After we left the beautiful town of Aurora, we headed towards another place in the Catskills mountains: Bright Hill Press. BHP’s president, Bertha Rogers, is a book artist that runs this literary center, library, small poetry press, and open mic reading night gathering space in the hamlet of Treadwell, NY. I thought the idea of all of these areas coming together in a rural setting was quite inviting, so when she invited us to come stay an evening, we couldn’t turn her down!
Bright Hill Center
Bright Hill Press Literary Center
Bertha Rogers, BHP president and co-founder
The BHP Center also has the Word & Image gallery, which normally hosts book arts shows (and I saw many invitational postcards with some wonderful artists — including several of Karen Hanmer’s work), but currently has up a WPA-era art auction to benefit the center.
Word & Image gallery
The center also has a kitchen book store, where the proceeds also benefit the many wonderful projects happening here.
Matt and Betha in the kitchen book store
One of these projects was to add a large, brightly lit library wing. This addition was built in 2005 to add more space to the original 1840s house.
the library wing
lots of beautiful light (from the reading nook)
The center focuses on a lot of children’s programming and workshops (which, as many of you are already aware, children’s books are an excellent example of how words and imagery work together), and as such the library has a lofted reading space for kids.
There’s also a great backyard and a ‘secret garden’ reading nook, too! We spent a fair amount of time back here once the weather cooled down a bit, but the shade in the garden helps with that a lot.
back yard
secret (reading) garden
This was a great opportunity to rest, relax, read, and catch up on my roadtrip writing. Matt even pondered about the possibility of staying up all night to browse through the collection, which focuses on the arts (as otherwise many rural libraries don’t have a large collection of these things).
It’s been a lovely and very much needed time, but now we have to move on again. Next: Women’s studio workshop!
