Making hay in South Lee

By David VerziPrint Story | Email Story
SOUTH LEE — Capturing action and grace by pushing hay within wire, South Lee sculptor Susan Carty Treat has spent 14 years perfecting the techniques of her unusual art form. Like an animator, before beginning her hay sculptures, Treat first references life or film, studying the movements of her animal and human subjects, becoming familiar with their particular muscular and kinetic nature. Ferocious bears, stately water birds, busy beavers and ballerinas that actually pivot on pointe — all begin as figurative silhouettes deftly shaped in wire. With her subject and its pose firmly in mind, Treat kneads the wire often just a bit larger then life, and, as she contours, fixes the sculpture's shape by joining ends with pliers. Her hands, though gloved, are often cut in the process, but she still identifies “molding the mesh” as her favorite step in sculpting. Then, through one unclosed seam, Treat uses various-sized homemade, wooden "pushers," to pack hay into the wire framework, and, in the case of larger figures 5 to 6 feet high, around an iron or pine armature centered within the figure. In a tedious and time-consuming step, filled with a great deal of "pushin' and pullin'," Treat further intertwines the hay using screwdrivers. "In the end, I have to be sure that the hay is packed in very tightly to assure that no weakening air pockets will develop," she said, noting that whether used for indoor or outdoor decoration, her sculptures — even without special sealing — have an indefinite lifetime. Closing the last seam, Treat trims back any overly protruding strands of hay, leaving — at any reasonable distance — the wire to blend into the hay. This often lends the figures the look of taxidermy, although Treat's animals are often mistaken as "alive," especially when placed in trees or integrated well into natural settings. Sometimes she adds “gathered,” created, or purchased details to her figures, such as horse hair, carved bass-wood teeth and claws, wire whiskers, eyes of handmade glass and raffia collars for domestic pet designs. Using spray enamels, Treat may accent or fully paint a piece to achieve black bears, gray squirrels, brown bunnies and banded-tail raccoons. A Lee native, Treat, 52, recalled, "high school art classes that were too simple" and "a time of aching to take shop classes back when they were for boys only.” She went on to study privately with a number of noted area artists and became accomplished as a carver, painter and quilter. She settled on hay as her sculpting medium after first attempting to capture small pine boughs, maple leaves and twigs in wire. "The boughs darkened unattractively, the maple leaves brittled and broke, and it was hard to find twigs in bulk," she recalled. In earlier years, Treat purchased bales of hay, but more recently she has been harvesting the by-the-Housatonic River fields behind her barn-studio, which yield fescue, hair, quaking, bristle, timothy and bamboo, as well as reed, clover, vetch, thyme and rue. "Sometimes, I'll use a 'green hay'," said Treat, noting that these grasses, which have not long matured in the field, are not only softer but yield a sweet fragrance that her clients appreciate in sculpture used indoors. Treat uses hay mixtures containing coarser blades in the thicker, torso sections of her sculptures while using finer filaments in smaller areas, such as facial features, arms, legs and tails — which she sometimes molds separately and then attaches to the main section of a sculpture. "I create as the artistic spirit moves me, but I also meet a lot of client requests and commissions," she said. Her work is collected all along the East Coast, from Canada to Florida. With her figures selling at from $90 to $1,750, over the years Treat's uncommon sculpture has been seen at the Berkshire Museum, Clark Art Institute, Berkshire Botanical Garden and the C.W. Nelson Outdoors Sculpture Gallery in Sandisfield. Those who have enjoyed her art note that Treat carefully contemplates nature, and her hay sculptures go a long way toward reflecting the natural world.
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Senior Golf Series Returns in September

Community submission
PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- The Berkshire County Fall Senior Golf series returns in September with events on five consecutive Wednesdays starting Sept. 18.
 
It is the 22nd year of the series, which is a fund-raiser for junior golf in the county, and it is open to players aged 50 and up.
 
The series will feature two divisions for each event based on the combined ages of the playing partners.
 
Golfers play from the white tees (or equivalent) with participants 70 and over or who have a handicap of more than 9 able to play from the forward tees.
 
Gross and net prices will be available in each division.
 
The cost is $55 per event and includes a round of golf, food and prizes. Carts are available for an additional fee.
 
Golfers should call the pro shop at the course for that week's event no sooner than two weeks before the event to register.
 
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