Sugaring Off

Maple sugaring has been part of the New England tradition for a very long time. Even 150 years ago, sugaring held an air of nostalgia- a reflection of the good old days. Back in the 1860s, an American artist named Eastman Johnson did a series of paintings on sugaring in small-town New England. Those paintings can be seen through mid-April at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts and in a new book called Sugaring Off: The Maple Sugar Paintings of Eastman Johnson. Brian Allen is curator of American art at the Clark and he wrote the book. He talks about the culture of maple sugaring- it was a big social event with lots of parties- and the paintings Johnson did while he lived in Fryeburg, Maine.