“All the food was simple. And I don’t mean easy or dumb. I mean that for the first time, I saw how three or four ingredients, as long as they are of the highest and freshest quality, can be combined in a straightforward way to make a truly excellent and occasionally wondrous product.”

—Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential, in reference to Le Madri and its head chef, Gianni Scappin

Best-selling author, ex-chef, and star of CNN’s Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain shines an occasionally harsh light behind the kitchen door of top restaurants world-wide in his notorious book Kitchen Confidential. Few great chefs he came in contact with escape his hilariously acid pen, let alone receive his absolute respect. Giovanni “Gianni” Scappin, head chef and co-owner of Cucina in Woodstock, Market Street Cafe in Rhinebeck and Culinary Institute of America Italian Cuisine professor, is, as seen in the above quote, one of those rare few.

As one of the finest restaurants in the area, Cucina brings the wonderful history of Italian cooking to the rural setting of Ulster County through the artistry of a master chef who could be easily said to be unmatched in the genre, having made his reputation in some of the world’s finest and most famous restaurants.

Gianni Scappin was born in Marostica, in the Veneto Region of Northern Italy, about one and a half hours from Venice. His parents owned a small trattoria “home-style” restaurant specializing in hearty fare like risotto with porcini, lasagna, and seasonal dishes like leper in salmi (stewed hare). As a very young man Gianni remembers his father Luigi working patiently in the kitchen, stirring the risotto for what seemed like hours, putting great care and passion into preparing the deceptively simple repast. Much later as an adult, Gianni realized the special lesson his father imparted to him. “He left me with a lot of wisdom. He cooked, you see, with his soul.”

Gianni helped out at the trattoria, but wanted to get out, travel and do something other than cooking. “I was so confused. I wanted to become a doctor, but we didn’t have the money, so I had to do something that would make money fast! In Italy, you can usually get a job very easily as a cook. And they pay pretty well; you’re working sixteen hours a day, so they’re supposed to pay you well.” Gianni applied to and was accepted at the Recoaro Terme Culinary Institute, where he studied in a four-year program with basic training of cooking techniques, and summer on-the-job work in restaurants all over the country, learning the multiplicity of styles of different regions.

Fresh out of school, Gianni indulged his “gypsy soul,” and at the age of eighteen worked for a year at the Dorset Hotel, Bournemouth U.K., learning more classic French techniques, and improving his English. After a cruise-ship gig that took him to Mexico and South America—a job he frankly terms “slavery”—a mandatory year of military service, and a brief stint in the voluminous kitchens of the Excelsior Hotel in Venice, Gianni made the crossover to America, accepting an offer from a former boss to be executive chef for Castellano in New York City.

...as an adult, Gianni realized the special lesson his father imparted to him. “He left me with a lot of wisdom. He cooked, you see, with his soul.”

Castellano became very successful with Gianni at the helm, introducing uninitiated Americans to the wonders of the now-familiar “foccacia,” “tiramisu,” and “risotto,” using more traditional ingredients instead of Americanized versions. In Gianni’s opinion, Little Italy was at that time overrun with tomato sauce and bad Parmesan. “Angel hair with tomato sauce! In Italy we give angel hair to people who are sick, because it’s easy to chew.” Fresh ingredients and seasonings caught on with the cognoscenti and celebrities like Mick Jagger and Clint Eastwood, and pretty soon Gianni was doing well enough to actually take a whole day and a half off every week. “I felt like I was a king!” After four years there, he moved on to become executive and corporate chef for the BICE Ristorante, overseeing the development of several restaurants worldwide, and honing his organization skills, which were soon to come in handy.

