” children’s worlds as when kids play. The red gnomes and stylized forest might blend together with the world of air dry, clay acorn figures, boundaries or not.  Painted sculpey villagers parading past tiny painted blocks, a stand in for Bearskin Neck in Rockport, might stop for tea at an outdoor blue chairs circle. An interior scene inspired from Beatrix Potter books is draped with sculpey play food and housewares, set atop tables and hutch, dining seats and floor. Wiberg can’t help but design family directly into these captivating scenes. (The Allenbrook and Wiberg family trees are steeped in the arts.) Charming ephemera associated with loved ones, or expressed as figures and actions, are intrinsically dispersed and personal. A few of the acorn capped musicians were inspired by her son-in-law, a performer and musician. Her mother and daughter Kristy are painted waving from the window of the teeny Bearskin Neck home. A Lilliputian trophy was hers when she was a little girl.

In preparation for this installation, with help from her daughters pulling boxes from the attic and dusting off these cherished family toys, Wiberg recalled a favorite book from her childhood, Maida’s Little Shop (by Inez Haynes Irwin*), and how much she wanted to have a toy shop like the one in that story. With so many creative toys adapted for kids and grandkids spilling across every surface imaginable unearthed and under consideration for this installation, her family didn’t miss a beat. “You do have a toy shop!” they laughed.

“This show has me remembering books,” Wiberg stated. “I’ve never forgotten that that little book arrived in a bushel of books delivered as a gift by artist friends of my parents. Perhaps they were from a library sale. To this day I tend to give other children books, because they’ve had such an impact on me and my daughters.” 

Betty Allenbrook Wiberg illustrated the children’s picture book, Little One, written by her eldest daughter, Kirsten Allenbrook Wiberg, which they submitted for the Cape Ann Reads contest. Little One is about a small elephant that struggles with growing up, encounters danger, but survives to live a long life.  The story is illustrated with 13-14 pages of Betty’s stunning, full-size black and white images of African wildlife focusing on the small elephant and his/her family. Little One earned a Cape Ann Reads Gulliver Award. Kirsten Allenbrook Wiberg, eldest daughter of Betty, lives in Gloucester where she has maintained her therapeutic body-work practice since 1991.

In addition to the children’s picture book, Little One (included as part of the Once Upon a Contest group show), and these personalized toys she’s shared in public for the first time, examples of Wiberg’s still life and portrait fine art are also on view.

About the Artist

Betty Allenbrook Wiberg was born in London and moved to the United States as a child. She received a fine arts scholarship to attend Boston University, and she completed her formal training at Massachusetts College of Art. She continued to study under her father Charles T. Allenbrook, a well-known portrait artist who resided and worked in Rockport and Florida. In 1957, she married Lars-Erik Wiberg and they settled in Rockport, Massachusetts, where they raised three daughters. Betty created designs for George Caspari Cards, designed fabrics for Bagshaws of St. Lucia, served as an artist in Federal Court, provided artwork for the Hoosac Tunnel documentary, and operated a gallery and studio on Bearskin Neck. Wiberg recalls bags she created for the Rockport Public Library toy check out and drawings of England, local freelance work for the Lions Head Tavern menu at King’s Grant Inn on Rt.128***. She presently maintains a home portrait studio in Rockport. See her artist statement below.

*** bonus photos north shore fun fact: King’s Grant Inn Lion Head’s Tavern menu that Betty Allenbrook Wiberg illustrated

Betty Allenbrook Wiberg artist statement, Feb. 2020

As a youth my family lived in New Rochelle, New York.   I remember drawing and painting from an early age and assisting my father at the local art association.  We visited Rockport for vacations when I was a child and my father painted the local landscape.   

My parents, Margaret and Charles T. Allenbrook bought “the Snuggery” in 1952 on Bearskin Neck and opened Allenbrook’s portrait studio.  It had living quarters in the rear and upstairs.  When I became more serious about my drawing, I would go out in the studio and draw portraits from my father’s models as they posed for him.  This was the way I became comfortable drawing before others. Sometimes I would entertain the children so they would sit better for my father.  I used masks and other toys to accomplish this or read them a book. When I was around seventeen I started doing painted silhouettes for a dollar and that was exciting to be earning something with my own efforts.  I also helped with framing my father’s work.   My father would give me advice and instruction on my efforts and I assembled a portfolio of my work which won me a scholarship to Boston University.  

