Year: 2024

On The Job – Hannah Cole Dahar

Multi-disciplinary Artist and Art Teacher

Explain your job and what it entails.

My day job is as a high school art teacher. I teach advanced placement, honors, drawing, painting and jewelry. As an artist [coledahar.com] I have a practice where I create wearable sculptures and paint women wearing them as historical and mythological figures that are reimagined through a feminist lens.

How long have you had this job?

I’ve been an artist pretty much all my life; an art teacher, I’ve been doing that for about 25 years. I’ve taught 3-year-olds and my oldest student was 96 years old.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I graduated from art school in the ’90s with a fashion degree and I found out quickly that I really wasn’t crazy about that field. I bopped around for a little while and a friend offered me a job teaching and I found I loved it, everything about it. At the same time I promised myself that if I was going to go back to school and get a teaching degree, that I would always maintain an art practice. I think that’s very valuable for students to see, that a teacher not only can talk the talk but walk the walk….

What kind of education or training did you need?

As an artist, I have a BFA, a bachelor of fine arts in apparel design, an MFA in drawing and painting, and I have an MAT, a master of arts in teaching, for my teaching license. There’s been a lot of training. I also make it a point to seek out artists that I want to learn from, teaching artists as well. I study under different masters, both jewelry and painting.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Generally things that I can put through the laundry, because art is a messy business.

What is the most challenging thing about your work, and how do you deal with it?

Time and having enough of it. I wish that we had 30-hour days so I could really get into things. It’s a balance having those two careers … trying to devote enough time to my own practice…

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your career?

Basically, how to network within the arts community, how to find a group of artists to run critiques with…. I didn’t know how much I didn’t know until I stumbled upon it, so I try to give my students a heads up…

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

That it is highly rewarding but it is a lot of work. You work really hard and then when the opportunity comes around you’re able to take advantage of that opportunity….

What was your first job?

I started busing tables for my grandmother’s restaurant when I was 12 years old. Before that I babysat.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t wait for inspiration to come to you. … If you’re unsure of starting a piece, work in your sketchbook. If you’re stuck on one, you can move to the next. It’s important to try to create every day. —Zachary Lewis

Five favorites
Favorite book: I am a sucker for the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Favorite movie: Pan’s Labyrinth
Favorite music: It’s usually like indie, goth, a little bit of swing.
Favorite food: If I’m going out, I’d have to say I love Vietnamese food.
Favorite thing about NH: You can be immersed in nature one part of the day and in a really urban setting the next.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Treasure Hunt 24/05/30

Dear Donna,

I saw your article in the Hippo and was hoping you could take a look at these few pieces of antique furniture we have of my mother’s and great aunt’s. We are looking to possibly sell the pieces but are not sure of their current worth and do not have much information about them.

Do you possibly have any info or thoughts on a value if we were to sell them in their current condition?

Thank you for your time.

Karen

Dear Karen,

I have to start by saying all the furniture looks to be in great clean and usable condition.

Now for the tough part. Antique and old furniture seems to have really gotten less interest in the past 10 years for common pieces. The modern, more light style of decorating doesn’t want to fill a room with warmth. To me that’s what old and antique furniture is. Also has lots of history to it.

The values on the pieces you sent photos of would be in the $50-to-$100 range. Now you have to find a market for them. Advertising in your town would bring you the most value. Bringing in a buyer might mean lower prices. Remember they have to then re-sell them. If you could find a use for them in the family that would be priceless!

Thanks for reaching out and I hope this helps.

Donna

Getting the garden ready

As the saying goes, “spring has sprung.” In my garden, daffodils are blooming and tulips are on the way. My peas are planted. But how do you know when to plant your veggies and tender annual flowers? It’s not just about the last frost of the spring. You need to think about which plants can survive and thrive in cold, wet soil and which would rather wait to get planted until late May or even mid-June.

In the vegetable garden, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are the prima donnas. I generally wait until June 10 at 9 a.m. to plant them. Or something like that. I shape up my wide raised beds well before I plant, allowing the soil to dry out and get warmed up. I rake off the straw or leaves I used to protect the soil from erosion over the winter. I like to work in aged compost well before planting time.

Peas and spinach are very cold-hardy and can survive frosts. Root crops like carrots, beets, onions and potatoes prefer warm soil for growing but will tolerate cool soils and won’t get killed by a late frost even if their leaves are up. But in my opinion almost any plant would prefer to grow in soil that is at least 50 degrees.

Whether you start your tomato seedlings indoors or buy plants from a garden center, you should “harden them off.” They need to be introduced to sun and wind in small doses at first so they don’t get sunburned or dehydrated after being pampered for weeks in a greenhouse or on a kitchen windowsill. This process will take five days or so, but if you don’t do it you will either kill your baby peppers or stunt their growth for two weeks or more while they recover.

