YouTube Update: “Introduction to the Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation”
Our YouTube channel started last spring, inspired by continuing our programming during lockdown since we couldn’t offer our usual guided walks, volunteer projects, and other in-person opportunities. Over the past months, we have continued to produce informative and educational video content for the community through this platform.
The latest addition to our YouTube offerings is “Introduction to the Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation.” This video discusses our mission, the value of the Fells, and gives a brief overview of our programs and offerings. The video also features excerpts from Executive Director Chris Redfern and ‘Babes in the Woods’ program leader Diana Lomakin.
And just a reminder: our “My Middlesex Fells” video feature series is still seeking participants:
We want to hear about your unique relationship to the Fells! If you’re interested in sharing your own personal experiences with our community, contact us. We also welcome your own submissions to the My Fells Project we launched last year, featuring your own artistic interpretations of the Fells.
Click the icon below to visit our YouTube channel for much more content!
Friends of the Fells launches new “My Middlesex Fells” video feature
Each of us has our own distinctive relationship to the Fells, and every experience we have visiting the Fells can be completely unique from the last. This new video project from our intern Dexter Fadness attempts to capture some of the diversity of those experiences.
The first video in the series features Friends of the Fells board Chair Jeff Buxbaum, who talks about his own realization of this diversity and the joy of getting lost in the Fells.
We want to hear about your unique relationship to the Fells! If you’re interested in sharing your own personal experiences with our community, contact Dexter at dexterfadness@gmail.com. We also welcome your own submissions to the My Fells project we launched last year, featuring your own artistic interpretations of the Fells.
Since the announcement of our ‘My Fells’ community expression project this past spring, members of the Fells family have shared their inspiring words, pictures, and videos with us. In doing so, they have provided us with a way to “share our shared love for the Fells” with all of you, as well!
We are very appreciative of all the submissions that have been shared with us so far! If you would like to share a ‘My Fells’ submission with us, here’s how:
Tell us how YOU experience the Fells!
In one minute or less, using whatever media you like, share your own version of My Fells with us. Use photos, video, poetry, prose. Post it to your choice of a YouTube or Vimeo account, Facebook page, blog, website, online photo album, Google Drive or Dropbox folder and send us a link.
Our next ‘My Fells’ submission comes from long-time member Shelby Meyerhoff. Her project, entitled Zoomorphics, is a series of self-portraits inspired by the plants, animals, and natural features of the Fells.
Zoomorphic #25 (Rocks), 2019 by Shelby Meyerhoff
Zoomorphic #28 (Monarch butterfly), 2019 by Shelby Meyerhoff
Describing her project, Shelby states:
“I start by painting on my own body, to transform myself into a new creature: a blue-ringed octopus, an owl, or a monarch butterfly. Then, alone in my studio, I set my camera on the tripod and pose. Although it’s make-believe, it doesn’t feel like I’m pretending. The emotions of this new creature well up inside me. I let my body move in unexpected ways. I am expansive, and I do not constrain myself….”
To see much more of this project, visit Shelby’s site:
Since the announcement of our ‘My Fells’ community expression project last month, several members of the Fells family have shared their inspiring words, pictures, and videos with us. In doing so, they have provided us with a way to “share our shared love for the Fells” with all of you, as well!
We are very appreciative of all the submissions that have been shared with us so far! If you would like to share a ‘My Fells’ submission with us, here’s how:
Tell us how YOU experience the Fells!
In one minute or less, using whatever media you like, share your own version of My Fells with us. Use photos, video, poetry, prose. Post it to your choice of a YouTube or Vimeo account, Facebook page, blog, website, online photo album, Google Drive or Dropbox folder and send us a link.
Here is the first collection of our My Fells submissions. We hope that you will take as much inspiration from them as we do:
First, we have two video submission from our own Board President, Jeff Buxbaum of Medford. The first video was Jeff’s original inspiration for the project, created in 2015:
And here, another, more recent video submission created by Jeff:
Next, Lewis Dalven and Shelly Schou from Arlington shared their thoughts on the Fells in prose form:
I discovered the Middlesex Fells during this time of the pandemic. It has served as a refuge and sanctuary on many mornings that I have been taking morning walks there. I grew up in the middle of NH and was spoiled being around beauty so much of my life. I have been in the Boston area for the past 9 years and had not yet found the beauty like I discovered at the Fells. The discovery came at a much needed time.
— Shelley Schou
Since the CV pandemic began, my twice weekly visits to the Fells have been my main source of exercise, commune with nature time, and have helped to keep me balanced and hopeful. Fellow visitors…families with kids, walkers, runners, and bikers alike, have shown consideration, good cheer, and courtesy without fail. The greening of the foliage, the songs of birds and frogs, sounds of running streams all help to put worry at a remove. Our Fells are a treasure always, and especially now.
— Lewis Dalven
Next, we have a series of black and white photographs of the Fells shared with us by Joel Moses:
[Click on the thumbnails to enlarge]
These photographs are a just a small sample of his collection that he has amassed from across the Middlesex Fells over the past several years.
And last, here is another video submission by long time Friends member Bob Ghika. This video also features Friends of the Fells volunteer, botanist, and hike leader Walter Kittredge leading a group on the trails near Bear Hill. Also taking part in the video are former Fells Executive Director Mike Ryan and Dr. Bryan Hamlin, both longtime board members and Fells experts.
Bob’s video was created nearly a decade ago (give or take), and is well over our one-minute threshold, but we felt it entirely appropriate to include here with these submissions:
[Click the picture below to open the video in a new tab. Note: the link brings you to an external site.]
