Art in the Woods

Entrance to Brookline, NH, Sculpture Park

Imagine hiking (in our case slowly walking) through a woodland trail in a small NH town and seeing more than 100 sculptures of stone and metal where, years ago, skiers sped down steep runs.

You may be curious about where it came from and how it got to Brookline, NH?

In our case, curiosity led to (no surprise) another day trip, just a 30 minute drive from Nashua, NH. What we found were amazing pieces of art in an incredible outdoor sculpture park. For over 20 years, new and unique works have been created and installed in the woods.

It's called the Brookline Sculpture Park and it's considered New England's largest outdoor sculpture park. What started as several works of art in a front yard is now an outdoor museum with artwork among trails criss-crossing the mountain.This open air museum is free and open to the public year-round, dawn to dusk. Donations are always welcome.

Our visit started with a map downloaded from the park's website; copies were also available at a kiosk in the parking area. Truth is we felt that the map was more confusing than helpful and found it easier to explore the trails with a hiking app. Afterwards, we learned that the Trailforks app was recommended for use on the trails. Unfortunately, we hadn't downloaded it earlier and there's no wi-fi in the park. Thankfully, Grenville had MapMyHike, another hiking app which helped us navigate around. We've since downloaded the other app for another visit.

What is It?

The Sculpture Park, is located on the grounds of the Andres Art Institute. Artists worldwide have contributed pieces to this collection of metal and stone sculptures spread over the hills of a former ski area. The pieces can be seen along 11 hiking trails which range from easy to difficult. The views change with the seasons.

New works are created and installed yearly, some can be more abstract than others. While we could "see" the meaning in a number of the sculptures, there were many where even checking the title of the piece wasn't helpful to us.

Each year's artwork come from returning as well as new artists invited to visit Brookline for three weeks to create sculptures for permanent display. Over the years, participating sculptors have traveled from Lithuania, Latvia, England, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Egypt, Greece, Chile, and many U.S. states. In non-pandemic times, the public would be invited to watch the artists work and to join guided tours of the collection. Now, visitors walk the trails on their own as we did.

Paul Andres & John Weidman

Who Started It?

The Sculpture Park was the brainchild of engineer and innovator Paul Andres, who purchased a large tract of land on Big Bear Mountain in Brookline, NH in 1996. He moved into a house near the top of the mountain and started buying sculptures to place around the yard of his home. This large property was formerly part of Brookline Ski Area, one of the first ski-lift areas in New England. It later became a larger regional operation called Big Bear and later Musket Mountain. The ski area closed in 1984.

 
Andres combined his love of nature and art and added more sculptures to create a personal sculpture park. In 1998, he joined with sculptor and long-time Brookline resident John Weidman and they co-founded the Andres Institute of Art as a 501(c) (3) charitable organization to sponsor annual sculpture symposiums. 

At a symposium, sculptors gather to work and produce a permanent individual piece of public artwork. A sculpture symposium has been called the sculptor's fantasy come true. In 1959, the International Sculpture Symposium movement was spearheaded by Austrian sculptor Karl Prantl. 

Coincidentally, the first International Sculpture Symposium in the U.S. was held in New England in Proctor, VT in 1969 under the joint sponsorship of the Vermont Marble Company. Since then, international sculpture symposia have been held in towns and cities worldwide, including in Nashua, NH. The most recent one was in Sept and the works have been installed within the city.

The first Brookline, NH, sculpture symposium was held in 1999. Seven artists from Lithuania, Latvia, England, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Vermont, and NH stayed with local families and worked to create sculptures that were placed on permanent display on the mountain. At first, most town residents were unaware of what was happening on Big Bear Mountain as sculptors cut, bent, and welded steel; split, shape, ground and polished stone. 

Volunteers prepared the sites and later moved the completed pieces from the studio with heavy equipment. As years passed, the Sculpture Park has made Brookline, a destination for many.

How It Started

Once a year, up to 4 artists from the U.S. and other countries are invited to travel to Brookline, NH, to immerse themselves in its rural character and create art within a 3-week timeframe. The invitation is part of the Bridges and Connections International Sculpture Symposium sponsored by the Andres Art Institute.

Artists are housed with local residents who sponsor their stay, and work with volunteers who groom and prepare sculpture sites, and operate the heavy equipment needed to properly place the works, some of which are very hefty weighing several tons.

According to the Institute’s website, artists receive a small stipend, and are free to create what they like, then to place it where they want. The Institute provides tools and materials.

Hiking along the network of trails was an interesting experience. Some sculptures seemingly  speak shouted out their presence; others remained silent sentries. After all, art is subjective. Our trails exploration was done randomly without checking off each piece we saw. This brought some unexpected discoveries as, more than a few times, we nearly bypassed a sculpture. One of the goals of the Sculpture Park is to include art in nature so that it's unobtrusive. We felt it succeeded.

Arriving for our weekday late morning visit, the lower parking lot was nearly full, luckily an earlier visitor was just driving out. We noticed an equal number of NH and MA license plates; the park is close to the border of both these states. It was very easy to enjoy a socially distanced outdoors adventure. Visitors were requested to keep 6 feet distance between those not in their group and to wear masks, if this wasn't possible. While visitors were walking the trails, it was a rather silent environment. Taking time to rest on one of the well-placed stone benches, we chatted with a few visitors who were doing the same.

Sculptures came into view as we walked slowly and carefully along the winding, root-filled and quite rocky trails. The aptly named Quarry Trail had large rock piles, remnants of a former quarry at the site. Some of the sculptures had identifying details, others did not, many had enigmatic titles. We saw works by artists from NH, Zimbabwe, England, Iran, Canada, India, Ireland, Italy and Iceland among other countries.

Follow-up visits definitely are needed to see more of the park because the trails dis take us longer to hike when side steppings rocks and roots (bring hiking poles). We hiked for well over 2 hours (with photo and rest stops) and figure that we saw less than half of the sculptures scattered within the park's acreage.

Park trails are open from dawn to dusk daily, though the studios are closed. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no portable toilets on site. Admission is Free and donations are encouraged at a parking lot sculpture that includes a metal mailbox. 

For most people, a donation is well worth the enjoyment of not only being able to walk around outdoors, but to see very unusual, creative, and beautiful sculptures, so close to home.

This was one of several sculptures that we easily recognizable with no information needed.