Author Archives: Eva Capobianco

A Few Miles at a Time – Book I, Map 04

In the summer and fall of 2022, I hiked a lot of miles in these western counties. To save gas and miles driving out there from Ithaca, I planned two consecutive days of hiking and stayed overnight in a motel. Robert was my frequent hiking buddy on these trips. But after planning two days of hiking in September, Robert could only make it on the second day. I wanted to cover almost seven miles on the first day, about half in the woods on Map 5 and the rest was road walk on Map 4. I reached out to hikers on the Finger Lakes Trail list-serve, but no one was available. However, Joyce Ermer offered to be my car spotter. She could meet me at one end and drive me over to the starting point so I could hike back to my car, alone.

The important part of this story is that my wife, Elizabeth, REALLY doesn’t like it when I hike alone. She worries about me. She is a worrier in general. To try to ease her fears, I showed her on the map how this part in the woods was never very far from the road. There happened to be no hills to climb, so it was unlikely that I would fall. And then the rest would be easy road walk. After much cajoling and many promises that I would be exceedingly careful, she reluctantly gave the OK.

When I arrived at the meeting place, Joyce was there and, to my surprise, she was putting on her hiking boots! She said, “Do you mind if I join you?” I couldn’t wait to call Elizabeth and tell her she could stop worrying!

A Few Miles at a Time – Book I, Map 01

Rails to Trails to Art

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Over the years, I have used often used photographs in my wall hung sculptures. Though I don’t often exhibit the photos on their own, I put this series together in 2017 when Tompkins County was celebrating its bicentennial. The Rails to Trails Conservancy is devoted to converting old railroad beds into hiking and biking trails all over America. Here in Tompkins County, we are lucky to have many of those rail trails in our own back yards. I have spent many hours walking there – from the Finger Lakes Trail toward Willseyville to the Jim Schug Trail in Dryden to the eight miles of Black Diamond Trail from downtown Ithaca to Upper Taughannock Falls State Park and more. I am please to share some of the images captured on these walks across the seasons.

Right now, I am getting ready for a solo show in March and April of 2022 at the Geisel Gallery in Rochester, NY. That exhibit will feature photo sculptures inspired by my hikes on the Finger Lakes Trail. You can enjoy some of those pieces on my website, www.evasculpture.com.

Click here for more information about the history of railroads in Tompkins County.

An Early Morning Walk on the Beach

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In November of 2018 we traveled to Florida with my mom for a family visit. My older sister lives in Fernandina Beach in the northeast corner of the state. One evening, my brother-in-law showed me pictures of this place that he knew I would love, but said we probably couldn’t go because my mother couldn’t make the walk. But I quickly realized that I was the earliest riser in the group and there was no reason I could not just get up early and go by myself.

The place was magical and the day was perfect. It was warm and not a cloud in the sky. Walking up and down the coast on this barrier island, it felt like being inside of a surrealist painting. I snapped dozens of pictures with my phone.

Interestingly, there were very few birds around. But as I sadly prepared to leave, I heard a cardinal call. Some people say cardinals can be spirits of our departed loved ones. I turned to see the bright red bird perched behind me and said “good morning, Dad”.

Finger Lakes Trail series

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In the spring of 2019, I spent three days with friends hiking the western end of the Finger Lakes Trail (FLT) in Allegheny State Park. I was about a third of the way to my goal of hiking all 574 miles of the trail. During the hikes, I use my phone to capture sights along the trail.

There had been a lot of rain that spring, so we were trekking through a lot of mud and across streams of various sizes. At one point we crossed a fairly elaborate bridge. FLT volunteers maintain the trail and the stream crossings can be anything from a couple of planks to actual wood structures spanning twenty or thirty feet. I snapped some photos of this bridge and continued hiking. As I walked, I started imagining a wall sculpture in my mind. I would use a photo of this bridge along side a couple of wood planks to represent the simple next to the elaborate stream crossing. As I pictured the piece in my mind, the idea grew into a whole series. I would find inspiration from my photos from previous hikes. I could make one piece for each of the thirty-four maps on the trail.

To date, I have completed a bit more than half of the 574 miles of the Finger Lakes Trail. The February show will feature nine pieces using images from seven of the maps

Using photography in my work is not new. I started combining photos with my wood constructions in the 1980’s. Since then I have returned to that combination periodically over the years. But I have never wanted to cover the photos with glass, and this leaves the paper prints highly vulnerable to damage. For the “Light, Color and Shadow” exhibit at State of the Art, this project is funded in part by a Special Opportunities Stipend from the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. The funding enables me to have the images printed on aluminum plates so they will be more durable.

One thing can lead to another….

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For several reasons, I am usually working on more than one artwork at a time. For one thing, the cross stitched pieces take a lot of time. Once the design is complete, I will do the stitching in the evenings while listening to the TV or an audio book. Meanwhile back in the studio by day, I will be cutting wood for frames or lattice work, peeling bark off branches and roots, gluing, sanding, finishing, etc. Many of these steps require drying time in between, so it’s good to have two or three things in progress.

The two pieces in this post are from two different series, but the first led directly to the second. I was in search of a branch or root to use in “Orchid with Lattice I”. I found a grapevine root in my stash that had a long, awkward part jutting out. I cut it off and it worked perfectly. But then I noticed a lot of movement in the rest of the root (the larger element in “Root Dance II”). I sanded the bottom so it would stand on it’s own and left it on my workbench. Later, I found a second, smaller piece of grapevine that worked with the first. After some fussing and finishing, both were mounted on a piece of sample quartz countertop material and another piece was born! One thing can lead to another.

Slipper Orchid with Lattice

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With relatives and friends in the Washington DC area, I can usually visit some of the museums there every two years or so. On our last visit, I discovered a huge display of orchids in the Kogod Courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery. This cross stitch was designed from one of my photos taken there. Then the lattice work was created to enhance the orchid design.

This series is a continuation of several bodies of work created over the years in which I overlap several layers in different materials. As noted in some of the comments below, these layers have always been about protection.