Join the Fruitlands staff for light refreshments and the opening of two new exhibits in the Fruitlands Art Gallery, 102 Prospect Hill Road in Harvard, Massachusetts. Zen Dust, by artist Linda Hoffman and Photographs of the Harvard Shaker Village, on loan from the Harvard Historical Society, will be on exhibit during WinterFest weekends, along with landscapes from the Hudson River School and nineteenth century portraits from Fruitlands collection. Admission free with suggested donation.  The art gallery will be open on Saturdays and Sundays 1PM-5PM from January 14 – February 26.  For directions, visit www.fruitlands.org.

The work in the Zen Dust exhibit was inspired by Linda Hoffman’s early training in the Zen Art of Noh Theater, in Kyoto, Japan. Once back in the West, Hoffman created her own art form that was poetic and spare – influenced by the Japanese aesthetic of wabi- sabi. Wabi being loneliness, solitariness, the sight of lone crow on a crooked branch, a plum blossom peeking through snow, while sabi refers to objects that show the well-worn, rustic, patina of age. The Shaker large format photographs were taken during the 1960s as part of the Historic American Building Survey, run by the National Park Service. There are 28 photographs in the show, many of them attributed to Jack E.Boucher. They feature both interior and exterior shots of the Shaker buildings, including some very beautiful close-upshots of architectural details.