Work In Progress International Artists and Local Volunteers Create
Art Mountain in Brookline
By Heidi Masek (excerpted from the HippoPress, September 28, 2006)
hmasek@hippopress.com
One of the redeeming qualities of suburban New Hampshire is that you can often escape the sprawl just by crossing a town
line. Away from the highways you are almost guaranteed country roads, woods and farms. Brookline is one of those places
and has been home to a little-known attraction since 1998 that merges the outdoors with international art. And it’s free.
On Route 13, just south of the turn for Parker’s Maple Barn, you’ll see a sign for Big Bear Lodge. Just past that is the in-
progress entry to the Andres Institute of Art, and there, under the new stone sign, a banner announces the annual
sculpture symposium going on now, public welcome.
The former Big Bear ski hill has 140 acres with trails and a paved access road to the workshop. Each fall since its
inception, the institute has played host to sculptors from all over the world. By the end of October, visitors will be able to
explore 50 outdoor sculptures along the trails. Until the Oct. 8 symposium close, visitors can also watch the professionals
in action.
“It’s for everybody; it’s not an exclusive thing at all,” Anna Szok, a board member for the nonprofit group, said. You can
bring kids, the dog, a picnic; climb on the sculptures and the hill (the first symposium was called “Sit on It”), take pictures,
bring friends, whatever, Szok said.
“Every time I go, something magical happens,” Jennifer Starr, of Hollis, said. “It’s this neat mix of outdoors, nature, and art.”
Andres isn’t full of manicured lawns like DeCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Mass. “Here we have our art mountain;
somehow the art is placed in a way that doesn’t disrupt the site,” she said.
Sculptor John Weidman is the executive director. He wants to put art back into society. “In Europe art is very much a part of
society, and people will say ‘Oh, you’re an artist? Tell me about it. That’s very interesting.’ In America, people ask, ‘Oh.
How do you make a living?’”
“It’s not all about making a dollar. It’s about making community with people around us. It’s about enjoying life,” Weidman
said. “Art itself is not a commodity.”
“I’d personally like to see more pleasure in life through the arts; we deal with them every day. We depend on them. They’re
very functional in terms of our psyche, our moods and our feelings,” Weidman said.
Often the community is surprised the Andres Institute is there. “I think a lot of people have not quite understood what we’re
about or what the institute is,” Peter Cook, the institute treasurer, said.
The institute itself stemmed from the idea for a symposium that Weidman and Paul Andres, who had bought the property in
Brookline, wanted to create. Andres is an entrepreneur who did a lot of work in electronics, Weidman explains. Andres
“wants to contribute to society...and this is one way you can do that.”
The idea for the symposium evolved into a nonprofit institute.
The sculpture symposium provides a $2,000 stipend, home stays, meals and materials to sculptors invited by Weidman.
They aren’t paid for the work or transportation. They do get to explore new materials and new technology. They don’t have
to worry about selling the piece because it stays at the Andres Institute for the public to enjoy. Volunteers maintain
sculpture sites.
“It’s exactly what artists envision, and it’s such an accessible venue—we all become artists,” Szok said. Szok is also
inspired by the diversity of people who leave their mark on the mountain.
Andres Investments owns Big Bear Lodge, the building on Route 13 that houses a Chinese restaurant, lodge and retail.
Andres Institute raises funds through renting the lodge for bingo.
“It’s the strangest juxtaposition,” Cook said. “Usually you see this sort of thing in terms of the Catholic Church or drum and
bugle corps ... this is an art institute taking advantage of people’s desire to play bingo.” About 80 percent of the funding
comes from bingo, while the rest comes from donations or memberships. Andres gets plenty of “in kind” donations such as
volunteer time, materials, lending of bulldozers, etc. The board is just starting to look into grants.
“To me it doesn’t matter how it gets funded; my goal is to keep this place open free of charge for the public,” Weidman said.
The institute also offers space for classes and workshops. What’s taught depends on what’s requested. Schools are
encouraged to visit. Group tours or workshops can be arranged. Learning opportunities have included welding, painting
and clay. The institute offers space to art and community groups.
