Oh…For Peat’s Sake! The Bloomingdale Bog, an exhibition of forty artworks depicting the nineteen-mile wetland by photographer Eleanor Sweeney and painter Stephen Horne will be featured at the Adirondack Artists Guild during the month of September. The exhibit opens with a reception on Friday, September 1 from 5-8 pm, and runs through October 3.

The Bloomingdale bog trail, a former railroad bed, is a favorite place for walkers, birders, bikers, skiers and snowmobilers in all seasons of the year. Sweeney and Horne had both been creating art based on their frequent walks there, and decided to collaborate on a show at the Artists Guild.

Eleanor Sweeney, a founding member of the Artists Guild, has walked on the trail intermittently for a long time, but about a year ago started going there often, finding new things to see and different light conditions every time. There are several sections of the trail, each with unique characteristics and each offering subject matter for her to contemplate and photograph. Besides images of the bog itself, her photographs include shots of the forest and water surrounding the trail. About half of Sweeney’s pieces in the show are photographic transfers on wood boxes.

Stephen Horne walks trails deep in the forest around his Paul Smiths home, seeing a natural world that’s very immediate, or, often, along cliffsides in Cape Breton, NS, one with endless horizons of the coast that extend for miles. The Bloomingdale bog has been intriguing for Horne in the explorations for this exhibit in the way it offers vistas both up close and detailed and far away and abstracted. Further, the seasonal changes of the bog have provided contrasts, with entirely different color palettes that require a full range of approaches and brushstrokes. The result? Seven paintings as different from each other as are the varied landforms of the large and complex wetland that is the Bloomingdale bog. And, that makes perfect sense to the artist.

Sweeney and Horne will give a talk about Oh…For Peat’s Sake! at the Artists Guild gallery on Tuesday, September 5 at 5 pm. During the talk, Sweeney will give a brief demonstration of how she makes a transfer onto a box.

The Adirondack Artists Guild is a cooperative retail art gallery representing a diverse group of artists residing and working in the Tri-Lakes region of the Adirondack Park. The gallery is located at 52 Main St, Saranac Lake, 518 891-2615. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 until 5, and 11-3 on Sundays. The Guild is on Facebook, Instagram, and on the web at www.adirondackartistsguild.com.

Images
Bloomingdale Bog: November oil painting by Stephen Horne

Rock photograph by Eleanor Sweeney