One afternoon over four decades ago, I was riding in the passenger seat of Ken's car as we passed through the sliver of shops and businesses that lined the main drag of West Islip, our hometown. As was the case with most middle class kids back then, Ken drove a dirt-cheap jalopy. I was never sure if the fumes that filled the interior came from burning motor oil or exhaust, but, for safety's sake, it was wise to always leave the windows open a crack. Young people tend to explore areas that more mature folk would never visit, seeking out secluded, unsung locations at which to gather, and Ken wanted to introduce me to one of his latest finds. We eventually ventured into a zone south of Montauk Highway, where the town's wealthier denizens lived. Ken zigzagged along beautiful, tree-lined lanes, past impressive homes on sizable properties, until we came to the rounded terminus of a cul-de-sac where he parked the car. I looked out the window unimpressed with what I saw: a shallow swatch of grass about forty feet wide on which stood a single bench. Below the bench, a rubble gradient sloped down to the shoreline of the Great South Bay. A miniature lighthouse was situated to our left, beyond which we could see the bridge to Captree Island, and behind us were expensive, multi-storied homes with perfect lawns and sculpted shrubbery.
We were in our early twenties. Ken, a childhood friend who had grown up across the street from my parents' home, was an entertaining speaker, full of humorous, sensational and raucous tales which he related bestrewn with a deluge of invective and profanity. He had timed this trip to coincide with that day's sunset, which didn't prove to be particularly awe-inspiring, though watching the colors of the bay change from deep ultramarine to translucent cerulean was pretty satisfying. A mournful note sounded from the mini-lighthouse's foghorn every minute or so. Night was coming on, but we were enjoying the moody scene and were in no hurry to be moving on.
Deep in conversation, we paid no heed to the sound of tires grinding on the gravel roadway behind us. Then we were hailed by a deep, authoritative voice and turned around to see a police car stopped in the circle, a cop standing half emerged from its open door. He studied us over the roof of his car. “The park closes at sunset,” he stated firmly. We looked around us, totally confused. “What park?” we asked. “The one you're standing in,” he answered. The park to which he was referring couldn't have been more than five feet deep. We weren't drinking or smoking pot. We weren't creating a disturbance, just quietly talking. Even if we were inclined in that direction, there wasn't anything we could possibly vandalize. Knowing it was pointless to argue, we walked over to Ken's car, got in and drove away, all under the scrutiny of that heroic officer.
I would like to say that that experience was quite unique, but it wasn't. Young people in our town were regularly rousted from public places such as schoolyards, woodlands, shore fronts, beaches and parks (the only locations available to them in that suburban accretion to congregate and socialize). And those “wild” places suitable for gathering or simply enjoying some scenery were quickly disappearing. My childhood witnessed the loss of most free space: first the nearby woods, then the treed lots where we would play, and finally those businesses that required acreage: farms, nurseries and stables. By the time I was in my twenties, peddling housing was so profitable that entrepreneurs were filling in swamps and diverting streams to open up land on which to build. What “Nature” hadn't been swallowed up by developers was stingily meted out to the people, regulated by a host of rules and restrictions and monitored by public and private enforcement.
Fortunately, while I was in my early teens, my parents decided that our family would join my mother's sister's family on annual camping trips (usually to Upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire), and I got a more intimate introduction to Nature. I discovered what real darkness is, actually seeing the stars unobscured by atmospheric glare for the first time. I took hikes in dense woods and in open fields. I slept in a canvas tent throughout both steamy and freezing nights. I warmed myself at fires fueled with dead wood I'd collected myself in the vicinity of our campsite. I swam in random streams and lakes. I showered in ice cold water fresh from a well. I once got zapped by an electrified fence while attempting to join a herd of cows grazing contentedly in a grassy meadow. And I really liked all of it. During one of our camping trips, we were sharing a meal at a picnic table when a gaggle of four or five skunks approached. My uncle warned us, “Just stay still. If you startle them, they'll spray us.” The skunks joined us, even venturing under our table to meander at our feet. They stayed with us so long that we eventually got bored and began to quietly converse among ourselves. I think they were expecting handouts, and, once it became clear that none were forthcoming, they moseyed off into the woods. (Just one episode of the many that our travels provided.)
