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Two weeks ago, I published the first in a series of daily website blog-posts. These writings and artworks that celebrate personal mobility, in pursuit of mindful engagements with history, nature and the environment. In relation to a finished painting, book, or an essay, this process is by itself as much a work of art as is the tree is to the fruit it bears. This practice might be seen as ceremonial. Beholding the world around us with care is an act of reverence. Offered as messages of hope and solidarity, these quotidian posts will continue, until the emergency is behind us.
SOUTH GATE FROM BEAR MOUNTAIN. Watercolor and pen on Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. 3.5 x 10 inches. 2016
Bending around Trophy Point, the river follows a straight course for several miles, passing Buttermilk Falls and a small island known as Con Hook below the guns of Fort Montgomery on a bluff just north of where Popolopen Creek spills into the Hudson. It was here that American patriot forces stretched a heavy iron chain floating on a series of rafts across the river, below the mountain known as Anthony’s Nose. Connecting its vertiginous western face to Fort Clinton—Montgomery’s twin—on the bluff south of Popolopen Creek is Bear Mountain Bridge. Here the banks of the river widen again. A railway runs along a levee, enclosing an arm of the river that has become marshland over the years. The tracks cross Iona Island, which served as a naval weapons depot during the twentieth century. Parts of the rocky islet remain off-limits to the public. To the south, reaching eastward, is Dunderberg Mountain, or Thunder Hill, the downriver side of the south gate to the Hudson Highlands. Forming the northern gatepost is Roa Hook, below the southern declivity of Anthony’s Nose. Cast in shadow, a small concrete structure marks the location in this painting. The view is from the deck of Bear Mountain Inn’s Overlook Lodge, looking southeast toward the city of Peekskill, across the bay that bears its name.
Image and text were featured in the exhibition James McElhinney. Discover the Hudson Anew, curated by Laura Vookles. Hudson River Museum. Yonkers, New York. September 13, 2019 to February 16, 2020. Published also as a limited-edition in Hudson Highlands. North River Suite Volume One. Needlewatcher Editions. New York. 2018
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com