In 1954, I met my husband Lars-Erik Wiberg outside my father’s Rockport studio while he was working on a car.  Yes, in those days one could park there.  We married in 1957 and lived at the Fish House, 27 Bearskin Neck while I transferred to U Mass Art.   After school, I opened a gallery in our home on the Neck.  I did silhouettes and sold my fanciful drawings, block prints and other handwork.   Later, we expanded the Fish house and had two daughters, Kristy and Margaret.  When our third child, Brenda was on the way, we moved to larger quarters at our present location.  

My husband made the children a large puppet theater* which sparked a series of handmade puppets of various sorts and materials.   The children were eager art explorers and we had costumes and other creative materials ready at hand.  We were regular visitors to the local library. I made cloth bags for toys which became a part of what could be borrowed from the Rockport Public Library.   

I started doing commission work part time and also did volunteer work. In the 1980s this expanded to part-time work for the TV studios which brought me into another world since I was sketching in courtrooms.  Once, I ended up on the sidewalk finishing a sketch, while the reporter waited to grab it and take it into the truck for transmission.  It was hastily done and later when I viewed it, I saw they had zoomed in for a tight shot.  I was embarrassed to see how careless the work appeared.   It was an unnerving experience at times because the culprits were sitting right near the artists while we heard testimony of their serious misdeeds.  I had a tongue stuck out at me by one of them and heard others’ lives threatened.   My work exceeded the art budget of the TV station during the Angelo trial which went on for over a year.  

This all changed when my father passed away in 1988 and I joined my mother at the studio on Bearskin Neck.  I was happy to be working closer to home and sometimes could walk downtown to do portraits.  It was very nice to spend more time with my mother and be drawing people and children who posed for me instead of trying to catch them from a distance as in the courtroom.  Our daughter, Brenda later joined me and drew animal portraits from photos after she graduated from U Mass. art school.   We worked together for about three years until 1996 when my parents’ studio was sold and we moved the studio to my home on South Street.  Our daughter, Margaret, an art graduate also exhibited her art work and handmade jewelry with us. Over several years, we have had open studios and invited family and visitors to see our endeavors. Lately, this has been dormant but with grandchildren also creating their own art we are considering another open studio.  It is a grand way of connecting with others who enjoy creating with various materials and share ours.  

Thinking further about this show at the library, and Rockport, I was President of the Friends of the Rockport Library years ago, and also did some art work for them. And I spoke before the local rotary about my courtroom work long ago.

I would very much like to thank Catherine Ryan who has encouraged and inspired me to bring forth my art efforts through the Cape Ann Reads project she created with the local libraries.  It has been far more of an adventure then I anticipated and brought many local artist and writing talents to the public through an exhibit at the Cape Ann Museum and the Libraries.   I’ve had the opportunity to do a paper craft workshop at the Cape Ann Museum and hope to give one at the local library. Stay tuned in! – Betty Allenbrook Wiberg, February 2020

Betty Allenbrook Wiberg is the Invited Artist for the Once Upon a Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads travel show at the Rockport Public Library venue, February 2020, presented by the four public libraries of Cape Ann with support from the Bruce J Anderson Foundation | The Boston Fund.

~large puppet theater gifted to The Waldorf School

Installation views Once Upon A Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads 

at Rockport Public Library February 2020

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Claire Wyzenbeek

Enjoy ” Seek and find” activity sheets you can photograph to bring with you to the show or print out. (There are copies on site as well.) The first one is harder and may take longer. The mini one is geared to the youngest visitors.