The Porch at Cucina

When famed New York restaurateur Pino Luongo requested Gianni to head the kitchen at his Le Madri, Gianni accepted the job and quickly elevated its already stellar reputation, creating what he called “a balance between sophistication and simplicity in cooking.” Gianni had the kitchen humming smoothly, and at one point briefly employed the afore-mentioned Bourdain (as recounted in Kitchen Confidential) as a sous-chef, before recommending him to Luongo, who was looking for an executive chef for his soon-to-be-opening Coco Pazzo Teatro. “He had a good background, working in France. Good head, cool guy, so I said, ‘Sure.’ I introduced him to my boss [Luongo] and said he would be good to work for the new opening restaurant. We trained him for two weeks, moved him over there, and a month later, we had to fire him! He couldn’t handle the volume.” Bourdain’s amusing account shows no rancor to Scappin or Luongo, however, but gratitude for the opportunity and lessons learned.

Another time at Le Madri, a gentleman showed up one day to Gianni’s kitchen, saying he was a mutual friend of actress Isabella Rosselini, asking if he could possibly hang around some—helping out, of course—to observe Gianni at work. The man had an idea for a movie he wanted to make, did not yet have the funding, but still wanted to do research for it, so Gianni took him on. Stanley Tucci worked for Gianni at Le Madri sporadically for several weeks, and one shift Tucci triumphantly came in, saying “We got the money!” Thus was born the critically-acclaimed and successful movie Big Night, featuring Tony Shalhoub with writer/director/producer Tucci, with Gianni’s consultancy bringing an honest resonance to this award-winning film and its cookbook cousin—co-written with Tucci’s mother Joan Tropiano Tucci and Mimi Shanley Taft—Cucina & Famiglia (Wm. Morrow). Soon after, however, Gianni’s wandering spirit struck anew, and after four productive and happy years at Le Madri, he moved on.

After a brief period in Brazil, Gianni and his wife Laura moved back to his hometown in Italy, where he resuscitated the family trattoria—closed since his father’s death in 1991. Gianni found himself enjoying the slower pace of life: sleeping more, going to market, and making whatever he felt like making—whatever was in season—with just him in the kitchen and his sister waiting the tables, the menu of the day up on a big board. Gianni admits he would have been happy to stay there “forever,” but his wife preferred the U.S., so they returned to New York, but this time, instead of the city, they went upstate to Rhinebeck.

Gianni’s consultancy brought an honest resonance to the award-winning film the critically-acclaimed and successful movie Big Night, featuring Tony Shalhoub with writer/director/producer Stanley Tucci, and its cookbook cousin—co-written with Tucci’s mother Joan Tropiano Tucci and Mimi Shanley Taft—Cucina & Famiglia...

When the Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A.) in Hyde Park, decided to install a functioning high-class Italian teaching restaurant—The Colavita Center—on its campus, Gianni was tapped as a consultant, and after its completion stayed on as an instructor. Gianni sees in the students the impatient kid he was himself in his father’s kitchen. “It’s a challenge. You have to be a psychologist, a father, a best friend they can trust, because if they can trust you, then even if they screw up, they have the guts to come and talk about it.” By the time the students get to his class level, they’re well-versed in techniques and full of creativity, but they’re there to learn more. It’s dignity, responsibility, and organization that often make the true difference between cook and chef.

Ask what the most important ingredient is for kitchen greatness, and without hesitation, Gianni answers, “Passion. If they have no passion cooking, I cannot help them change. By the time they get to me, they’ve already spent a lot of money [to be there], so I won’t tell them to quit. But if you don’t have it, it’s not the business to be in.”

Gianni still needed a place to create great cuisine for the public, opening the highly successful Gigi’s Trattoria in Rhinebeck, but it wasn’t long before he was on the lookout for a new place. A good friend and fellow transplant from the City, Lois Freedman, wanted a partner for a more “old-school” Italian restaurant, and Gianni was up for it, admitting “instead of trying to look forward with Italian cooking, trying to be different, with Cucina I went kind of ‘backward.’” The Emerson at Woodstock, at the intersection of Rtes. 212 and 375 became available, and Gianni and Lois came up with an un-pretentious easy-to-understand menu, getting fresh seafood from the market three times a week, and striving for Italian authenticity in, whenever possible, local ingredients. Décor-wise Cucina is very open, warm, and peaceful, eschewing tablecloths and maintaining a casual sophistication that’s a good fit with Woodstock.