But, in truth, even on these annual vacations, I wasn't experiencing untamed Nature. We almost always chose to camp in private, commercial campgrounds with electric hook-ups, public toilets and showers, laundries, game rooms and small convenience stores. Many times these sites offered in-ground swimming accommodations. Often the campgrounds could be congested with sites wedged into a relatively compact space, crowds regularly passing by our small clearing and cars slowly sauntering by on the dirt roads, their occupants gaping blankly at us seated at our picnic table as we gaped back. The hiking paths we traversed, usually fairly short and contained within the borders of the owner's property, were littered here and there with candy wrappers and cigarette butts. We weren't exactly roughin' it.
Looking back today, I would have to say that, although those teenage camping trips didn't exactly fulfill my desire for a “raw” Nature experience, participating in them provided a good step in the right direction.
A lot of people are fond of opining about Nature with a capital “N”. I'm often confused by what they mean by that. The word “Nature” can be used as an all-encompassing expression which covers infinite facets of our environment. It's a convenient catchphrase. I'm guilty of using the “N” word in a pretty ambiguous way. I'll talk about my love of Nature, my drive to explore Nature, my interest in escaping the confines of the city to visit Nature. It's all very vague, but I believe my audience gets the idea. I'm referring to a place apart from the man-made world of buildings, trains, subways, roadways, businesses, advertisements, traffic, crowds, congestion, pollution, noise, fumes, trash and vermin. That place could be upon a mountain, beside a lake, along a river, out in the desert or deep in a forest, but you can be certain about one aspect of all these natural places: they are not the invention of some obsessed entrepreneur hoping to bilk a stupefied public out of a few bucks. These places just exist (unfortunately in ever-decreasing numbers) and require no real intervention by man, except perhaps a conscious effort to minimize the impact of humans on their fragile terrains. When used in its most all-encompassing way, Nature includes plants, animals, landscape, geology, the atmosphere, the planets and stars, all of physical reality... basically, the universe.
Some people think of Nature as an entity with emotions and desires. The angry sea hopes to drown us. A mountain challenges us conquer its heights. The sun smiles benevolently upon us. And so on. I guess, being human, we can't help but associate our own feelings with everything around us, both animate and inanimate.
Many people consider Nature to be the enemy. They struggle to ensure that Nature cannot intrude upon their lives. They'll drive in circles in a parking lot for fifteen minutes in search of a space conveniently located near the mall entrance rather than walk for three minutes exposed to the elements. Their homes must be temperature-controlled so precisely that the impact of the change of seasons is more conceptual than experiential. A few times I've had new neighbors move-in nearby whose first order of business was to annihilate every tree on their property. Trees are just too messy, dropping blossoms, fruit and leaves willy-nilly on the ground. Even the grass must be groomed to offer the perfect carpet of pristine greenery around their homes. Gallons of pesticides, weed-killers and artificial fertilizers are spread over properties to safeguard against the intrusion of crabgrass, dandelions and slugs (and somehow, almost magically, these chemicals never turn up in their drinking water). If a bear is spotted at a local park... if a coyote is seen prowling the neighborhood... if a garter snake suns itself in the rose garden, it must be eliminated. Nature is simply too uncomfortable, too aesthetically unpleasing, too unpredictable and too threatening to be tolerated.
“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, – no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being an atheist, I surely don't commune with any divinity, Christian or otherwise, while hiking in a forest, climbing a mountain or tracing the shore of a river; though seeing the grand diversity and aesthetic completeness of the natural world, I can understand why some men and women, under the influence of a religious fervor, might be inspired to feel the presence of the object of their veneration while experiencing the unsullied, majestic perfection of the wilderness.
