Inspired by Nature

​Fortunately for me, every day is an opportunity to embrace nature at its best, right at our doorstep.

Shortly after my husband and I were married 33 years ago, we chose to build our life and home on a knoll in the middle of a timothy and alfalfa field in a beautiful valley between Millerton and Pine Plains. An incredible find for two young settlers. We knew it then and in retrospect, we now realize how very timely and fortunate that decision was for us. Surrounded by fields, forests, wildlife, farmwife and very few neighbors, we relish what it feels like to be part of this landscape throughout every season, in both pleasant and extreme weather, from a foot and from above in our tail wheel airplane. My husband—aviator, woodsman and a naturalist from a very young age, landed his dream when he first touched down in this field to see if it was long enough to comfortably land an airplane. Once confirmed, it was our green light. For me, although a Brooklyn girl, I embraced this wild and remote life (with him by my side) in hopes that we could raise a family and create our idyllic homestead filled with animals, gardens and a studio that would allow me to start my own design business and for us to start a family (to included 2 and 4-legged little ones) as he flew around the world and around this property, taking care of it all.

​I have always preferred the outdoors to the indoors, be it on cement city streets running through the neighborhood or treading lightly through the woods—open air, cold, wet, windy or warm – feeling unleashed, always felt settling.

I also love big skies. It's no surprise I married someone who feels the same and spends just as much time in the sky as on the ground. My eyes, even as little girl, sought shapes and patterns in the distance, searching to spot a moving dot, grabbing binoculars to get a closer look and to my surprise seeing a bear on the ridge or a fox popping through tall grass flushing mice or a newly born calf opening its eyes to the sight of it's mother licking it from above. It’s always been a visual scavenger hunt for me, to look for patterns and life in a landscape. Here we have it all and if you're like me, getting up before the sun, gives you the best advantage in watching it all come into focus.

​My daily meditation before I even understood what meditation was, was to stop, look and listen to whatever was happening in any given moment and simple being with it for a moment. If you know me, it takes a lot to slow me down.

Be it my two braying donkeys calling me in a morning  song for their breakfast, or the soft sound of geese wings flapping just overhead as the fly in formation in search of a landing place, or the subtle buzzing of a hummingbird hovering within feet inspecting my floral shirt to determine if I am in fact the garden or not. These are the little moments I treasure, in between my intensely busy and demanding days and these are the moments I find become a part of how I look at my work and where I find inspiration. ​

Since landing here on this property, I have worked as an artist, starting my graphic and package design business soon after we signed our mortgage papers and life got serious. Years later, as a mom, a caregiver and anchored in our community and local volunteer efforts, my work expanding to a new found outlet, event planning coupled with design.
(Side note: I know I should be painting these landscapes at sunrise or sunset but that is my retirement plan. I’m still too busy enjoying my many spinning plates for such contemplative artistry).

As a designer, and one who started creating art long before computers, my childhood prized tool kit consisted of a 64 pack crayon box, PlayDoh, tempera paints, chalk (for sidewalk art, of course) and a poster board from the candy shop on the corner. As I got more serious, my tool kit expanded to a set of Derwent graphic pencils, a box of Cray-pas, upgraded paint brushes and several tubes of gauche, a blank page (layout pads, watercolor blocks and bound books), my coveted Pantone book, a collection of objects that inspired (not Pinterest pins), books, magazine pulls, ribbons, fabric, buttons and also looking out at the surroundings. In fact, I still like to work this way, very hands on, before I delve onto the keyboard with software programs, internet searches and all the advantages of technology.

​Observing nature is a huge part of how I see and how I visualize creative possibilities. In my opinion, Mother Nature really has color, layout and texture down pat. Even when I’m not working on an event or graphic project, I look and create landscape mood boards in my mind that have endless potential in real design scenarios.  Here’s how…

​Observation...where my eye lands
Even in the fast clip of my days, when my head is down and I'm intensely engaged in the mounting uptick of my inbox, there are moments in nature that call to me right from the window above my monitor. Suddenly the sky shifts, or a distant row of shrubs is calling out or a dense flock of birds land in the tree and it no longer looks dormant. What is it in this very moment that stops me in my tracks? That’s when I know I need to slow down and just “see” AND take note.

Photography: Elena Wolf Photography | Troutbeck | Amenia, New York

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​The Effect of Light
It’s amazing to watch light shift in a split moment as you look into the horizon OR from season to season. Colors can intensify or become quiet because of the light befallen on it or leaving it. In late September after the fall equinox, the depth of the color appears to be so much more dramatic and saturated as dusk settles, the blues in the sky are cobalt approaching back and blue and the landscape so intensely warm and glowing. Even when you grab your phone to capture the drama, it’s not the same as just being witness to how captivating this palette can be before these colors dissipate and the sky goes dark after the last glowing sliver of pigment.  In an event space, I am always aware and appreciative of how light will change a space as the outside light shifts. Of course, we light candles before guests are invited into the reception, but those candles continue to change in themselves as well as the glow they cast on the guests well into the night. We call light "magical" for a reason. Understanding and appreciating the constant shift is so important in the process of developing a concept with a lighting vendor and your clients. 

