Historic houses reflect lives well lived

Although I am a great admirer of Edward Hopper’s work, I had never been to his birthplace, a historic house located in Nyack. However, with a Facebook nudge from artist Andrea Kantrowitz, I headed across the bridge to Rockland on a recent Sunday to see “Edward Hopper Reimagined” a group exhibition commemorating the 40^th anniversary of the art center, www.yearofedwardhopper.com. The tiny place was packed.

“Those are my feet,” Andrea told me referring to the dominant image in her Hopper-inspired work. Many different images of ordinary life surround the distinctively wide, but certainly grounded feet. “Life is made up of fleeting moments that don’t necessarily connect,” she explains. These she has woven together in one painting – a semblance of her own reality. Like Hopper, she has bathed these quiet moments with light. Kantrowitz, who has an MFA from Yale and shows at Kenise Barnes Gallery in Larchmont (www.kenisebarnesfineart.com), is one of twenty-seven artists invited by curator Carole Perry to contemplate the influence of Edward Hopper on their work. In a room adjacent to the “reimagined” Hoppers is another room filled with Hopper family photographs and memorabilia, one of which is a bicycle that we can imagine Hopper riding through the hilly terrain of scenic Nyack memorizing light infused images of quiet moments. The Edward Hopper House is just one of many gems in our region…houses worth a visit such as the Horace Greeley House in Chappaqua (www.newcastlehistoricalsociety.org), the John Jay Homestead in Bedford (www.johnjayhomestead.org), and the home of composer Aaron Copeland (www.coplandhouse.org). These houses speak of the quiet moments in lives well lived.