Artist Linda Hoffman’s memoir The Artist and the Orchard published this month by Loom Press earned praise from the Boston Globe’s Nina MacLaughlin in her Sunday column in the book section, New England Literary News on Oct. 31.
“Apples and Art
"Artist Linda Hoffman admits that when she moved to an abandoned apple orchard in Harvard, Massachusetts, in 2001, she “didn’t know the first thing about growing apples.” But she turned Old Frog Pond Farm into the first organic pick-your-own apple orchard in the state, and in the 20 years since, has learned what it is to grow, tend, and be a steward to a place in ongoing change. Her new memoir, “The Artist and the Orchard” (Loom), details the process of making a home on the farm, and learning the ways of the trees, from the practical concerns of bees, fungus, and the intricacies of pruning, to more spiritual and metaphysical explorations of what it is to know a place intimately, to be connected to the shifts, the growth, death, and rebirth of a piece of land, to be awake to the ever-unfolding transformations taking place, both internally and externally. ‘Mystical moments arrive unexpectedly in the brushwork of clouds over the orchard at sunset and in the quaking orange of a pair of orioles among the green leaves of the apple tree. Yet it is living season to season, on this land, tending it year after year, that I see the nurturing and inspiration the farm offers.’”