Start by putting your plants outside in a place protected from the wind that only gets morning sun. Give them two hours of morning sun the first day, then bring them back inside or well out of the sun’s rays. Increase the time outside each day and by Day 3 give them some afternoon sun too. On Day 5 they should be OK outside all day, and after that you can plant them.

What about fertilizer? I generally don’t give annual flowers like cosmos or zinnias any at all. Soluble nitrogen found in chemical fertilizers will make them grow tall but delay flowering. Of the vegetables, only peppers need no fertilizer, but in my opinion no vegetables should get chemicals of any kind, including fertilizer and pesticides.

Newly planted seedlings and seeds need to be kept in lightly moist soil. A seedling that cracks open its husk to send up a shoot may not make it to the soil surface if the soil is too dry. So check your garden every day. And if your tomato starts to look limp or drooping, water immediately — even if it means going to work late. Just email me; I’ll send an excuse to your boss to keep you out of trouble.

There are many ways to keep your plants lightly moist in the vegetable or flower garden. One way is to set up a drip irrigation system. I’ve had good luck installing soaker hoses — rubber hoses that leak slowly through pores. I’ve bought the “Snip and Drip” system from Gardener’s Supply.

The basic kit comes with the hose and T-junctions and fittings to install it. Then, if you buy a watering timer the system will come on a schedule you determine. I’ve used many types of timers during my time as a garden designer and installer. My advice? Get the simplest one you can get.

What about rototillers? Should you rent or buy one, or not? I used one for years until someone more knowledgeable than me explained why he didn’t: Rototillers seriously disturb the microbes in the soil. They break up useful fungal networks that support your plants. They make a bed clean and neat, but in fact have only sliced up the weeds and buried them. One invasive root becomes multiple roots and can move them farther from their initial location. I have a friend who rototilled a small patch of horseradish and turned the bed into a large bed full of horseradish he could never eliminate.

I no longer recommend rototillers. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

So how do I prepare my soil? I use a five-tined old-fashioned potato rake that loosens the soil as I pull it through the soil. Or you can use an ordinary garden fork to loosen the soil if it is a heavy clay, and then finish it off at planting time with a good hand tool like a CobraHead weeder. You can use a hoe to pull soil from the walkways up to form mounded beds. And as you improve your soil with compost each year it will get easier to prepare nice, fluffy beds rich in organic matter.

Gardening is fun. It is rewarding, too: Tomatoes and lettuce taste better when eaten the day they were picked. The exercise will make you healthy, too. Just don’t work so hard you get blisters and sunburn. Ease yourself into gardening — just like you harden off your plants.

Henry is an organic gardener who has been fussing around in gardens for about 75 years. He is the author of four gardening books. His email is [email protected].

Featured photo: This kale was started indoors on Feb. 22 and needs to be hardened off before going in the ground in early May. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Kiddie Pool 24/05/30

Family fun for whenever

Music, fun and games

• Saturday, June 1, marks Nashua’s Parks and Recreation Department’s official start of summer. Join the fun at Greeley Park (100 Concord St., Nashua) from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. There will be games, touch-a-truck, various activities, and live performances by children’s musician Judy Pancoast (judypancoast.com) at 10:30 a.m. and magician BJ Hickman (bjhickman.com) at 11:30 a.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Animals

• At Prescott Farm Environmental Education Center (928 White Oaks Road, Laconia, prescottfarm.org) on Wednesday, June 5, from 10 to 11:30 a.m., pre-K visitors accompanied by an adult can see a taxidermied owl, sing and dance to owl sounds and music, and play an owl and mouse game in the “Summer Polliwogs: Whooo’s Who (American Owls)” program. Tickets for a pair are $15.

• Celebrate National Dinosaur Day on Saturday, June 1, at Leach Library (276 Mammoth Road, Londonderry) from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. with their Explorers Workshop: Dig into Dinos. This program, open to ages 9 to 14, will focus on paleontology and dinosaurs; participants will excavate their own dinosaur and create an identification card for it that will include a name and characteristics, according to the website. Register via the Events calendar at londonderrynh.gov/leach-library.

Vehicles

• Touch a truck at New Boston Central School (15 Central School Road, New Boston) on Saturday, June 1, from noon to 2 p.m., with Quiet Hour noon to 1 p.m. Children will have an opportunity to see and touch many types of trucks, and talk to the people who drive them. This event is organized by the Whipple Free Library (whipplefreelibrary.org, 487-3391). Food will be available from the Tola-Rose Italian Eats Food Truck, according to the website.

