By Gail Ravgiala

Don’t be intimidated by the idea of a Rose Garden Party. The one coming up this Thursday, June 28 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. is not just for those who know horticulture-speak or wear white gloves and silk ascots. Sure, folks put on their party finery, and the really good sports enter — in grand style — the Hat’s Galore contest. But even if you don’t sport head gear, it is worth the price of admission just to watch — and listen to live music courtesy of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra’s Windwood Ensemble and Gerald Mordis, an accomplished violinist who performs with the Boston POPS and the BLO. Of course, the main attraction is the collection of 3,000 blooming rose bushes that fill the Kelleher Rose Garden in the Back Bay Fens.

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Architecture by Maryann Thompson Architects and Landscape architecture by Reed Hilderbrand

Exterior walls open for a view straight through a summer house high on a Connecticut ridge. Look for The Modern Farmstead, written by William Morgan and photographed by Warren Jagger, in our new issue in home and online the first week of July!

“Oars at the Ready” by Jim Holland, oil on canvas, is part of the summer art show at Powers Gallery in Acton, Massachusetts.

Today is officially the first day of summer, so it's fitting that we are excitedly putting the final touches on our July/August 2012 issue. Always looking ahead, we're also compiling events and activities for our calendars and see that this weekend Powers Gallery in Action, Massachusetts, will present Ready for Summer! — a group art show that articulates the beauty of the season with seascapes, landscapes, nautical motifs, and a mix of traditional and contemporary approaches. The show opens Saturday June 23 with a reception and patio party from 4–7pm, and will be on view through September 3. Artists include Jim Holland, Harley Bartlett, Elle Foley, Laurence Young, Teri Malo, Ron Tinney, Arnold Desmarais, and Celia Judge, and new work will be periodically added.
Powers Gallery, 144 Great Road, Acton, MA; 978-263-5105.

The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942, Photograph by Ansel Adams, ©The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

By Courtney Kasianowicz

Admired for their stark display of nature and intense black-and-white contrast, Ansel Adams’s photographs put the beauty of the American West, Hawaii, and Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks front and center. But when the icon of American nature photography became a consultant for Polaroid in 1949, it not only meant that he could experiment with just about every camera, lens, and film in the company’s repertoire, but that he could explore the New England coast, especially Cape Cod and the North Shore, when he came to Polaroid headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As his second most photographed coastal area next to his home state of California, New England is a noteworthy component of the photographer’s career-long evaluation of water (think past oceans, lakes, and rivers, to snow-covered mountains and even clouds ready to burst with rain). More than 100 examples of work is on display in Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge, an exhibit that opens Saturday June 9 at the Peabody Essex Museum in downtown Salem, Massachusetts.

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