This course offers the opportunity to meet with and hear from the historians, artists, curators, art patrons, and the hosts who share and care for the art on the land at the exhibitions we will visit in Upper Valley locations on both sides of the river. These art spaces reflect the influence of nature, the history of work, of culture, and the “spirit of place” from both early and present life on the land. The products of the granite and marble quarries which have been (and continue to be) used world-wide are prevalent.

Regionally, the skills from the lumber industry, black–smithing, brick making, landscape work, farming , welding, and even construction projects have influenced the materials used and made possible the variety of installations and sculpture we view now in art installations and exhibitions on the land.

The culture of craftsmen from past and present and the regional history of creating pottery and art with clay through time continues in current art. Contemporary work also makes use of new materials which are being introduced to create work which is winter worthy in our regional climate. Local fabrication facilities are now helpful to artists with solutions for steel, metal, and aluminum sculpture. During the last decade, computer technology (light, sound, and the use of algorithms in design) have become part of this phenomenon of art on the land.