When we ask about the future of Italian cuisine here in the States, he sees “more specific ingredients getting highlighted. Like really amazing olive oil, amazing mozzarella, prosciutto, that you don’t get yet in the U.S. The American people are building a very sophisticated palate, starting from the big cities and spreading out, and they’re going to know (the difference). Italian food is here to stay, and the ones who are able to bring in the real salami from Italy…well, it’s another world of surprises. We are only able to get about 20 percent of what is available in Italy.”

Cucina opened earlier in the summer, and operated for a time without a liquor license, which can be a time-consuming ordeal to obtain in the state of New York. (Restaurateurs well know the vital importance of bar revenues.) They managed to stay open and maintain staff for the several months it took to get the license; no small feat, as Gianni and Lois had to absorb the shortfall, keeping their quality staff on payroll. Many in the community—including Rep. Maurice Hinchey—who welcomed the great food and atmosphere of Cucina wrote letters on their behalf to the Liquor Board. It was a tough summer—Gianni still seems a little shell-shocked from it—but finally, they prevailed. Still, it was a close call. One more week would have finished them.

Cucina has proven that it is here to stay. And Gianni seems to be here to stay too. Well OK, for a time anyway. “I’m already to that point in my life where I feel like I deserve to take life easy. Ride my bicycle, see my family, have a good glass of wine. I don’t need to make ‘more and more.’” But for now, it’s teaching by day, running Cucina by night, and giving us fortunate enough to live nearby some of the very best Italian cuisine this side of the ocean.

Cucina is located at 109 Mill Hill Rd.—intersection of Rtes. 212 and 375—in Woodstock, open 7 nights with brunches on Saturday and Sunday. Call 845.679.9800 for reservations. Additional information is available at www.cucinawoodstock.com.

Photos of Gianni Scappin by Matt Petricone
For more on Chef Scappin and his other restaurant, click here:

Peter Dinklage, photo by Vera Anderson

You could say his wife made him do it, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. No doubt she asked him nicely, and Dinklage—well known to be an “actor’s actor”—is clearly participating quite willingly. His wife happens to be acclaimed writer/director Erica Schmidt, who has been tapped by Bard College for her fourth SummerScape theatrical production this July, and in counterpoint to her 2011 all-female rendition of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya—with Dinklage playing the lead—this year it’s Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid (“Le malade imaginaire”). But this time with an all-MALE cast.

Erica Schmidt, photo courtesy of the artist

In keeping with the predominantly Gallic theme of the 2012 Bard Music Festival, honoring French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921), it makes perfect sense for Bard to feature a “comedy of manners” by the country’s best-known comedic actor/playwright: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who wrote and performed under the name Molière (1622–1673). Considered one of his most well constructed comedies, Invalid unfortunately came to be his swan song as both writer and actor. While performing the lead role one evening, Molière was twice seized by coughing fits (he suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis) causing a hemorrhage, which took his life shortly after the final curtain. Like any great comedian, he refused to die onstage.

Born in Paris to a well-off bourgeois family, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin himself had a story worthy of its own script. Both his mother and stepmother died before he turned 15. His father was appointed to the court to maintain the King’s carpets and upholstery, allowing his son access to the best possible education, as well as a clear career path at court. But Jean-Baptiste did the then-unthinkable: at 21, he fell for an actress, quit the upholstery business, and formed a drama troupe.

To spare his father of the embarrassment of having a son in the theatre, he changed his name to Molière (reportedly after a village near Le Vigan), and after several disastrous money-losing ventures—resulting in a brief stint in debtor’s prison, where he probably contracted the TB that killed him—his troupe took to the provinces, where they honed their act for the next 12 years. During this time Molière began writing for the company, road-testing the works, allowing him the chance to develop his dialogue and scene construction techniques, as well as his reportedly first-rate acting chops.

