A community of artists …

… Frost and Friends: “A Coincidence of Taste”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Frost was inspired by the local landscape—the apple trees he planted, the stone walls he admired, and the fields, forests, lakes, streams, and mountains that surrounded Shaftsbury. The region’s cultural and human networks proved no less stimulating. Amongst his circle of friends and colleagues were the visual artists Charles Burchfield, Rockwell Kent, J. J. Lankes, Luigi Lucioni, and Clara Sipprell. During his later years, Frost’s admirers included such artists as Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. The latter noted that “Mr. Frost’s clarity of vision has been a very real challenge and inspiration to me in my work.”2 In discussing Wyeth’s work in relation to Frost’s poetry, scholar Nancy Anderson notes, “A keen observer of the natural world, he used exterior prompts for interior purposes– looking out triggered looking in.”3 This concept of using “exterior prompts for interior purposes” seems an apt metaphor for a consideration of Frost’s work in relation to the artists he was associated with during his South Shaftsbury years as well. Like Frost’s poetry, the works of Burchfield, Kent, Lankes, Lucioni, and Sipprell take a clear-eyed look at the outer worlds as a means of exploring internal atmospheres and the human condition.