Anyone with an interest in machines and tools should visit the workshop at the top of the hill (there is, of course, a cell
tower near by). There’s a 1948 crane. There’s earth-moving equipment and there are plenty of tools for metal work and
stone carving.
“It’s important to me that they benefit from being here as well as the public benefit from being here,” Weidman said about
the visiting sculptors. He wants them to try new materials and technology. “It’s just not an exercise in doing what they
normally do,” Weidman said.
At lunch on the second day of work sculptor Chris Peterson had just arrived from Holland. He passed around the tools he’d
brought. The sculptors compared notes on air hammers and companies that make them. Chantou Oeur showed his
method for producing the water drip required for drilling into stone when utilities are scarce.
At the first symposium, artists who normally worked in bronze or ceramics worked in granite for the first time. A stone
master from the Republic of Georgia learned to work with metal. Another artist who lamented that two weeks wasn’t enough
time (the symposium has been increased to three) ended up building the largest piece. Some artists bring ideas, some
change them, some wait to see what the materials and space will inspire.
There’s a granite quarry nearby, but the sculptures in the park can be made of anything—brass, steel, glass, marble,
granite, wood. “You name it, it’s up to the artist. We give them the freedom they deserve—give them the freedom they
deserve to learn,” Weidman said.
Volunteers help significantly during the symposium and throughout the year. Szok introduces herself as the “Trail Bitch” so
the sculptors, who meet lots of people quickly at the symposium, know to find her with site questions. Szok knew Weidman
for 20 years and had been hiking around Big Bear since 1984.
“That is my favorite part of the symposium, sculpture placement,” Szok said. “It’s the first glimpse we get of the artist’s
vision.” It usually involves heavy equipment and sometimes ten volunteers pulling on ropes.
Szok pulled her father in, and he’s been president of the board for six months. A promotion, Darold Rorabacher joked,
since he retired as vice president at Sanders, the company that became Lockheed and now BAE. “It’s been really neat for
me. My dad’s been in management positions my whole life, and this is the first time I get to see it in action,” Szok said.
Rorabacher joined because the board had invited his girlfriend. Szok’s sister-in-law is on the board as well. “One person
gets inspired by how cool it is,” Szok said, and more follow.
Cook, a mathematician by training, has to “ask the nasty questions” about the necessity of equipment that Weidman wants
to buy. The institute also offers a way of keeping the land available for public use without the municipality taking it on,
Cook, who has lived in Brookline for 25 years, pointed out.
Volunteers bring food to the workshop and host dinners. The Mile A Way restaurant hosts a banquet each year, and local
businesses donate materials and equipment. Each artist must be sponsored.
Jennifer Starr is a new board member. “I discovered the institute a couple of years ago. I just felt it was this hidden gem. I
would take my friends over and introduce them, but I didn’t have a real map. I just kept getting lost.” She decided that
spreading the word was important, and took on the role herself.
Szok trained her to lead walks. They’ve produced a few versions of a trail map. Copies are in a box in the parking lot.
Another board member has recently been updating the Andres Institute Web site.
Recent efforts to let the public know about Andres worked so well this summer that Starr found herself leading free tours of
50 people rather than seven.
“People are showing up in droves [for tours],” Cook said.
That raises new challenges, including offering enough bathrooms and maps, and creating accessibility to the sculptures
for people who aren’t avid hikers or are wheelchair-bound.
Yeon-Tak Chang
Bachelor of Fine Arts from Seoul National University in 1964. Studied marble sculpting in Italy from 1979 to 1980 and
attended Ontario College of Art.
Chang, who lives in Toronto, has work in the Museum of Modern Art in Milan, Italy, and the National Museum of Modern Art
in Seoul, Korea. He’s had solo exhibitions and been part of several group exhibitions in Canada, South Korea, Italy, the U.
S. and Hungary.
Marble is his material of choice and mountains and nature figure into his work. That, perhaps, makes him a good match for
Andres Institute.
“My free-form sculpture is reflective of the relationship between man and nature and the struggles and harmonies between
the two.” Chang wrote in an artist statement. He attributes part of the influence of nature on him to his growing up on a
farm in South Korea, and now wanting to reunite with something familiar. “The process of touching, molding and reshaping
the stone further provides a form of intimate dialog between me and nature.”