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Notes:

*Inez Haynes Irwin (b. 1873 Brazil – d. 1970 Massachusetts) author of Maida’s Little Shop, was a renowned early 20^th century, award-winning Massachusetts author, suffragist and feminist. She attended Radcliffe. Her parents were from Boston. Haynes married newspaper editor Rufus Gillmore in 1897; they later divorced. She married William Henry Irwin in 1916.  She wrote fifteen books in the Maida series beginning with Maida’s Little Shop in 1909, first published by American publisher B.W. Huebsch**, and concluding with Maida’s Little Treasure Hunt in 1955. Haynes was the first fiction editor for The Masses. She served as Vice President and President of the Author’s Guild of America. In 1924, she received an O. Henry Award her short story, The Spring Flight. Her aunt, Lorenza Haynes (1820-1899),  was the first public librarian in Waltham, Massachusetts, then one of Massachusett’s first three ordained female ministers. The aunt’s assignments began in Maine, where she also served as Chaplain to the Maine House of Representatives and Senate. Her ministries included two in Rockport: the First Universalist Church on Hale Street (1884) and the Universalist Society, Pigeon Cove. (“She was an acceptable preacher and did good work wherever her lot was cast.” Universalist Register, 1900. Scroll up and down – fascinating to compare the complimentary entries for the male pastors in these pages. For a more detailed entry see this nutshell on Lorenza Haynes ). Inez wrote about her aunt and big family in this major  essay. In it she corrects the record that her aunt left posts because of unfair pay, not her frality as reported in biographies. 

Artist Betty Allenbrook Wiberg did not know that the little Maida book she recalled so fondly was part of a series or about its author or the aunt’s ties with Rockport. “I haven’t thought about that book until I worked on this show. It’s almost providence at work when you hear connections like these!”

1875 City directory

**About Inez Hayne’s first publisher, B.W. Huebsch–  His eponymous firm sponsored writers and was credited with building interest for Joyce, Strindberg, DH Lawrence, Sherwood Anderson and others. His imprint was a 7 branch candlestick with his initials BWH. Later, he merged his firminto a nascent Viking Press and continued at the helm as editor in chief. According to the NY Times obit he was a leader in the A.C.L.U.

Read Chapter 1 Maida’s Little Shop:

Experimental group of Rockport Art Assoc & Museum hosts presentation from gallery owner & activist Paula Estey

Donna Caselden shares save the date for an upcoming event in Rockport:

Experimental group of Rockport Art Association and Museum (RAAM) kicks off the year with a presentation from respected gallery owner and activist, Paula Estey.   

“The Personal is Political: Art and Activism 2020” A presentation through Estey’s professional journey from Gallery owner to community activist. We’ll talk about things like our creative responsibility as artists for truth; how to avoid burnout or comparison; how to maintain an ethic of beauty in the face of challenges, and the artist’s personal paths to activism. Artists can be effective catalysts for conscious change.   This exciting talk is free and open to the public!  All are welcome!

Date March 19, 2020

Time 6-8 p.m.

Place: Hibbard Gallery, Rockport Art Association & Museum

Paula Estey (Abbreviated) Bio ~ Paula Estey (pictured here with her son) has been an art warrior from birth, through poetry, painting, performance and now as the founder of Paula Estey Gallery: A Center for Art and Activism, celebrating six years in 2020. Paula has curated meaningful contemporary fine art exhibits addressing environmental and other social justice topics.  In 2017, Estey founded The Women in Action Huddle of Greater Newburyport,. a support and activism group with more than 250 members working on initiatives serving the environmental crisis in our communities and region. For more info: www.paulaesteygallery.com

courtesy photo Paula Estey (with son)

Helicopter search teams

Since 1:30pm – Helicopters are sweeping back and forth close to shore, low and high, from Eastern Point past Long Beach and Thacher Island. Police from neighboring communities are helping; we have seen a few vehicles park and walk the rocky coastline and several vessels.

See Kim Smith post for recent update

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snow accumulation Jan 19 2020 #BearskinNeck #RockportMA

January 19 , 2020 Rockport, Mass. 

Rusty and Ingrid Creative Company new #RockportMA digs on Bearskin Neck

Rusty and Ingrid moved from Main Street to 8 Bearskin Neck Rockport, Mass. Winter Hours: Friday, Saturday, Saturday: 11am – 5pm. Or by appointment.

How are you enjoying this 68°crazy warm winter walk weather?

I didn’t notice yesterday but today, January 12, 2020, the ground smells like April. I found a sunny spot protected from the wind and stayed put reading outside, odd but nice. The former highest January temp on record was 62 degrees back in 1975.

Long Beach: 60 ° and a little wind whipping down the boardwalk

A breezy 60 degrees Jan. 11, 2020 on Long Beach, Rockport, Mass. Gloucester, Mass.