RSW's Diary Comments

This painting was listed in the diary, but there was no description.

Comments on the back of a sepia print:

Back of At Sugaring Time sepia print

Editor's Note:

A Google Maps screen capture of the area.

This painting is connected to several others all made from the same area of Avery and Shepard Roads. The road you see in the painting above is probably Avery Road given how level it is. Shepard is a steep up-down slope, however, a similar painting, When Drifts Melt Fast, is made beneath the sap gathering men and their mules, that is most likely made from Shepard Rd. looking up the hill. We know this because there is only one spot the Shepard brook is to the right of the road as it appears in the painting, so it is the only place Woodward could be.

You can get a sense of what we are talking about if you look at the Google Map screen capture to the right. We brightened the road areas we think is where the paintings are made. That long squiggly line is the driveway / road up to the Keach's Farm that literally clung to the side of a mountain, Snow Mountain, to be more specific. The gold star on the map is the location seen in both Maple Sugaring and Steaming Sugar House and the orange star marks the location when the artist positioned himself to paint When Drifts Melt Fast.

Click on image to see full version

To the Right: Boston Globe, 1926 by A. J. Philpott

".....is a fine wood scene."

Springfield Union, by Jeanette Matthews

"Into the Winter Woods and At Sugaring Time are all good winter pictures. The power of suggested activity in At Sugaring Time illustrates one of the things Mr. Woodward does best."

A review of the 1928 J.H. Miller Exhibition

A close up of that "suggested activity" can be seen in the image below.

Close-up of the finer details of the piece.