Andy Moerlein
Derryfield Academy art teacher from Bow, N.H.
Moerlein’s work is also at the Mill Brook Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Concord. He attended Dartmouth College and
Cornell University. After focusing on raising his children, he is now returning to producing more of his own work. He says he
knew that Weidman, with whom he had been in several gallery shows, actually liked his work when Weidman invited him to
the symposium.
Moerlein calls his work architectonic. First impressions may be of something futuristic but
the nature world is his inspiration. He’s fascinated by it. To prepare for the concrete
structure he wants to create he collected mushrooms and took photos around the
property, looking to incorporate “all these organic events.” He sees inspiration in decay.
He shows a snapshot of old leaves that had been washed down the hill and had piled
up to form parallel lines, something many others wouldn’t notice.
“This is a fast, aggressive, intense event,” Moerlein said. While the other artists are
chiseling away at New Hampshire’s great resource, granite, Moirlein is experimenting
with steel and concrete. He hasn’t slept much.
His interpretation of the “Relations” symposium theme is the relation of man pushing
against nature. The cavernous structures in his models convey the idea that man can be
swallowed up by nature’s force.
Chanthou Oeur
Oeur leaves you with the impression that he is warm, lighthearted, joyful and ready to
share what he knows about sculpting. But what marks Oeur’s creativity are the atrocities
committed in Cambodia which he fled in 1978 when the Khmer Rouge took control. Now a Maryland resident, he keeps his
most treasured artwork at his home, including a sculpture of rain-washed graves of Cambodian victims.
Oeur was orphaned as a baby, raised by his sister, and then lived at Buddhist temples until he was 15. He was a freedom
fighter and a refugee. And Oeur was an artist, “since before I was born.” Chantau also recites poetry, inspired by
Cambodian struggles. Oeur gives demonstrations at the Smithsonian Institute during Asian Pacific Heritage month.
‘‘I will sacrifice anything to let the world experience the recent Cambodian tragedy through my art work,” he writes in his
artist statement. Oeur uses his artwork and poetry to let people know what’s going on his country, where Pol Pot’s regime
killed 2 million of Cambodia’s 7 million people in the 1970s.
His work at Andres will be an extension of his attempts to “Let the powerful world know what’s going on in the powerless
world.”
Chris Peterson
Studied art at University of Amsterdam and business at University of Den Bosch.
Peterson’s father and a girlfriend were sculptors. He followed that path, pursuing photography and installation art
as well. But Peterson, 30, counts his business skills as indispensable for a professional artist, and thinks art schools
should spend more time teaching the business part of art. He’s exhibited in Slovenia, China, Germany, Belgium and
Switzerland, and has working private collections.
Peterson grew up in a small village of less than 3,000 people in a forest in the Netherlands, so woods in Brookline
make him “feel very much at home.”
“Day-to-day life” is what Peterson projects through his work. Sometimes what is bothering him is a larger social or
political issue; sometimes he needs to express something more personal. For complex ideas, he turns to photography
or installation because they are more explicit, he said.
Peterson, who describes his sculptures as geometric, was also influenced by time spent in Australia and Asia. The
vastness and emptiness of Australia contrasted with the small, dense Netherlands. Thailand and Indonesia affected
him spiritually, allowing him to get rid of “excess baggage.”
“I think if you live in a wealthy country, it’s not always that good. I believe less is better,” Peterson said.
Andres Institute of Art
98 Rt. 13, Brookline, 673-8441, www.andresinstitute.org
Eighth International Bridges and Connections Sculpture Symposium Sept. 16-Oct. 8
Open daily, free. Watch the sculptors work through Oct. 8 or visit any day to hike and view sculptures.
Aggressive dogs should be kept on leashes, droppings should be removed from trails.
Thursday, Sept. 28: Business After Hours at 5 p.m. at the Andres Studio (Souhegan Chamber of Commerce members
gathering)
Saturday, Sept. 30: Guided Sculpture Park Walk at 10 a.m.; Meet the Artists Potluck Cookout, time TBA
Saturday, Oct. 7: Guided Sculpture Park Walk at 10 a.m.
