{"id":5490,"date":"2024-08-28T09:42:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T13:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/?p=5490"},"modified":"2024-08-28T09:44:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T13:44:35","slug":"scott-ruescher-on-the-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/2024\/08\/28\/scott-ruescher-on-the-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Ruescher, “On the Lane”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his new poem accompanied by personally-recorded narration, Boston-based poet Scott Ruescher unfolds a story of his connection with iconic Maine artist Marsden Hartley and tales of other local history.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Marsden Hartley, Brilliant Autumn, Landscape #28<\/i>, c. 1930. Oil on canvas, 25 \u00d7 31 \u00bc in. (63.5 \u00d7 79.4 cm). Colby College Museum of Art, Gift of C. David O\u2019Brien, \u201958, 1983.006.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nOn the Lane<\/b><\/h3>\n

Scott Ruescher, 2023<\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/files\/2024\/08\/Scott-Ruescher_On-the-Lane_Reading.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

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He was leaning on his rake in the immaculate garden <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Of the ostentatious, five-million-dollar, log-cabin mansion <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Of a real estate tycoon from the North Shore of Boston<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Between a blooming witch hazel and a green rhododendron<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And tipping back his ball cap, in a brief break from work
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That I more or less made him take, in the western Oxford County <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Foothills of the White Mountains, on the lane along the shore <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Of the lake named for the northwest wind, Keewaydin, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In the <\/span>Hiawatha<\/span> of Longfellow that caused such a sensation<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In the late nineteenth century, among the genteel population,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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When I said to him, Dan Barker, on my way back to the house<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

From a run around the lake, summarizing everything <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

He\u2019d made the mistake of telling me, and nodding 18 miles east<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Toward the contiguous towns of South Paris and Norway, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That he probably hadn\u2019t needed to know, 40-some years ago, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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To pass humanities or Maine history, to graduate with honors<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

From Fryeburg Academy, and to teach music for many years <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

At the Oxford Hills high school, while indulging interests <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In art and culture that would make him an accessory <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

To a famous artist\u2019s legacy, and even earn him credit on labels <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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In the first room of that artist\u2019s retrospective exhibition<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That I first saw on a solo excursion in New York City<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then again later, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

With Rebecca and our good friend Judith at the Colby Museum <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In Waterville, that Marsden Hartley, the Modernist painter, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Born to British parents, who grew up in Lewiston, 40 miles<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Northeast of here, over there, beyond Oxford Plains<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And Mechanics Falls, with the children of French-Canadians<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Who worked in the textile mills, in what is now among <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The largest communities of Somalian refugees in the nation,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Spent at least one, if not several seminal summers, here <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In the 19-aughts, living among the stoic locals and dilettantes<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

From Boston, a gangly, odd, homely young introvert<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Who wore, they said, no matter how hot, a long dark coat <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And who knows what, sleeping in a shack in a field on Hut Road,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Over in the vicinity of North Lovell and West Stoneham<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That I was pivoting in the general direction of now,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A dedicated loner painting in oils the most prominent features<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Of the landscape along the Maine-New Hampshire border<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That we see from turns in the road a few miles south of here,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Marsden Hartley, Landscape with Aqueduct, Provence<\/i>, 1928. Oil on canvas, 19 \u00bc \u00d7 25 \u00bd in. (48.9 \u00d7 64.8 cm). Colby College Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Charles P. Kuntz, 1960.009.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Depicting, under oddly cheerful, solid white cumulus clouds,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In surprisingly bold colors, in paintings that applied <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Post-Impressionist style of Paul C\u00e9zanne in southern France <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

To the landscape of New England, that put him in the company<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Of Georgia O\u2019Keefe and Arthur Dove, the vertical cleft of Miles Notch <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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And its cliff to the right, the minor bumps of Durgin<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And Butters Mountains on the Red Rock Ridge horizon,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And his very own Mont Sainte-Victoire, Speckled Mountain <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

On the left, just as it all appears in the paintings, with a cove<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Of Kezar Lake bold and blue in the lower-left foreground,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Marsden Hartley, Kezar Lake, Autumn Evening<\/i>, c. 1910. Oil on cardboard, 12 \u00d7 12 in. (30.5 \u00d7 30.5 cm). Harvard Art Museums\/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Lee Simonson, 1967.43.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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For once a Maine artist who wasn\u2019t \u201cfrom away,\u201d who wasn\u2019t <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

From Boston, New York, or Philly, say, and who also wasn\u2019t <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

So exclusively attached to the coastline of the ocean, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Like Winslow Homer at Prout\u2019s Neck, Edward Hopper <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

On Monhegan Island, or Andrew Wyeth in Cushing\u2014<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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