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Now here is something you don't see everyday This past weekend we were treated to an awfully good cook-out in Bridgton, Maine put on by Dana Masters, the owner/operator of Beast Feast Maine. See their website here . For a taste of your own, you can participate in one of their upcoming barbecues listed on their website under the events tab.  The main focus of this event featured an alligator gobbling up a bunch of New England lobsters. It was a real piece of culinary art and a visual oxymoron. This captivating contrast (or is it a fusion?) led me to reflect upon the similarities and differences in different parts of the country that define and express our cultural identity.  As noted before in a previous blog here , traditions now considered "American" go back much further than the Pilgrims. America's first Thanksgiving and Christmas may well have featured grilled gator as seen in this print, published in 1591 from a lost drawing of 1564, depicting the Timucua in Flori...

Thanks to these pathfinders the way has been found!  From left Adam Jared Apt, David Govatski and Rebecca Enman   Recently I had the incredible opportunity to visit the new Wayfinding exhibit at Plymouth State University's Museum of the White Mountains with some of the curatorial team that created it. They coordinated the contributions of dozens of lenders, sponsors and supporters, all of whom are credited at the beginning of the exhibit. You can read more about the exhibit here .  We were accompanied by another historian and an interesting creative couple (one a furniture master , the other a book artisan ) all with great interest and insights into maps and white mountain art and history.   For an exhibit ostensibly about maps, they have created an astonishing story, using a wide variety of objects.  Upon entering the space, you are greeted with an unexpected assemblage of disparate elements including a dog sled, ceramic plates, surveying tools, book...

abc An often made mistake is to id a view from Shelburne, New Hampshire as the Sunset Hill view.  show pic of this The Shelburne view has been obscured by a dam.  cut and save the following images and do these in some other way later  from borealis here  cut and save the following images and do these in some other way later  from borealis here  insert pics, comment on them now or later, some now, some later    DeWitt Clinton Boutelle  here .  Harrison Bird Brown  here .  Benjamin Champney  here .  Another Benjamin Champney  here . This one actually shows the house, studio and barn that Champney lived and worked in.  A third Benjamin Champney  here .  Champney also did the print below that accompanied the Bond map of 1853.  You can read more about that print   here  and many other artist prints  here .  For info on the map see this article by Adam Jared Apt on the White...