• The 80th annual New Hampshire Soap Box Derby race will be held Sunday, June 2, at 120 Broadway in Dover — check-ins begin at 7:45 a.m., with side-by-side competitions starting at 10 a.m. The Derby is an opportunity for kids ages 7 and older to create a gravity-powered car and race it down a track in hopes of making the All-American Soap Box Derby World Championship, hosted in Akron, Ohio. Cheering on the racers is free, and parking is available at 73 Oak St. in Dover. Visit nh.soapboxderby.org.

Hands-on

• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire’s (6 Washington St., Dover, childrens-museum.org) New Hampshire Maker Fest is on Saturday, June 1, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is a large-scale show-and-tell with makers of all kinds, including artists, engineers, scientists and others, showcasing their creativity. Admission is on a pay-what-you-can basis, with a suggested $5 donation.

• Join the Seacoast Science Center (570 Ocean Blvd., Rye) for World Ocean Day on Sunday, June 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day will feature hands-on games, educational activities, naturalist-led tide pooling sessions, food trucks, a beach clean-up and a life-size inflatable whale. Visit seacoastsciencecenter.org to see a detailed schedule and purchase tickets (for non-members the cost is $20 for adults, $15 for children, free for those under age 3; members pay $5 or free under age 3).

Buy art, make art

Green Envy offers classes, crafts and more

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

Kermit the Frog once remarked that it’s not easy being green, but Kermit had never met Helen Ryba, the owner of the eclectic and otherworldly Green Envy (377 Elm St., No. 1, Manchester), where she makes being green look easy.

Ryba, a renaissance woman, hosts spaces for local artists to sell their wares. She also holds various classes and offers an anytime drop-in candle-making experience through her Queen City Candle company with a plethora of scents so visitors can craft a unique smell spell specific to their soul or season. It doesn’t hurt that there is free parking on the side.

The offerings include antiques, hydroponic plants, art and more.

“People have a lot of fun if they come here,” Ryba said. “People say I’m a hidden gem but I don’t want to be hidden anymore.”

One unique offering is the locally crafted baby blankets made from old chenille bedspread material.

“I just like the idea that it’s local stuff,” Ryba said.

The candle drop-in is a great time, and participants only need to arrive an hour before closing to take part. “I’ll add different scents depending on the season,” Ryba said. “These are high-quality scents.” From Palo Santo to Baked Apple Pie and Froot Loops, $20 for a nice-sized unique candle that someone can make themselves is a treat.

The creation process takes place in a cozy classroom space with a large wooden table and a seafoam green microwave and refrigerator, which were a joint gift from her three sons, as well as local art pieces on the walls.

Age is no barrier, and the artists Ryba sells for run the full spectrum. “I have a lot of older women’s art here,” she said. “Some women will find later in life that they have these talents that they didn’t know that they had. They’ve retired or they’ve tried different things later on, and I think that’s cool.”

There are classes every Thursday night, typically running from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. A class from a couple weeks ago involved wreath making; others include Tarot card reading with a craft project involving the card that is pulled.

Succulents in vintage vessels pair nicely with the hydroponic plants. (“Hydroponic has no dirt, it’s only water, so it’s almost impossible to kill,” Ryba noted.) A plant resting over what looks like a potted plant is lifted to reveal a secret cenote of plant water.

“Once a week you raise the level to where it was originally and then once a month you just rinse the whole thing out, you rinse these, these are called LECA balls, with warm water and then you refill it and that’s it,” she said. LECA stands for lightweight expanded clay aggregate and is used in a lot of hydroponic plants. Ryba has plant foods and other hydroponic plant supplies for sale as well. “People say this is their spot to come when they’re looking for gifts.”

In the Tarot card section there are locally crafted goth-type dolls. “This is a little bit different,” Ryba said. “I guess I have some women that are, I guess they’re witches. I’m not a witch but they like that kind of stuff.”

A line of lotions from a local nurse, a “Not Your Mother’s Hallmark Card Section,” a series of drink mixers from Goffstown, hot sauce from Portsmouth, and fine art glassware from Tara Van Meter are in the shop as well.

Birthday parties are even a possibility in the classroom space. “I did a birthday party for a girl who turned 30 and some of her friends,” Ryba said. Class night and private functions are BYOB: “I’ll supply the ice and the cups and all that good stuff.” There are guidelines; open bottles are not allowed to leave.

“People seem to really like the classes,” Ryba said. “Most of the people that come out to the classes are women. I would say 90 percent are women, it’s like girl power. They come as strangers and leave as friends. I’ve seen people get together afterward, so it’s really great.”

Shop and craft
Green Envy
377 Elm St. #1, Manchester
722-3885, greenenvywellness.com

Classes:
Conch Shell and Glass Necklace
Thursday, May 30, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.; $49
Pressed Flower Lantern
Thursday, June 6, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m..; $35
More class listings can be found online.