Word had it that the King’s brother, Phillipe I, Duke of Orléans, was looking to support a dramatic company under his name. Molière saw his opportunity, and brought his well-prepared troupe back to Paris, eventually securing an audience with Louis XIV. When the selected tragedy appeared to underwhelm the royal audience, Molière quickly requested a second chance from the King, and when granted, performed his own The Love-Sick Doctor, the resulting merriment earning his troupe the coveted patronage.

Molière’s ability to hilariously make fun of the hypocrisy and pretentiousness of priests, doctors, and tastemakers in high society endeared him to the King, while naturally making him controversial to the rest of the court. The public loved him as both actor and writer, and his troupe eventually became the King’s Troupe, playing the Théâtre du Palais Royal until his untimely post-performance death at 51. The church—a frequent target—had its petty revenge: no priests would take his confession, as actors were of the social status of pickpockets and prostitutes and automatically excommunicated, nor would they allow him to be interred in holy ground. The King eventually paid his last respects by allowing his body to be buried in Cemetery Saint Joseph, though under cover of darkness.

Le malade imaginaire, 1900, Edouard Vuillard, Scala/White Images/Art Resource, NY

The body of work left behind—including The Learned Ladies, The School for Husbands, The School for Wives, The Misanthrope, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, Tartuffe, The Miser—has enjoyed over three centuries of performances all over the world, while providing a virtual master class in how to construct a great comedy, relying on language and character development and revelation over gimmicks and coincidences. Like all of those considered “the greats,” Molière has had his harsh critics (Laurence Olivier referred to him once as being “funny as a baby’s open grave”), and has gone in and out of style over the years. But he’s never been out of style for too long. As they say, you can’t fake the funny.

A century after his death, Molière—though deeply unfashionable among the cognoscenti of the time—found a fan in French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, who greatly enjoyed the plays, and even attempted to rewrite the missing incidental music to Invalid. This connection was one of the reasons Invalid was this year’s choice for SummerScape; as Associate Director of the Fisher Center for the Arts Susana Meyer explains: “Normally as a matter of mission, we present the less obvious pieces. We have the motto of our Music Fest, which we adopt—which is ‘new discoveries.’ Though The Imaginary Invalid is not a new discovery, it is less often done.” Not to mention with men in the female roles.

But when it is done, and done right, it’s a can’t-fail laugh fest. And Schmidt has a talent-packed cast for the job here, starting with Dinklage playing the faithful and resourceful maid Toinette, who takes no guff from the batty master she is actually fiercely protective of. The hypochondriac’s lawyer brother Béralde is played by Donnie Keshawarz (TV: The Sopranos, 24, Law and Order, Lost; Film: The Adjustment Bureau, 2011), and the rivals for the hand of the daughter are virtuous daughter’s choice Cléante, played by Danny Binstock (Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Titus Andronicus), and awkward father’s choice Thomas Diaforius, played by Henry Vick (Twelfth Night). Damian Young (Californication, Damages, Law and Order) doubles as the two unscrupulous doctors Mr. Purgon and Dr. Diaforius, Thomas’s father.

As for the ladies, the duplicitous second wife Béline is played by Zach Booth, while the put-upon innocent daughter Angélique is portrayed by Preston Sadleir. Both actors are reuniting after co-starring as identical twins in a recent Off-Broadway premiere of Edward Albee’s Me Myself & I. Lest you think it’s Monty Python men-in-drag style, think again. Meyer: “Oh no, it’s very well controlled. I have to tell you, I had no idea guys could look so sexy in a corset! Erica is very clear; when she read the play, (she saw that) women were portrayed in an extremely stereotypical manner. Once she started imagining the parts played all by men—not men in drag, this is male actors playing women—that gave her a much different (perspective). It evened the playing field for her, and it made more sense.”