So I guess Nature with a capital N can mean a lot of different things to people. I recognize one's response to Nature is purely personal. I will hold on to my affection for the outdoors and freely permit others to embrace differing opinions (though, perhaps with a dash of bigotry, I assert that with just a little exposure most folk would readily convert to my way of thinking). The trajectory of my own life didn't predispose me to my intense appreciation of Nature. As stated earlier, I spent my first twenty years living in what has become known as “suburban sprawl”, a vast, homogeneous expanse of one-family houses, small businesses, schools and shopping malls. Then I moved to New York City where I lived for a decade. And we're not talking about the crystalline perfection of urban Manhattan but the dirty, run-down neighborhoods of the outer boroughs. When my wife and I moved to the Hudson Valley about 75 miles north of the city, I got my first taste of what it's like living in a more rural area with nearby parks, forests, mountains, lakes, farms, orchards and simply undeveloped land. Our home is situated on about 2 acres of land (mostly wooded), a plot that would have accommodated 8 houses in the hometown of my childhood. But, even when once settled in our new digs, we were unable to fully investigate the extensive resources around us because we were raising young children who were incapable, both physically and patience-wise, of enduring strenuous, long hikes. All the same, our kids were accompanying my wife and me on regular hikes, just reasonably tame, of short duration and on fairly level ground, and our youngest son when only a few days old was already on the trails with us, albeit in a fancy all-terrain stroller. When our boys hit their teen years, the time had come to explore much longer and challenging routes, and I would plan several extensive hikes during the warmer seasons. The longest by far was a 17 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail, which left us exhausted and sore for days. From then on, the flood gates were open, and I now search out opportunities for ever longer, more scenic and demanding hikes. I often make my treks with my wife and whichever of our kids (who are all adults now) is available, but I am just as likely to go it alone. There have been many times I've been on solo hikes on unpopular trails when I haven't seen another human the entire day and recognize that should I become incapacitated it might be days before someone would stumble upon me. That's part of the mystique. I love to feel totally immersed in Nature and insulated from the wider world. I know of no other activity which imparts such a feeling of peace and contentment. But to be honest, I've never hiked in a location where getting lost would mean anything worse than an inconvenience, perhaps involving a few miles of backtracking. And I am truly risk-averse, avoiding extreme conditions, slippery footing, precarious ledges and unstable slopes. I am seeking pleasure, not thrills.
I recently read Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, a book that describes the author's solo hiking journey through the Cevennes Mountains in France in 1878. One entry struck me powerfully:
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the frozen north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind, And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?”
If I am interpreting Stevenson correctly, I believe he is talking about the “escape” which undertaking a difficult excursion provides the adventurer. I do find that the petty concerns of my daily existence melt away when I'm on the trail. It's impossible to get caught up in negative thinking when out hiking. The faulty plumbing, the pesky neighbors, the car's squealing brakes, dental imperatives, runaway inflation and the insane political situation all dissipate within a cloud of pollen and swarming gnats. The mind unclenches. Just taking in oxygen becomes paramount. On the trail, I become aware of the beating of my heart and the burn in my muscles. My eyes, my brain and my limbs coordinate their talents to ensure that an errant footstep doesn't end in disaster. The state of the weather (the temperature, the winds, cloud cover and precipitation) takes on a new urgency and must be dealt with efficiently and effectively. Navigating a complex labyrinth of trails, often poorly marked, becomes the challenge, and a scenic vista becomes the reward. It's truly amazing how freeing a long hike in the woods can be.
And though I eschew the constant barrage of medical advice, gadgets, cure-alls and general quackery that assail me throughout my daily peregrinations, I have compiled a few broad rules of my own to keep me healthy. In no particular order, they are: 1) eat a varied diet, 2) don't get too fat, 3) consume sugars and salts in moderation, 4) drink red wine (it's like roto-rooter for the blood vessels), 5) avoid medications if at all possible, 6) stress is a killer, and 7) regular cardiovascular exercise is critical. As far as number seven goes: I don't lift weights; I don't run on a treadmill; I don't have a gym membership; my knees won't permit me to jog anymore; so hiking and bicycling are the only activities I engage in that give my heart and lungs a genuine workout. Hiking may not be a miraculous panacea, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Oh, and at my wife's instigation, I began recording my hiking mileage starting on St. Patrick's Day 2023. I found that over a one year period I hiked 757.32 miles. Traveling as the crow flies, that would bring me from my home in the Hudson Valley to Lexington, Kentucky. I suppose that's pretty good – definitely not mind-blowing but I could be doing a hell of a lot worse.