Sunday, Oct. 8: Symposium Closing
Art Mountain in Brookline
By Heidi Masek (excerpted from the HippoPress, September 28, 2006)
hmasek@hippopress.com
One of the redeeming qualities of suburban New Hampshire is that you can often escape the sprawl just by crossing a town
line. Away from the highways you are almost guaranteed country roads, woods and farms. Brookline is one of those places
and has been home to a little-known attraction since 1998 that merges the outdoors with international art. And it’s free.
On Route 13, just south of the turn for Parker’s Maple Barn, you’ll see a sign for Big Bear Lodge. Just past that is the in-
progress entry to the Andres Institute of Art, and there, under the new stone sign, a banner announces the annual
sculpture symposium going on now, public welcome.
The former Big Bear ski hill has 140 acres with trails and a paved access road to the workshop. Each fall since its
inception, the institute has played host to sculptors from all over the world. By the end of October, visitors will be able to
explore 50 outdoor sculptures along the trails. Until the Oct. 8 symposium close, visitors can also watch the professionals
in action.
“It’s for everybody; it’s not an exclusive thing at all,” Anna Szok, a board member for the nonprofit group, said. You can
bring kids, the dog, a picnic; climb on the sculptures and the hill (the first symposium was called “Sit on It”), take pictures,
bring friends, whatever, Szok said.
“Every time I go, something magical happens,” Jennifer Starr, of Hollis, said. “It’s this neat mix of outdoors, nature, and art.”
Andres isn’t full of manicured lawns like DeCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Mass. “Here we have our art mountain;
somehow the art is placed in a way that doesn’t disrupt the site,” she said.
Sculptor John Weidman is the executive director. He wants to put art back into society. “In Europe art is very much a part of
society, and people will say ‘Oh, you’re an artist? Tell me about it. That’s very interesting.’ In America, people ask, ‘Oh.
How do you make a living?’”
“It’s not all about making a dollar. It’s about making community with people around us. It’s about enjoying life,” Weidman
said. “Art itself is not a commodity.”
“I’d personally like to see more pleasure in life through the arts; we deal with them every day. We depend on them. They’re
very functional in terms of our psyche, our moods and our feelings,” Weidman said.
Often the community is surprised the Andres Institute is there. “I think a lot of people have not quite understood what we’re
about or what the institute is,” Peter Cook, the institute treasurer, said.
The institute itself stemmed from the idea for a symposium that Weidman and Paul Andres, who had bought the property in
Brookline, wanted to create. Andres is an entrepreneur who did a lot of work in electronics, Weidman explains. Andres
“wants to contribute to society...and this is one way you can do that.”
The idea for the symposium evolved into a nonprofit institute.
The sculpture symposium provides a $2,000 stipend, home stays, meals and materials to sculptors invited by Weidman.
They aren’t paid for the work or transportation. They do get to explore new materials and new technology. They don’t have
to worry about selling the piece because it stays at the Andres Institute for the public to enjoy. Volunteers maintain
sculpture sites.
“It’s exactly what artists envision, and it’s such an accessible venue—we all become artists,” Szok said. Szok is also
inspired by the diversity of people who leave their mark on the mountain.
Andres Investments owns Big Bear Lodge, the building on Route 13 that houses a Chinese restaurant, lodge and retail.
Andres Institute raises funds through renting the lodge for bingo.
“It’s the strangest juxtaposition,” Cook said. “Usually you see this sort of thing in terms of the Catholic Church or drum and
bugle corps ... this is an art institute taking advantage of people’s desire to play bingo.” About 80 percent of the funding
comes from bingo, while the rest comes from donations or memberships. Andres gets plenty of “in kind” donations such as
volunteer time, materials, lending of bulldozers, etc. The board is just starting to look into grants.
“To me it doesn’t matter how it gets funded; my goal is to keep this place open free of charge for the public,” Weidman said.
The institute also offers space for classes and workshops. What’s taught depends on what’s requested. Schools are
encouraged to visit. Group tours or workshops can be arranged. Learning opportunities have included welding, painting
and clay. The institute offers space to art and community groups.
