Fredonian Park Gazebo. Shirley, Mass.

This was my farewell drawing to the sketchpad I had carried around with me since shortly after completing a drawing class at M.I.T. back when I was a graduate student about 20 years ago. I did some drawing on it back then for a few months, but hadn't done anything with it except drag it with me from house to house until these sketches. In the meantime it went through a flood in Lowell and got chewed on by mice in Allston and perhaps in Sharon as well. Its paper aged to a really attractive brown which I enjoyed drawing on. I really don't care much for white sketching paper but that is all there seems to be available at a reasonable price. Pearl Art has this really interesting paper they use to wrap purchases of art paper which I think would make great drawing paper if it were bound in pads. Instead we get this bleached uniform stuff even when it's newsprint or recycled.

So for this farewell drawing, I wanted to do something special and I succeeded as far as I'm concerned. I tried another sketch from a less interesting point of view during the winter (February 18) and had to quit prematurely due to frozen fingers. This one I did under a beach umbrella to shield me from the sun. I took my shirt off to keep cool. Even with the protection of the umbrella, I got a bit sunburned.

The Fredonian Nature Center, of which the gazebo and pond are a part, was dedicated on September 9, 1979. It was built on land acquired in 1974 from McElroy Electronics Company which is located next door. A HUD (Housing and Urban Development) Grant of $21,000 helped with construction materials and contracting. A CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) Grant financed the building of two bridges and a boardwalk. A host of other people and organizations put in time and money as well.

The bridges and boardwalk were torn out after being judged structurally unsound around the time this drawing was done. One of the bridges was unpopular with most of the neighbors since kids used their backyards as exits on the other side of the park.

For myself, I would have preferred to keep the bridge even though in the interests of harmony I voted with the others on the conservation commission to take it out. It would have been nice to walk home from the train through the park. The boardwalk made a nice place to sit and listen to and watch the plentiful bird life using the wetlands. I used the remnants from the demolition to install some walkways over some wet parts of the old trail system.

Kathy Lewin put together a self-guided nature walk over these trails in 1978. It still makes for an interesting tour.

July 14, 1996