The Art Roundup 24/05/30

The latest from NH’s theater, arts and literary communities

Multi-artist show:Positive Street Art and Opportunity Network will be hosting their “United Through Color” exhibition on Thursday, May 30, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Positive Street Art (48 Bridge St., Nashua), showcasing the solo and collaborative work of 14 artists whose breadth of mark-making and material manipulation is sure to astound and inspire, according to a press release. Fifty-five percent of sales will directly go to the artist, 35 percent back into this program and 10 percent to benefit Positive Street Art, according to the same release. The organizations hosting the exhibit thank New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities, and the artists featured in this exhibition will be Liz Morin, Darren Roberts, Sue Long, Teddy Theos, Ed Davis, Duncan MacLennan, Sara Coffill, Amanda Pare, Hannah Gould, Alyssa Sawicki, Meghan Costello, Lisa Beauchamp, Yasamin Safarzadeh, Amara Phelps, Roger Balcom and Randall Neilson, according to the release. Visit positivestreetart.org

• Choral festival: Be the Change is a collaborative choral festival that will be held Saturday, June 1, at 4 p.m. at Concord’s South Congregational Church (27 Pleasant St., Concord) and will feature these Concord Community Music School ensembles: Canterbury Singers, Northern Lights Women’s Vocal Ensemble, Purple Finches Youth Chorus, Songweavers Women’s Chorus, Songweaver Drummers and Sunset Singers, according to their website, which suggests ordering tickets in advance. Prices range from $10 to $30. Visit ccmusicschool.org/events.

NEW HAMPSHIRE ART
Two Villages Art Society in the Hopkinton village of Contoocook (846 Main St.) will showcase more than 30 New Hampshire artists and sell their work in the annual summer member show, “Communities Gather,” which runs until Saturday, June 22, according to a press release. Admission to the gallery is free, as well as the opening reception, and the gallery is open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. All exhibitors in the show are members of Two Villages Art Society (TVAS), a nonprofit organization that offers exhibits, workshops and other events. Work in this exhibit will include paintings and drawings, fiber arts, jewelry, pottery, and prints from painter Pamela R. Tarbell, ceramic artist Karen Sobin-Jonash, photographer Jeff Schapira, knitter Martha Johnson, fiber artist Jules Robinson, and other artists from Hopkinton, Concord, Warner, Meredith and nearby towns. The summer members exhibit is juried by a prominent member of the New Hampshire art community with a “Best in Show” and “Artist Merit” award to be presented during the opening reception.

• Spring concert: The Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra will perform its spring concert at The Music Hall (28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, 436-2400, themusichall.org) Sunday, June 2, at 3 p.m. Tickets start at $23.50.

• Handbells: The Granite State Ringers, New Hampshire’s only elite handbell choir, will perform at the Spotlight Room (96 Hanover St., Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org) on Sunday, June 2, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $50.

• On stage: Manchester Community Theatre Players (MCTP) will present the musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the MCTP Theatre at the North End Montessori School (698 Beech St., Manchester) on Friday, May 31, and Saturday, June 1, at 7:30 p.m. as well as on Sunday, June 2, at 2 p.m. The show focuses on six misfit kids in a spelling bee and the three adults in charge, resulting in hilarious and touching stories from the tweens’ home lives, according to a press release. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is appropriate for ages 14 and older due to adult themes. Tickets are $20 for adults, $18 for those 65 or older, and $10 for students and those 18 and under. Visitmcpt.info.

• Book art: “Building Books 2” is a traveling exhibition at Twiggs Gallery ( 254 King St., Boscawen) of unique artist books organized by members of the New England Book Artists (NEBA). It starts with a free zine-making workshop from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 1, followed by an artists’ reception from 1 to 3 p.m. The exhibit at Twiggs runs through July 14, according to a press release. “Building Books 2” presents a range of interpretations on the themes of structure, architecture, public and private spaces, reality and fantasy, libraries, engineering, drafting, bookbinding, the handmade, the maker, connections, conceptualizations, personal narratives, home and much more, according to the same release. Visit twiggsgallery.org.

THE SHOW GOES ON
Into the Breeches! by George Brant, produced by Lend Me a Theater (lendmeatheater.org), runs Friday, May 31, through Sunday, June 9, at the Rochester Performing Arts Center (32 N. Main St., Rochester) with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $25 for adults, $22 for students, seniors and members, $19 for senior members. Into The Breeches! is a 2018 warm-hearted comedy set in 1942: Concord’s Oberon Play House’s director and leading men are off in World War II, so the director’s wife becomes determined to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare’s Henriad (Richard II, Henry IV Part 1 and 2, and Henry V) to deliver a celebration of collaboration and persistence when the show must go on, according to the website.

—Zachary Lewis

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