Anyone with an interest in machines and tools should visit the workshop at the top of the hill (there is, of course, a cell
tower near by). There’s a 1948 crane. There’s earth-moving equipment and there are plenty of tools for metal work and
stone carving.
“It’s important to me that they benefit from being here as well as the public benefit from being here,” Weidman said about
the visiting sculptors. He wants them to try new materials and technology. “It’s just not an exercise in doing what they
normally do,” Weidman said.
At lunch on the second day of work sculptor Chris Peterson had just arrived from Holland. He passed around the tools he’d
brought. The sculptors compared notes on air hammers and companies that make them. Chantou Oeur showed his
method for producing the water drip required for drilling into stone when utilities are scarce.
At the first symposium, artists who normally worked in bronze or ceramics worked in granite for the first time. A stone
master from the Republic of Georgia learned to work with metal. Another artist who lamented that two weeks wasn’t enough
time (the symposium has been increased to three) ended up building the largest piece. Some artists bring ideas, some
change them, some wait to see what the materials and space will inspire.
There’s a granite quarry nearby, but the sculptures in the park can be made of anything—brass, steel, glass, marble,
granite, wood. “You name it, it’s up to the artist. We give them the freedom they deserve—give them the freedom they
deserve to learn,” Weidman said.
Volunteers help significantly during the symposium and throughout the year. Szok introduces herself as the “Trail Bitch” so
the sculptors, who meet lots of people quickly at the symposium, know to find her with site questions. Szok knew Weidman
for 20 years and had been hiking around Big Bear since 1984.
“That is my favorite part of the symposium, sculpture placement,” Szok said. “It’s the first glimpse we get of the artist’s
vision.” It usually involves heavy equipment and sometimes ten volunteers pulling on ropes.
Szok pulled her father in, and he’s been president of the board for six months. A promotion, Darold Rorabacher joked,
since he retired as vice president at Sanders, the company that became Lockheed and now BAE. “It’s been really neat for
me. My dad’s been in management positions my whole life, and this is the first time I get to see it in action,” Szok said.
Rorabacher joined because the board had invited his girlfriend. Szok’s sister-in-law is on the board as well. “One person
gets inspired by how cool it is,” Szok said, and more follow.
Cook, a mathematician by training, has to “ask the nasty questions” about the necessity of equipment that Weidman wants
to buy. The institute also offers a way of keeping the land available for public use without the municipality taking it on,
Cook, who has lived in Brookline for 25 years, pointed out.
Volunteers bring food to the workshop and host dinners. The Mile A Way restaurant hosts a banquet each year, and local
businesses donate materials and equipment. Each artist must be sponsored.
Jennifer Starr is a new board member. “I discovered the institute a couple of years ago. I just felt it was this hidden gem. I
would take my friends over and introduce them, but I didn’t have a real map. I just kept getting lost.” She decided that
spreading the word was important, and took on the role herself.
Szok trained her to lead walks. They’ve produced a few versions of a trail map. Copies are in a box in the parking lot.
Another board member has recently been updating the Andres Institute Web site.
Recent efforts to let the public know about Andres worked so well this summer that Starr found herself leading free tours of
50 people rather than seven.
“People are showing up in droves [for tours],” Cook said.
That raises new challenges, including offering enough bathrooms and maps, and creating accessibility to the sculptures
for people who aren’t avid hikers or are wheelchair-bound.
Yeon-Tak Chang
Bachelor of Fine Arts from Seoul National University in 1964. Studied marble sculpting in Italy from 1979 to 1980 and
attended Ontario College of Art.
Chang, who lives in Toronto, has work in the Museum of Modern Art in Milan, Italy, and the National Museum of Modern Art
in Seoul, Korea. He’s had solo exhibitions and been part of several group exhibitions in Canada, South Korea, Italy, the U.
S. and Hungary.
Marble is his material of choice and mountains and nature figure into his work. That, perhaps, makes him a good match for
Andres Institute.
“My free-form sculpture is reflective of the relationship between man and nature and the struggles and harmonies between
the two.” Chang wrote in an artist statement. He attributes part of the influence of nature on him to his growing up on a
farm in South Korea, and now wanting to reunite with something familiar. “The process of touching, molding and reshaping
the stone further provides a form of intimate dialog between me and nature.”