And, now, getting back to where this long, meandering entry began, I return to my appreciation of Nature with a capital N. Thus far, I believe I've explored the reasons why I am out on the trails, forever looking for new locations to experience and forever challenging my aging body to perform adequately. But, besides the mental and health benefits I've addressed, my obsession has resulted in a few tangible commodities that I can share with others: my photographs and artwork.
Regarding my photography, I have a few thoughts. I don't consider myself a big-league photographer because I lack a high level of technical expertise and don't own top-of-the-line equipment, which certainly makes a big difference in results. But I do take my photography very seriously, attempting to fully master the features of those cameras I do possess and applying my general artistic know-how to frame and properly expose a picture. Before there was such a thing as social media, I took pictures for my own benefit, to use as resources for my artwork and to record occasions I might otherwise forget. When out hiking, I particularly liked having the capacity to capture my perception of my surroundings and to memorialize my personal relationship with Nature. Though I lived in a fairly rural area in those days, I worked five days per week in a somewhat stressful job in New York City, and, at times during my workday, just as a mental balm, I would open up on my computer a few photos I took on my most recent hike. Honestly, doing this helped to assert a certain balance on many a crazy day.
Once the advent of social media permitted me to share my photos with others, my objectives in recording my experiences on the trail multiplied manyfold. My pictures, now posted online to a wider audience, have become a tool to elucidate others as to resources available in our surrounding area and for me personally serve as comprehensive documentation of my own activities, as of this writing going back more than a decade. I can now usually research when I made a specific hike, who (if anyone) accompanied me, what the weather was like, how long the hike took me, the mileage covered and my overall impression of the hike. That's extremely useful. In my photos, I hope to capture some truly stunning scenes that, at least for me, impart an intense emotional impression, maybe convey a tangible feeling of the season, the temperature, the humidity, the terrain. I take pleasure in recording detail: a stone, a leaf, blossoms, insects, birds, small critters. And I find heading out to the most inaccessible places at the most inconvenient hours often results in the most powerful images. Hopefully I can bring these facets of my own experiences to others unwilling to try or physically incapable of tackling a serious hike.
Over the years, I've taken literally tens of thousands of photos, far too many to attempt sampling here, so I've limited myself to a very small selection of the images I've compiled over the last twelve months and interspersed them with the preceding paragraphs I've written thus far.
As I've stated in several earlier blog entries, I am primarily a figure painter, though I do dabble occasionally in other genres. Considering my intense connection with Nature, you might expect me to be a landscape artist, but for me the human form has always asserted itself as the perfect vehicle for addressing my concerns. That said, I have over the years tackled the infrequent landscape, the results being inconsistent and often unsatisfying. I believe I struggle with landscape because my artistic strength is to bestow preternatural focus on my subject, eliciting almost invisible detail and subtleties painstakingly from form, and landscape seems to assert an “allover” approach. Before writing this entry, I chose from my hoard a few of the landscapes I've executed over my career, the earliest painted during my undergraduate studies, and was surprised at how many of them include evidence of the presence of humans, especially since, when hiking, I strive to leave the world of man far behind and hope to fabricate the illusion that I am immersed deeply in an untarnished, virgin wilderness. Most likely, my dependence on man-made elements in my landscapes is a symptom of my need to apply focus somewhere in a work and also serves as a crutch to establish a satisfying composition. Below I've culled a handful of oil paintings, prints, watercolors and gouaches from my very limited collection of landscapes.
