Bethlehem Archives - JOTS & JAUNTS

Sometimes one comes upon the most enjoyable books or movies by happenstance and other times it’s on the recommendation of a friend.

While I was in Philadelphia at the Barnes Foundation, I picked up a novel about Claude Monet called, Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell. Published in 2010, it’s a fascinating portrait of Monet’s early life with his wife Camille and the close friendships between him and Renoir, Pissarro, and particularly Frederic Bazille. These Impressionists (only dubbed so later on) worked against tradition and, hence, their works were unpopular and frequently did not sell.

Monet and Camille lived hand-to-mouth while he refused to take on any kind of normal job and she periodically worked to provide some limited funds. They regularly depended upon the kindness of friends, most often Bazille whose family had money. Add in Camille’s unstable temperament and Claude’s frequent absences and you have lives fraught with tension and distance. Success was slow in coming.

Cowell’s novel is historically based, but with a novelist’s license she has elaborated on the relationship between Camille and the other artists. Cowell also captures, some might say lovingly, the process of putting paint to canvas and creating color and light. One knows precisely which paintings they are without her ever giving the reader their titles.

A friend gave me a copy of a mystery she and a colleague co-authored. Set in Bethlehem, founded in 1741 and now a charming city in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, The Body in the Vat: Tales from the Tannery by Charlene Donchez Mowers and Carol A. Reifinger is light fare, short and fun. It will appeal to anyone who knows the city (lots of familiar venues from the Colonial Industrial Quarter to the Moravian Book Shop) and to others curious to learn more about Bethlehem’s Moravian heritage. Proceeds are being shared with Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites and the 275^th Anniversary Committee of Moravians in Bethlehem.

Another friend recommended that we see Phoenix and we were not disappointed. This is a seriously good, serious German film about identity and betrayal and the heart. Getting out of the concentration camp after the war, damaged physically and emotionally, Nelly needs reconstructive surgery on her face. Although pressured to have a new look, she asks to look like she did before. After surgery, she sets out to find her husband who does not recognize her. Practicing with him to become herself, she embarks on a journey that is both disturbing and poignant. Who are we really? What is it that marks our unique identity? And why do we continue to trust in the face of betrayal? Dark and haunting, this is a film that lingers long after the last credit has rolled.

Header photo: Monet’s Springtime (1872) from Google art project.jpg

Recently, we spent several days in Potsdam, NY, at Clarkson University, my husband’s alma mater, where the president and his wife warmly welcomed us. The fall foliage colors are late in arriving this year and most of the trees were green and yellow with just a few dabs of red beginning to appear. I strolled a path along the Raquette River at the edge of the campus and spotted a red maple leaf on the ground, about the only one I saw. The river was calm and serene. Farther on, the path skirts the lovely and historic Bayside Cemetery with its impressive red sandstone gate.

Since then, we have re-connected with family in Albany—first, second and third cousins and some one or twice-removed (love that terminology!)—and dined and visited with former colleagues and friends at Lehigh University in Bethlehem. We had not been on the Lehigh campus for eight years and it was a pleasure to see how lovely it still is (but, oh, the hills, I had forgotten the steep grade). We kept running into people we knew so got a tour the new science building, walked through the Asa Packer Dining Room in the University Center, and of course, re-visited Linderman Library.

Recently, Architectural Digest included Linderman as one of the 12 most stunning libraries in the world! I had the privilege of being involved in this renovation project and now, this library is the place on campus to study and to be seen. It even has a café—a source of controversy for some students when it was being planned! Hard to believe given today’s café scene.

While in Bethlehem, we also visited the ArtsQuest complex located in Southside Bethlehem at the Bethlehem Steel plant which shut down completely in 1995 and sat untouched for almost twenty years. The complex includes: SteelStacks, a performance venue, the Banana Factory, an arts center offering classes and exhibits, a Sands casino, and the headquarters of the local PBS station. The highlight for us was the Hoover-Mason Trestle, Bethlehem’s answer to New York’s High Line.

This trestle walkway, on the site of an elevated track used for moving raw materials, takes you along side the blast furnaces and sheds where the steel was produced. These are massive structures and being able to walk closer to them gave me a better sense of the immensity of the operation and the dangers involved in the work. Information panels line the walkway and tell the story of the immigrants who labored here, the women who took over during WWII, and the steelmaking process itself. It was fascinating! What an effective transformation of these hulking edifices into an educational and fun attraction. The trestle only opened a few months ago so many of our friends haven’t yet visited.

Tag: Bethlehem

Culture Notes: Monet, Murder & Identity

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On the Road: Onward to Bethlehem

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