Having Faith

Keene Arts exhibit captures artist Harold Weston’s twin loves

By Tim Rowland

It was a long way from a Quaker meeting house in Pennsylvania to posing nude for her husband’s celebrated Adirondack landscapes, but Faith Borton Weston managed.

She also accepted life in Harold Weston’s austere, uninsulated cabin in the St. Huberts wilderness, and sallied forth as the great artist — his left leg dangling ineffectually from a bout with polio — clawed his way up High Peak summits, sometimes  returning in the dark of night.

Weston, said his granddaughter Rebecca Foster, climbed Giant on crutches. “He was this hurricane of energy, but it would be wrong to say he wasn’t deeply dependent on (Faith),” she said.

And together, they felt unstoppable in their pursuit to make the world a better, more beautiful place.

“Dear, if we can hold to this intensity and conviction of love — forgiving, self-sacrificing, soul-stirring power that it is — no man can measure the contribution that we might make to an out-worn society that longs for the deep things in life,” Faith wrote to Harold.

The work of both will be part of an exhibit “FAITH,” art by Harold Weston, words by Faith Borton Weston that will open at Keene Arts on Thursday, Aug. 3 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and runs through Sunday, Sept. 3. 

Faith, raised a Quaker in the Philadelphia suburbs, married Harold a century ago in 1923. “She was an active participant in his art, not just a passive model,” Forster said. “They were relentless optimists; they knew they could effect change.”

Both became involved in humanitarian projects, including arts advocacy and food relief during World War II.

In the exhibit, Foster said Faith narrates Harold’s work, but not in the sense of a gallery tour. She left a rich archive of letters and journals, exploring their relationship, art and the world in depth. “She enjoyed writing, and she knew she was good at it,” Foster said. “When they were apart they would write these long letters, daily.”

The landscape nudes are today recognized for their importance and the melding of humanity and nature, but at the time some galleries considered them too daring to hang. They were emotional and dramatic, not the doe-eyed nudes with the come-hither smile of prior artists that could be counted upon for an appreciative male glance.

They took their name from acclaimed artist John Marin who, upon viewing the nudes for the first time in 1925, said, “I feel the woods in these. … Did you ever see mountains painted better than this?” 

It’s a show Foster said she’s been considering for some time, and has  done so with the Harold Weston Foundation, her mother Nina Weston Foster and Malcolm MacDougall, owner of Keene Arts.

Weston’s time in the woods was cut short by health problems, as his doctors advised him to live somewhere a little less challenging than the Adirondacks. So they moved to France and later  Greenwich Village before returning to the Adirondacks in 1930.

Back in St. Huberts, Weston founded the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies in Essex County at the onset of the second world war, and was secretary for the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society.

Their “jam-packed lives,” Foster said, were epitomized in Weston’s lament, “There isn’t time for it all; there never was.” 

Keene Arts

Keene Arts, fashioned from a former church on Route 73 in the hamlet of Keene, is itself representative of Adirondack artistic tradition, hosting shows of the greats, such as Harold Weston and Rockwell Kent, but also providing a home for shows featuring local artists who, as Weston was  a century ago, finding their way in the beauty of the forests, brooks and mountains.

“It’s like a treasure hunt, finding artistic talent further afield, all with this connection to the Adirondacks,” MacDougall said.

In July, Keene Arts will host the exhibit, Champlain Pathways, opening June 30, and running through Sunday, July 23. Four artists — Kevin Raines, Rob Powell, Dan Keegan and Steve Van Nort, will be showing, with sale proceeds to benefit Champlain Area Trails (CATS).

From Friday July 28 to Sunday July 30, the center will host the High Peaks Artists Show, showcasing local artists from Keene and Keene Valley, with proceeds to support local non- profits.

The center also runs a concert series during the month of June, as  well as other locally driven programming. “It’s a community space, and a lot of people use it,” he said. “It takes a village, and there’s no way we could put on the programming we do without (local) help.”

Programs and show dates are listed at keenearts.com.

The Methodist church that houses the center was built in 1836, but as with many Adirondack churches its membership had dwindled, and MacDougall said it had been sitting empty for several years when he and his wife Zizi purchased it in 2010.

A documentary filmmaker, MacDougall said the venue has “many faces,” but is a natural fit for artists, discovered or not, who have drawn on the natural beauty of the Park. “Obviously there is a great history of artists in the Adirondacks,” he said. “You can still find great artists in the middle of the woods.”

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