Andy Moerlein
Derryfield Academy art teacher from Bow, N.H.
Moerlein’s work is also at the Mill Brook Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Concord. He attended Dartmouth College and
Cornell University. After focusing on raising his children, he is now returning to producing more of his own work. He says he
knew that Weidman, with whom he had been in several gallery shows, actually liked his work when Weidman invited him to
the symposium.
Moerlein calls his work architectonic. First impressions may be of something futuristic but
the nature world is his inspiration. He’s fascinated by it. To prepare for the concrete
structure he wants to create he collected mushrooms and took photos around the
property, looking to incorporate “all these organic events.” He sees inspiration in decay.
He shows a snapshot of old leaves that had been washed down the hill and had piled
up to form parallel lines, something many others wouldn’t notice.
“This is a fast, aggressive, intense event,” Moerlein said. While the other artists are
chiseling away at New Hampshire’s great resource, granite, Moirlein is experimenting
with steel and concrete. He hasn’t slept much.
His interpretation of the “Relations” symposium theme is the relation of man pushing
against nature. The cavernous structures in his models convey the idea that man can be
swallowed up by nature’s force.
Chanthou Oeur
Oeur leaves you with the impression that he is warm, lighthearted, joyful and ready to
share what he knows about sculpting. But what marks Oeur’s creativity are the atrocities
committed in Cambodia which he fled in 1978 when the Khmer Rouge took control. Now a Maryland resident, he keeps his
most treasured artwork at his home, including a sculpture of rain-washed graves of Cambodian victims.
Oeur was orphaned as a baby, raised by his sister, and then lived at Buddhist temples until he was 15. He was a freedom
fighter and a refugee. And Oeur was an artist, “since before I was born.” Chantau also recites poetry, inspired by
Cambodian struggles. Oeur gives demonstrations at the Smithsonian Institute during Asian Pacific Heritage month.
‘‘I will sacrifice anything to let the world experience the recent Cambodian tragedy through my art work,” he writes in his
artist statement. Oeur uses his artwork and poetry to let people know what’s going on his country, where Pol Pot’s regime
killed 2 million of Cambodia’s 7 million people in the 1970s.
His work at Andres will be an extension of his attempts to “Let the powerful world know what’s going on in the powerless
world.”
Chris Peterson
Studied art at University of Amsterdam and business at University of Den Bosch.
Peterson’s father and a girlfriend were sculptors. He followed that path, pursuing photography and installation art
as well. But Peterson, 30, counts his business skills as indispensable for a professional artist, and thinks art schools
should spend more time teaching the business part of art. He’s exhibited in Slovenia, China, Germany, Belgium and
Switzerland, and has working private collections.
Peterson grew up in a small village of less than 3,000 people in a forest in the Netherlands, so woods in Brookline
make him “feel very much at home.”
“Day-to-day life” is what Peterson projects through his work. Sometimes what is bothering him is a larger social or
political issue; sometimes he needs to express something more personal. For complex ideas, he turns to photography
or installation because they are more explicit, he said.
Peterson, who describes his sculptures as geometric, was also influenced by time spent in Australia and Asia. The
vastness and emptiness of Australia contrasted with the small, dense Netherlands. Thailand and Indonesia affected
him spiritually, allowing him to get rid of “excess baggage.”
“I think if you live in a wealthy country, it’s not always that good. I believe less is better,” Peterson said.
Andres Institute of Art
98 Rt. 13, Brookline, 673-8441, www.andresinstitute.org
Eighth International Bridges and Connections Sculpture Symposium Sept. 16-Oct. 8
Open daily, free. Watch the sculptors work through Oct. 8 or visit any day to hike and view sculptures.
Aggressive dogs should be kept on leashes, droppings should be removed from trails.
Thursday, Sept. 28: Business After Hours at 5 p.m. at the Andres Studio (Souhegan Chamber of Commerce members
gathering)
Saturday, Sept. 30: Guided Sculpture Park Walk at 10 a.m.; Meet the Artists Potluck Cookout, time TBA
Saturday, Oct. 7: Guided Sculpture Park Walk at 10 a.m.
Sunday, Oct. 8: Symposium Closing