Without a doubt, it is the starring title role of Argan, the hopelessly gullible hypochondriac pitted against a bevy of conniving sweet-talking and authoritative money-grubbers, that gives a comedic actor veritable acres of scenery to gleefully chomp. Ethan Phillips brings enormous talent and experience to the role, and though his face and voice should be easily recognized (Stage: LA’s Court Theatre, Hamlet; The Geffen, You Can’t Take it With You; The Barrymore, Mamet’s November; TV: Arrested Development, Law and Order, Bones, Boston Legal; Film: Greencard, The Shadow, Ragtime, Lean on Me, The Island, Keith, Big Game), chances are good that you are most familiar with his recurring role as the affable alien “morale officer” Neelix, on the series Star Trek: Voyager.

Ethan Phillips

The role of Argan is ripe for overplaying, sorely tempting actor and director alike. Phillips admits, “that’s my inclination. But (director Schmidt) is wonderful. She’s focusing more on the darkness of the play, and the reality of it. Although the humor is going to be poundingly funny—I hope—she’s really grounding it, focusing more on the intensity and intellect Molière had when addressing the medical profession. Still has all the funny stuff, but she’s trying to kick out the ham, if you will.”

Where many actors who have miles on the odometer gravitate toward direction, Phillips has moved toward playwriting. Through his association with Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute Playwright’s Lab, Brave New Works, and The WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, he has been a strong advocate for the creation of new works for the stage, including his own play Penguin Blues, which has seen hundreds of performances in the U.S and Canada.

His most recent work (working title: Skin Puppets) has been workshopped in London and several U.S. colleges, and is presently slated for its production premiere this fall, in Washington state. “It’s a dark comedy about two middle-aged men, who are facing the fact that they might have come to nothing in life, in terms of what their dreams had been. And how they get challenged by this very strange woman. Who may or may not be Satan.”

This is Phillips’ third time with Molière. What’s his take on the playwright? “Well, he’s a tough nut to crack initially, because his dialogue can seem a little formal, although I’m seeing that the translations are becoming more modern. I just think he is a classic smart dude. ‘Why am I still in the room?’ That’s what I ask myself when I write, and when I act. How come the character hasn’t left? With Molière there’s always a good solid reason why he’s still there. The objectives for all the characters in Molière are very straightforward, and fun to tap into.”

“And a lot of it is harsh! Back in the day, he had to lighten and leaven it all with ballet and musical interludes, so they wouldn’t get so caught up in how intense he gets. (He was) really polemical, and tough on the powers that be. And it’s still applicable today.”

Phillips recently made the L.A.-to-N.Y.C. move, and so far—other than not having any bands to blow saxophone with (yet)—it’s been a good switch. His experience with the Star Trek franchise—appearing on both Star Trek: Next Generation (1987) and Enterprise (2001), as well as his full run with Voyager—has made him a sci-fi favorite, most recently with the upcoming series Space Command, created by Star Trek writer Mark Zicree. Phillips can be seen next year on the silver screen, in the Coen Brothers upcoming Inside Llewyn Davis, about the Greenwich Village folk-singing scene in the 60s. And anyone who saw him on Broadway with Nathan Lane, in David Mamet’s November (2007–8), knows he can work the Great White Way.

So, with the Argan/Toinette interplay so integral to the plot and dialog, how is it working with Peter Dinklage one-on-one? “Well, he’s a very very fine actor, obviously. And extraordinarily silly too. He’s got balls of steel, he’ll go anywhere he has to. It’s wonderful watching him….he’s very brave, willing to go anywhere for a laugh.” Phillips relates the experience to working with Lane. “With both it’s still grounded. You’re not getting a cheap laugh, you’re getting something that’s real. It takes real investigation.”