Photography: Wildly Beloved Photography | The Pines |  Pine Plains, New York

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​Color Stories
They are everywhere waiting to be discovered! I squint and it seems clearer to my eyes what colors are pronounced and what color are subtly influencing what I am seeing and what I like about what I am seeing. For instance, even in the dead of winter, there is so much color simply in observing the variety of tree bark, standing live or fallen dried to the ground. In the spring, when the trees are budding, that clean, pure intensely citron green always stops me in my tracks. It’s not the leaf budding as it appears in view of the green grass at the foot of the tree. I realize for me, that it’s the spring leaf green juxtaposed with a certain sky blue. That’s the color story that feels like it could be the perfect spring table setting. This snapshot—the napkin laid on a plate and then the linen tablecloth they rest on. And we haven't even introduced flowers yet!

Photography: Elena Wolf Photography | Troutbeck | Amenia, New York

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​Texture
The layers are so important to creating interest and life. To witness not one but many of one particular object creates a concentration that can be so powerful be it full color or monochromatic. For instance, seeing a massive bed of ornamental grasses with plumes can evoke and inspire how one could apply rattan into a space as a backdrop or a lighting moment.  

Photography: Golden Hour Studios | Mountain Top Resort | Chittenden, Vermont

Photography: Joshua Brown Photography & Videography  | Ancramdale, New York

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​Scale
Size matters! Nature can be bold or ever-so subtle, each in its own perfect way. So, you must ask, how do I want proportion to call attention to a moment or a setting? Quietly or loudly. 

Photography: Brian David Photography   | Corinth, New York

Photography: Golden Hour Studios | Mountain Top Resort | Chittenden, Vermont

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​Contrast
Juxtaposition of color or tonal values can influence the way a space or setting feels. Nature at its best can be both soothing and jarring just in how color relates to other colors and tonal values surrounding it. If you look closely at examples in nature, how these environments make you feel is very telling. After a snowstorm ends, walking into whiteness. Sitting in a hot-toned midsummer garden verses a warm-toned fall or cool-toned spring garden. Walking through the canopy of woods in the dormant winter verses the lush overgrown summer. Feeling these contrasts in natural spaces give you insight when it’s time to envision and create moods for event spaces. 

Photography: Undressed Moments | Cricket Creek Farm | Williamstown, MA

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​As a designer and event planner, aside from the multitude of skills one needs in order to land a successful experience for clients and guests, I feel so fortunate that how I see, feel and cherish natural environments influences how I work and what I hope matters to our clients. I can’t imagine it any other way. In the Hudson Valley there are opportunities galore for event teams to buildout spaces at venues and in both tamed and untamed private properties. It’s exciting work! When I am driving out in this gorgeous countryside to meet clients and vendors, I literally have to pinch myself (and keep my eyes on the road!).

I have had a few vendors joke with me about how I work, where I work and how they perceive me but I take it as not only as a complement but as validation that operating from my centering place, even when I need to climb a mountain to see it through, is where I am at my best.

“Paula, when on my way to meet you for a site visit, driving down a really bumpy, rocky, steep, narrow road with dust in my rear view mirror, feeling semi-lost, with my GPS no longer working, no cell coverage, asking myself... 'Is this really where we're doing this, where am I?', I know you’ll be standing there at the end, smiling wide with your orange tote bag in hand, ready to show me the perfect level grass clearing where you intend to start our conversation and getting this event off the ground.”

I chuckle to myself and think...'Yes, this is what I consider a very good work day and yes, you get me." Here is where the best of adventures begin…nothing set on paper "yet", outside away from all the clamor and availability, most likely without cell coverage so no iPhone ring tones every time it thinks you need an alert and best of all, where my heart and soul feel at ease, peaceful and most comfortable. That is of course, until we start up the generators to get the party started, for another blog.."Powering Through"!

Photography: Golden Hour Studios | Mountain Top Resort | Chittenden, Vermont

I'd like to thank all the clients who feel as I do and have taken the leap to host parties in the landscapes that they adore (with me alongside) and for the many vendors who have followed my lead into the wilderness even when Mother Nature dealt us a wild hand of weather during setup, run-of-show or breakdown. I feel very blessed in so many ways to be amongst you and look forward to more adventures and opportunities in bringing people together and making lasting memories out and about in these gorgeous parts.

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Cheers to getting out under the sky (in the dark and in the light), exploring just because, getting comfortably being uncomfortable and happening upon places that you'd never expect to find success, happiness, adventure and inspired work. It's going to get cold "eventually", so get out there!

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