by Richard Kattman
10/10/2012

Living on Grove Street, the first sounds one hears at daybreak are the crowing of a most persistent rooster and the eerie call of a lonesome Screech Owl that lives by the millstream. Meanwhile, the sun streams through the clouds in astonishing colors of red and green.

When Barbara and I first moved to Holliston in 1980, my 88-year-old Grandmother flew in from Philadelphia to approve the union and inspect our home purchase. Granny Sepp on a fine Sunday morning, I will always remember, walked to church at the lovely calling of the bells of St. Mary’s and the First Congregational Church.

Paul and Nancy own a beautiful Greek Revival residence on Church Street, situated amongst some grand old sugar maples. If you see someone buzzing by at rapid speed in a tiny olive green station wagon Mini Cooper, you will have had a glimpse of one of our reporters.

On a cloudy misty day in at the beginning of October, luscious apples are at their best and are ready to be picked. The air is filled with the fragrance of sugar, the grass is still fresh green, and the nearby pumpkins are bright orange.

Brilliant red is the color of these rain sprinkled, locally grown, crunchy, delicious, and affordable apples.

Beautiful combinations of pale yellow, cobalt blue, black, white, and olive green colors are intermingled among birches and stones on this little spit of land at Pleasure Point. The name of the place is most fitting. The wind is soft and the air is clear and cool in early afternoon light. The birches have turned with the first touch of cold.

Several years ago now, I visited the Rose Garden in the Fenway, Boston, long known for elderly ladies soaking up sun in November in the protected enclave surrounded by late blooming flowers. Holding fast to this memory, I planted Betty Prior Roses to insure color in all seasons and delicate pink blooms until December.

Enjoying an early Fall ride along the railroad bicycle trail, riders turn their horses down the slope and up again to avoid the horses rearing from vertigo atop the railroad bridge.

In the early years of my artistic career, I photographed Kingfisher’s Island in all seasons and weathers with an 8 x 10 view camera on tripod -- with black cloth draped overhead. Encountering a crazy, diving, loony, screaching kingfisher one day, I named the landscape in that bird’s honor for my pleasure to somehow identify the location otherwise unnamed.

On the way to purchase gasoline at our new in-town service station, I stopped by Lake Winthrop to see what I could see. Little did I expect the drama of light and dark played out on the western shore of the afternoon pond displayed as by a great artist’s hand.

My landscape architecture and art studio is situated on the fourth floor of the Water Street Mill. The view to the east is elevated but faces the rear yards of a cluster of mill houses built in the 1850s. On certain days and often at night, fantastic, astonishing, dreamlike, weather events quite often occur.

As the geese and swans are flocking south the October moon rises glistening over the late fall oaks that inhabit the eastern shore of Lake Winthrop. If you are lucky enough to be standing at Pleasure Point at dusk you will see a great natural display of moonbeams stream across the mirrored pond surface in silver rays of light streaked across dusky reds and umbers of the reflected forest.

Though the expense of night lighting is irksome, what better activity for a young boy or girl than to play baseball at dusk. Three strikes and you are out. Or the bases are loaded with two out in the ninth inning…

Patience is a virtue, especially with photography. Standing lakeside recently one evening I was rewarded with a most glorious sight of a golden sun cutting through clouds just before dark.

Full of an adventuresome day, and sleepy from a delicious spaghetti dinner, a good book is inviting indeed.

Richard Kattman is an artist, photographer and landscape architect. Richard's art comprises abstract and landscape paintings, figure and portrait paintings, figure drawings, 35mm and view camera photography. The Kattman Corporation landscape architecture practice consists of primarily residential, commercial, and recreation/open space related projects.

Richard's passion for art and landscape architecture is all consuming. A love of family, fine arts, music, literature, coffee table portfolios, the Atlantic Ocean at Little Compton and two happy dogs provide life's greatest pleasures.