THE IMAGINARY INVALID BY MOLIÈRE
LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE

Friday, July 13, 8 pm
Saturday, July 14, 3 and 8 pm
Sunday, July 15, 3 pm
Wednesday, July 18, 3 pm
Thursday, July 19, 8 pm
Friday, July 20, 8 pm
Saturday, July 21, 3 and 8 pm
Sunday, July 22, 3 pm
Tickets: $45

Directed by Erica Schmidt
Costumes by Andrea Lauer
Set Design by Laura Jellinek
Lighting by David Weiner

Fisher Center Box Office
10 am to 5 pm   |   Monday through Friday
845–758-7900  or, click here to purchase tickets

Artist-in-Residence, WENDY HOLLENDER

Opening Thursday night, January 26, 2012.
The night starts with a presentation in the lounge by Wendy about her work. The gallery will be open and will feature a special guest musical performance by previous Artists-in Residence, Jay Unger and Molly Mason!

Slide presentation: Student Lounge VAN 203, 7:00 pm, Opening Reception immediately following VAN 265 Muroff Kotler Visual Arts Gallery
Hours: Monday through Friday, 11 am — 3 pm and by appointment. Call 845–687-5113 for more information

Some things can be easily taken for granted. For instance, the camera is a fairly recent development –no pun intended. Yet there are libraries full of books on zoology and botany, with detailed images of flora and fauna that have been pored over by students for centuries. Somebody had to draw or paint those images, which —though created solely for the purpose of reference and information —often have an aesthetic beauty and resonance that transcend the humble subject.

Yet, in spite of the ever-improving technology of the camera, the field of botanical art is still viable and vibrant, as it becomes clear that the artist brings so much more to the image than a camera ever could. Hudson Valley-based botanical artist/teacher Wendy Hollender is at the top of the field, with works in numerous publications and galleries, including a touring Smithsonian exhibit of endangered plant species. And with her new teaching studio/organic farm just outside of Accord, she’s teaching others to see inside the secret lives of plants, and present them to the world.

Ms. Hollender demonstrates her technique, photo by Matt Petricone

It’s a rare person who in their youth decides: hey, I want to grow up to be a botanical artist. As a child growing up on Long Island, Wendy certainly wasn’t one of them, this whole lifepath blossomed out of….boredom. “My career actually began as a teenager. In high school I doodled on my notebook covers—I just liked to cover any available surface with design and pattern. And I actually used those notebooks to apply to RISD (Rhode Island School of Design)….and got in! I had no training, I couldn’t do anything realistic. But I was really good with splashy color and patterns, and I had no problem covering the paper with stuff.” Her fellow freshman students kept asking her if she was majoring in textile design, which she’d never even heard of, but after about the 20th time it got mentioned she decided to look into it. Turns out it was the right direction for her, her repetitive cover-the-page doodling style was, er, tailor-made for textile design, so she went for it. She graduated, moved to Manhattan, and went pro, soon racking up a solid client base: Laura Ashley, Ralph Lauren, Wedgewood China, among others.

When she started out, splashy and contemporary were in vogue. But as the trend went towards traditional and floral patterns, Wendy found herself referring to older documents and drawings for inspiration. Then she decided to take it further. “I began looking for a place to study botanical illustration. I had gotten more and more fascinated with that old-time skill as it related to my textile design, because I used these old documents for reference. And I loved the way they looked, how realistic they were, and three-dimensional. I could copy old documents or I could work from photographs to do a kind of realistic floral textile design, but I couldn’t (yet) work from real flowers and plants.” Fortunately, she found the perfect place to study very close by: The New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx, had one of the largest programs for botanical illustration in the world.

Learning the necessary techniques there—one-light source, perspective, accurate realistic mixing of colors, plant structure and botany—brought an realistic enhancement to her decorative textile work, as she began getting her images directly from real plants instead of drawings and photographs. After a few years of study she made her public debut, producing a show of twelve large botanically-themed oil paintings. The show caught the eye of a California calendar company, who purchased the twelve, and Wendy had her first official botanical drawing job.