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| Gerard Wickham - Sunken Meadow - 1983 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Birches, Moosehead Lake - 1987 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Greece - 1988 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Searsport, Maine - 1991c |
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| Gerard Wickham - Manomet - 1994 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Landscape with Storm Clouds - 1997 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Horseneck Beach -2003 |
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| Gerard Wickham - View from Tymor - 2003 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Furnace Pond - 2004 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Minnewaska - 2018 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Poets' Walk - 2018 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Tymor in Autumn - 2018 |
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| Gerard Wickham - Deep Woods, Tymor - 2021 |
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| Gerard Wickham - White Birch Pond - 2021 |
This final image is a large watercolor I painted at a cabin my wife and I rented last year outside of Cooperstown, New York. To be totally accurate, I painted half of it from the cabin's porch, and then recognizing I'd never complete it during our stay, I took a series of photos hoping to successfully capture the impression that initially motivated me to tackle this subject. So I was forced to finish this work at our home. Luckily, I had nailed down the entire composition while we were still at the cabin and had only to flesh out those details not yet fully realized.
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| Gerard Wickham - From Betty's Cabin - 2023 |
I recognized even when just starting on this work that it represented a departure from the norm for me. I don't believe that in all my many years of painting landscapes I had ever included a car in one of my works. Sure I might depict a quaint house, a viewing platform or a rustic post and rail fence in a painting or drawing, but a car was something different: essentially a high-tech, factory-produced, gas-guzzling, pollution-generating gadget. I couldn't imagine including the image of a car in one of my landscapes, which generally celebrated raw Nature. In this work, not only was I aiming to portray our family's Dodge Caravan but it was going to be a central element of the composition. And, instead of being troubled by the intrusion of this vehicle in my artwork, I actually felt affection for this old workhorse that we've kept running for nearly 16 years now. I saw the car as a tool, a beast of burden, a refuge, even a pseudo life-raft should the need arise. I could genuinely apprehend a certain beauty in this rusted-out wreck.
And this shift in perception got me to thinking. For most of my life, Nature represented for me an unattainable perfection, an elusive destination that was always beyond reach. The world of Man with its complications, obligations and homeliness was the real world. It was omnipresent and inescapable. I guess the onus of securing an education and earning a living meant my connection with the world of man was going to rule paramount in my life. But because my routines and activities had undergone a seismic shift in recent years, my mindset had experienced a similar change. Being retired for several years, I was no longer tied to a stressful job that imposed on me hours of train travel to a distant metropolis. I was free to gratify my own inclinations spontaneously and soon discovered many locations that permitted me to engage with Nature intimately. The rhythms of my life slowed. The structure of my day followed a sane pattern based on my needs and desires. At the same time, the world of man no longer seemed so sinister. Time had ceased to be a precious commodity, and I surrendered the perceived obligation to cram several different activities into every given moment. I could address one goal at a time, without the TV droning in the background or a CD playing. I could sit in silence. I drove slower and stopped getting incensed at the foibles of my fellow drivers. Instead of becoming antisocial once retired (as I had expected), I started to engage more readily with cashiers, mechanics, librarians, repairmen, park rangers, fishmongers, fellow hikers and former coworkers and truly enjoyed the human connection. I'm still me – maybe just me high on a gallon of chamomile tea. I guess I would say that I have achieved a balance between the world of Nature and the world of Man.
So I suppose it's taken me a lifetime to achieve this healthier relationship with my environment. As I've said, a big part of my change in perspective results from my move to a more rural area and my release from the responsibilities of employment. That's great for me, but for most people, options can be extremely limited. Wouldn't it be far better if city planners and zoning boards actually intelligently designed our cities and towns to stifle overdevelopment and safeguard our natural habitat? Maybe our governments could resist the intense pressure to open up new land to housing and industry. It is conceivable that local officials might be honest and courageous enough to stop rubber-stamping proposals detrimental to the communities they supposedly serve. And perhaps as a people we can begin to prioritize quality of life over financial profit. I honestly believe that, if we could live in more balanced environments, our thinking and behavior would naturally become more balanced.
As always, I encourage readers to comment here. If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.
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