Meanwhile, the textile business was getting stale for her, as manufacturing was being outsourced, and product starting to lose quality. Having already done extensive plant drawing at Riverside Park—which Wendy lived nearby, a single mom raising two children: Abby and Jesse—she approached the Park Commission with her folio, and soon she had another client. This led to offers to travel workshops in Nantucket, Hawaii, Trinidad, and the New York Botanical Garden teaching colored pencil technique. Teaching was particularly “empowering” for Wendy, who enjoys the demonstration aspect immensely. Student demand for her personal step-by-step examples led her to self-publishing a book. Using a top-bound notebook format—with plenty of blank sheets to practice on—she takes the reader one lesson at a time to the finished product. Its success led to publisher Random House requesting a full-length book, Botanical Drawing in Color, which came out July 2009.

Up until last February she was pretty happy operating from Manhattan, drawing, traveling, and teaching, as well as working as a coordinator at the Botanical Garden. “More and more I realized I didn’t want to just visit the plants, I wanted to live among them. I wanted to have my own place where I could do that and also teach it, because I was frustrated with always going to these places to teach. Often you’d go to a beautiful garden, and they’d have you stuck in a classroom teaching. Why?”

Wendy had been making some trips upstate, visiting fellow botanical artist and Accord resident Carol Woodin. A strawberry picking session at Kelder’s (on Rte. 209, with the enormous gnome) started a love affair with the area. “I started getting this vision that summer that I needed my own farm where I could work, I could teach, I could have an organic farm, there could be other things going on other than what I did.” Pretty soon she was talking it up with friends and family, and her two kids—now in their 20’s—were interested too. More trips to Kelder’s, and a Rondout Valley Farm Tour sealed it; that day she fell in love with the very road she lives on today.

But Wendy and her then-partner couldn’t agree on the concept—he wanted a backwoods getaway, she wanted nature but to be near town—and they split up over it. She went back to the real estate agent the couple had been using, telling her “don’t show me these weekend retreat places, that’s not what I’m looking for, I want to have a farm, be part of a community.” She found the farmhouse/horse barn/acreage she was looking for, and over the next year Hollengold Farms came to full fruition, complete with fledgling organic mini-farm, and the barn renovated into a multi-purpose building: gift shop, farmer’s market, well-appointed kitchen, meeting place/lesson area, lodgings, and Wendy’s spacious skylit upstairs studio, with an almost panoramic view of the grounds.]

The studio: a pair of drying kohl-rabi still on her drawing table next to its rough sketch, straight from the late-season garden outside—which is still producing kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, various cabbages. Books of botanical photography, a large self-lit magnifying glass and microscope, a full spectrum of German colored pencils, stacks of durable Italian-made watercolor paper. Wendy shows me some recent works, and they’re fascinating to see close-up. Finely detailed line and charcoal drawing is seamlessly blended with the colored pencil, which Wendy is somehow able to manipulate in a manner similar to oil painting. And despite the need for precision and detail of reality involved, “there is definitely very much an artistic side to it. Composition is really important, which features you choose to show and highlight. I do love scientific details, whether it’s for scientific purposes or not…I just like the style.” Often with Wendy’s drawings, the plant is presented in various stages of development, with exquisitely small details of the flowers seeds and reproductive mechanisms. The finished product represents a meeting point of science and art, both in equal measure.

And botanical art is not above being capable of a little controversy. Wendy submitted two pieces for the Botanical Garden’s upcoming “Unusual Plants” exhibit: common burdock…and an opium poppy. “They really liked it, and they wanted to put it in the show, but because it’s an illegal plant, they were afraid they couldn’t show it.” It’s a beautiful drawing, with detailed close-ups of the honeycombed seeds—hard to believe this innocent-looking flower is responsible for so much destruction.

Wendy Hollender at her studio, photo by Matt Petricone

Wendy has managed to make her vision a reality, working and teaching drawing workshops, and living among the growing plants (absolutely no opium poppies) that feed her inspiration, and sometime also feed the stomach. “I let the plant tell me what to do, it’s in charge. I don’t think I can really improve on nature, so I don’t really try to.”

More information about drawing workshops and the farmer’s market at Hollengold Farms (Accord) at www.hollengoldfarm.com.